478 Motherboards

I've had problems with my Asrock motherboard since I first bought it but I've only been able to trace the problems to it after I tested different graphic cards and ram. I have this weird artifact that keeps cropping up during 3D intensive games; it's always the same figure and it's always in the same places. My 3D games also get these screwed up planes and lines intersecting at weird angles and I have to restart the game, go to the main menu, or (in the case of The Sims 2) I set the shadows to none then back again to detailed.

I've replaced my video card from a ATI thingy to the present nVidia 6800 and I've tried removing and leaving in the different ram thingies at different times to see if the artifacts come back and they always have. Interestingly, Warcraft 3 doesn't display those artifacts nor do the graphics go all screwy.

Recently, I've had really slow read/write speeds between my external HD (2.5"), internal HDs and my DVDWriter. Last year it took me 20 minutes to burn and verify a full DVD and now it takes an hour. I went to Gilmore St to look for a replacement motherboard and I found out that motherboards compatible to my present video card, processor, and ram are now phased out. Sucks.

I don't have enough money to buy a whole new set so I decided that the access speeds might be helped by replacing the IDE cables and a new enclosure for the external drive. I bought the IDE cables and a new enclosure and replaced them on my cpu when I found a fishing hook bait thing and a lead weight inside the cpu casing. WHAT THE HELL. I took them out but the access speeds remain a disappointing 2-4MBps between hard drives and a 1 hour 10 minute burn for dvds. (The fishing stuff must have ricocheted there when I ripped my boss' stored fishing gear from under the bed.)