How do I find a replacement for my motherboard?

Computer Forum CPU, Motherboards and Memory
1

I have a Medion MD 8000 the Motherboard is MS-6701 . How do I find a replacement Medion wants 300$. I know I can get one cheaper.

Manufacturer: Medion
Model: Titanium MD 8000
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.66 GHz 533 Mhz Front Side Bus 512KB Secondary Level Cache
Motherboard: 3 PCI slots 1 AGP 8x slot 2 DDR RAM slots (max. 2GB)
Memory: Samsung 256 MB DDR 333 MHz
(in one module)
Grafic Card: nVidia GeForce 4 with 128 MB DDR SDRAM

5x USB 2.0 (3 front, 2 rear)
3x FireWire/IEEE1394 (1 front, 2 rear)
1x S-video In (front) S-Video Out (rear)
1x Composite In (front) Composite Out (rear)
1x Gameport (front)
2x Audio In (1 front, 1 rear)
2x Microphone (1 front, 1 rear)
1x Digital Audio In (rear)
1x Digital Audio Out (rear)
1x Ethernet 100 Mbps (rear)
1x 9 pin Serial Port (rear)
1x Parallell Port (rear)
2x VGA (rear)

2

$300? That’s quite a mark up, considering what I’m pretty sure the motherboard is. Given the model (MS-6701) I’m pretty sure it’s a MSI (aka Microstar International). What I’m not sure of is if it was available for purchase. I was able to find out it uses an SiS 648 chipset and from the info you gave, I believe it’s a micro ATX motherboard, given the expansion slot configuration.

Any motherboard with an SiS 648 chipset you’ll be able to drop in without a hiccup. The problem that comes in here is that it’s an older chipset, and you’ll be hard pressed to find an SiS 648 motherboard out there new.
You could also get a motherboard with another chipset in there. The one thing you are advised to do is back up your data and then format and re-install Windows when you change motherboards. The reason is that switching the chipset out from under the motherboard is like dropping your average American in the middle of China: the means of communication are foreign.

In any case, on the high-end, you might pay $100, but there’s plenty of mATX motherboards under that.