so i found this sweet computer store, gets constant "new" shipments of computers and electronics
ok so they recycle old computers and digital electronics
at anyrate, i picked up a prototype p4 there, northwood with HT and an unlocked multi, 3.2GHZ, highly overclockable
great, get it next to nothing[they rule!], go home, install it in my system, boot up and test it at half speed
runs 4x better than my old p4@2.4GHZ[was a freebie], so i think "oh hey, if thats what it does at 1.8GHZ, imagine it at full speed, or overclocked!"
go back to the store, get a nice copper core heatsink for @1[also got a drive caddy and a scsi-2 external cable <$10 thank you recycling] and a few hours later, i get back home, exhausted, but happily throw the new heatsink in
plug power back in, hit power, wait: nothing happens.
cause: stock retaining clips on intel designed heatsink are too long, exerting too much pressure on the mobo and cracking it enough to destroy it
now this isnt the first time i did that, i just forgot that i wasnt using the ones i filed down due to sheer exhaustion[you try all of a sudden getting up and walking ~10Km two days in a row and see how sharp your mind stays]
at any rate, i no longer have any desktop computers, my slot one mobo getting toasted after i was installing a 1000MHz p3 i saved from the trash and it booted as i was pulling the old CPU, and my only s370 mobo is also mysteriously toasted[strange, i dont own a single non-intel computer :/]
to get to the point here, i have blown two s478 mobos, my main and my backup, and now need to go hunt down a new one
not just any board though, it must support full ATX[i have a wifi card, two scsci cards and video i/o cards my system needs], PCI-E 16X, SATA[1.5 is good, 3 is better] and ata133, floppy is nice, up to 2GB ram[4GB is also nice], and must have socket 478[aka PGA478]
IR, RAID, gigabit and highdef audio on board are also added bonuses, but i only really need it to support what i listed above
the asus p4gpl -x is almost what i want, but not enough standard PCI connectors
i recall one highly similar to it, but it used a second IDE channel for raid, and had a red connector
for now im stuck on a p3laptop, toshi tecra 8200, running <shudders> windows 2k[not *that* bad but still, a fall from the p4HT i had going]
if anyone has some to recommend, and links with photos that i can look for when i go back to this store on fri/sat[disassembling computers, and parts i need i stash away and buy later] that would be highly appreciated, as i am scouring the web for something that suits my needs
and before anyone says it, no i am not going to just abandon this hardware and upgrade to a s775 computer, or switch to a amd. why? simply put, i can afford to, im staying two or more steps behind everything and saving loads[not really, it still costs all my allowance] while building machines that *could* qualify as top of the line[if i go back two years or so].
im also saving these parts from landfills, and linux runs well on them and i know the hardware should be supported[can you believe they would have just tossed that p4 prototype into the landfill? what a waste it would have been]

oh and if this is in the wrong forums, feel free to move it :\