Motherboard Replacement for Intel E2200

On my previous post Is My Motherboard Dead? My 3rd computer is motherboard is dead. My board was MSI P6NGM with Intel E2200 processor. I was very lucky that only motherboard is broken, other parts are working and in good shape.

So last Monday I visited my favorite computer store to check a replacement for it. Processor is the main consideration for motherboard selection, was happy that my Intel E2200 has found its new home with MSI G31TM-P31
Below are the specs.:

• Intel® G31 Chipset
- Supports FSB 800/1066/1333/1600* (OC) MHz.
- Supports dual channel, DDR2 667/800.

• Intel® ICH7 Chipset
- Hi-Speed USB (USB2.0) controller, 480Mb/sec, up to 8 ports.
- 4 SATA ports with transfer rate up to 3Gb/s.
- PCI Master v2.3, I/O APIC.

Main Memory
• Supports two unbuffered DIMM of 1.8 Volt DDR2 SDRAM
• Supports up to 8GB memory size.
• Supports dual channel DDR2 memory architecture.
• Supports DDR2 667/800 memory interface.
• Due to the limitation of G31 chipsets, dual channel support must meet some requirement in the specification of memory modules. please refer to Test Reports for detailed description.

On-Board IDE/SATA
• One Ultra DMA 66/100 IDE controller integrated in ICH7
- Supports PIO, Bus Master operation modes.
- Can connect up to two Ultra ATA drives.

• SATA controller integrated in ICH7
- Up to 3Gb/s transfer speed.
- Supports four SATA ports.

Audio
• Chip integrated by Realtek® ALC888S
- Flexible 7.1-channel audio with retasking
- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 Spec
- Meet Microsoft Vista Premium SPEC

• To reach the 8-channel sound effect, the 7th and 8th channels must be output from front panel if you purchase the mainboard with 3 audio jacks.

On-Board Pinheaders/ Connectors
- ATX 24-pin power connector
- ATX 4-pin 12V CPU power connector
- CPU / System x 2 FAN connectors
- CD-in connector
- Front panel audio connector
- Front panel connector
- Chassis intrusion switch connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 connector support additional 4 ports
- 1 x Floppy disk drive connector
- 4 x Serial ATA II connectors
- 1 x ATA133 IDE connector
- Clear CMOS jumper
- 1 x Serial port connector
- 1 x SPDIF-out header
- 1 x Parellel port connector

After installing my new motherboard and made sure that everything is OK I then booted the computer and was expecting a BSOD as it is a different chipset but to my surprise I got into the desktop with any issue. I just had to install Windows XP Drivers that comes with it. So my computer was back into business in just 20 minutes!