$500?!? I'm assuming the C stood for Canadian dollars. $500 is one hell of an expensive motherboard. Try closer to $100 for a perfectly good one.
As for giving you some prices there is a lot of stuff we will need to know before we can suggest an actual board:
- What processor do you have? (e.g. Intel P4, AMD 64). You'll need to know this so you can get a board your processor fits.
- Would you like anything like onboard (built in) sound or an onboard networking?
- What size case do you have? Is it a big tower, a little tower, a small box shaped unit or a unit that sits horizontally on your desk? We have to make sure the motherboard will fit.
- Does you case have any ports on the front that you would like to use - e.g. lots of cases nowadays have USB, audio and firewire ports on the front of the case.
The last motherboard I purchased was
this one. It's always worked well and had plenty of room for upgrades. It's also been given a platinum status since I've brought it - it must be popular.
As for replacing a part of the motherboard - it depends on what you want to replace but normally it's best to get a new motherboard unless you know a lot about circuitry and have a soldering iron to hand. I've just seen the other thread which I think this question has come from. I would take your PC to a repair shop Chelsie. If you don't know what you are doing in a PC and you start tinkering around you could either a) damage your PC even more or b) hurt yourself. PC's can have enough static in them to seriously hurt you.
If you still want to attempt this (well done for wanting to - you'll learn a lot), at least buy a book on repairing and upgrading your PC. It'll help you with the safety procedures and the correct way to do things.
Here's one I recommend. It's not cheap but it's one beast of a book.
Linear Mode
