Thanks for the support and keeping the list alive. Perhaps too alive (I can rant/ramble!)

Are Gigabyte motherboards OK? I've only had one so far. Now dying perhaps.

Looking ahead..... since I upgrade "combo style" (all ram and cpu attached/included)

I'm gonna look at (days from now) a used motherboard+cpu+ram+beast video+beast fan,

hope it fits under my hood, dude speaks well about his retired

GIGABYTE GA-870A-UD3 SKT.AM3 AMD870+SB850 4XDDR3-1866, IEEE1394

USB3, SATA3, RAID, ATX

plus cpu,ram, and even fan info on this BEAST of a fan, should i be scared?

doug> I find it cool that a machine/mb that old,

is still way more than I need. I've only got one HD/disk for example.

I'll try to buy her a tiny computer NEW someday if my new/old cheap-out fails.

I want less power! Good brakes please! Ballpark of $100+ for the combo

you CAN still find online if you dare and you get lucky that it really works for you.

...below, tangent about the seller i will meet this weekend. Sounds very smart/honest!

I almost got him interested in our meeting. He said: (plus, he's a CS engr)

Hello network engineer, me> Engineer too....I also

a) use Linux only at home

b) used Linux only on that machine, rock solid :)
      The cpu does not come with embedded gpu : I saved 10$ at the time, too bad now!