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I've got a Gigabyte PV67A-UD4 (I bet that should say GA-P67A-UD4 with the V being a typo. Opps), I'll that I got for free at the Techreport North dinner ages ago. I've been having trouble with my DVD drive not working, and the used SSD I just got won't work either. Both work in my coworkers tower when I dragged them in to work. This sounds to me a lot like an error someone warned me about when I built the computer. I need a new mechanical HDD anyway, due to mine giving SMART errors, so I figured now would be a good time to swap the motherboard. (So I could hook both HDD up at once and copy my data from one to the other directly instead of having to go through a portable HDD)

However, when I built this case I also had problems with the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo impinging on my G.Skill RAM., so I'd like to know if anyone knows of motherboards that leave enough space around the CPU to use this RAM and that cooler.

I've got my current, ATX frankencase (I've got one fan held on with zip-ties and a hole cut in the top so I can use the top-venting PSU in an old-fashioned case), and a Obsidian 350D that I got free at the Techreport North meetup that I couldn't use with the full ATX board. So ideally I'd like a micro-ATX as I could switch to a nicer case (well, once I put it back together and put the fans back in.), but can easily use the ATX case if those will leave more room. Right now I've only got my 270X (Double slot card) in it, and I hope to add a soundcard at some point.

General suggestions would also be also useful, I'm wading through reviews now.

Thanks for any help.

Some details I got from a photo on the Gigabyte website and some measurement: ~249 mm is too small, and ~357 mm is enough. I've been looking, and finding LGA 1155 motherboards is hard; Newegg.ca seems to only have a few left for sane prices. I'm leaning towards cheap, $100-150 range, and man, there are not many, and all are micro, so I guess I'm going with that.

Not seeing much in stock besides the Intel H61 micro-ATX motherboards.

Might be better off looking at replacing motherboard, CPU, and DDR3 for a Skylake build?

LGA1155 platform is EOL at this point as far as motherboard manufacturers are concerned. You will probably have better luck finding a used board then a new unit.

No kidding. I've decided to just buy a portable HDD for now and wait until I have enough cash for a new motherboard and CPU. Unless anyone wants to offer me a good deal on one, or has suggestions on good places to get one.

I almost forgot about the first revision of the P67 having a chipset bug. I've got a P67, but it's the B3 revision. If you had acted quickly when the news first came out, you probably could have gotten a new board for free. I don't really know what to say now. Maybe add a decent PCIe SATA controller card?


Edit: Maybe worth mentioning

"The ports potentially affected, interestingly enough, are the four 3Gbps SATA ports on the chipset. The two 6Gbps SATA ports aren't at risk."

I have an Intel brand Z75 mATX motherboard and it is pretty nice. It seems like that was just about their last gasp at Intel branded motherboards. They were not around for long and I could not find another when I wanted one.

Any way, my preference would be a Z77 motherboard or Z68 if you can't find that. Z75 was an oddball that did everything I wanted but not quite a full Z77, it would probably work for you but even harder to find.

Good luck in your search. I have found obsolete hardware that were used as in store display models marked down to almost nothing. Some times you can get lucky but they can lead a hard life getting finger banged for months so inspect thoroughly and make sure you can return if it is DOA.

I got this one free from the back of a van, well after better boards were out. I didn't do my research ahead of time so didn't know when to grab when the motherboards were handed out. That exactly matches my problem: The two main drives work fine (SSD and HDD), but my CD drive stopped working, and I could never get it to see the second SSD I got (For $20 off someone selling an old one). Both work in another computer, so I'm betting it is the MB. (Well, the HDD worked fine for ~4 years, it is getting reallocation errors and really weird file transfer issues where it won't read data faster then bytes/s at times. Thus my replacing it.)

I should start listening to the podcast again to see if they do another TR North dinner, it was a lot of fun.

If you don't want to replace everything just pick up a tested, used 1155 board from fleabay. Z77 boards seem to be crazy expensive but B75 and H77 boards aren't. You'll have more luck finding B75 in mATX format too.

If cost is the issue it'll tie you over for a couple more years and be cheaper than $400+ on a new Skylake setup. If you do go Skylake, get a DDR4 board; One of Skylake's biggest advantages over Haswell is the extra memory bandwidth of DDR4.

One more thing, if you have available PCIe lanes, a SATA controller card is probably cheaper than replacing the motherboard and might solve the problem.

Chrispy_ wrote:

If you don't want to replace everything just pick up a tested, used 1155 board from fleabay. Z77 boards seem to be crazy expensive but B75 and H77 boards aren't. You'll have more luck finding B75 in mATX format too.

If cost is the issue it'll tie you over for a couple more years and be cheaper than $400+ on a new Skylake setup. If you do go Skylake, get a DDR4 board; One of Skylake's biggest advantages over Haswell is the extra memory bandwidth of DDR4.

I think I'll try and hold out another couple of years until I'm done grad school and have actual money to play with.