hmm, that sucks. With all these problems with SLI I just don't know if it's worth it, y'know? Wonky stuff. I enjoy building computers, but I hate having to tinker with a machine continually to get it to keep functioning.

Slightly off-topic, my 8800gtx fried. Started locking up my computer and getting artifacts. I replaced it with an 8800gt. It REALLY sucks to have something that cost me $700 fry on me within a year. Not that it probably wasn't at least partially my fault, but damn. I don't think I'll be spending more than $300 on a graphics card again.

Hmmh, who produced the card?

Sorry to hear about the card, I hope "spits 3 times over the shoulder" that my cards dont kick the bucket, atleast before i sell them. They cost around 850$ a piece when i bought them back in 2005. But i also bought an UPS so power fluctuations havent affected my rig. They cost around 60$ now, talk about drop of value.

Ok i got the new old CPU and installed it and I even took some extra time cleaning my GPUs of dust. But it seems that I need to update my Bios. Im not quite sure but i think that the Mobo doesnt really understand what kind of CPU is inserted and my Bios is from 2004.

So what do i need to keep in mind when i flash the bios. I downloaded the new bios from Asus, i am currently downloading chipset driver. Any suggestion is welcome.

just follow Asus's directions exactly. And be aware it's possible to brick your mobo with a BIOS update. I avoid them if at all possible.

Regarding my gfx card, it was a BFG.

Cant avoid it. i read up on Asus Website, X2 3800+ defenatly need bios update.

Well, the bios is updated, everything seems to run fine for the moment. I must say that updating bios with asus update is very simple, it took me some 20 seconds and it was done.

During my enthusiastic cleaning i managed to pull one of the power cables loose so it took me 15minutes to track down why one of my HDDs didnt fire up. But i got that fixed and now im going to run 3dmark.

Ran 3dmark06. With the cpu change i went from 4209 to 5119.

wow, that's a pretty big difference. Guess your cpu was limiting your box by a decent margin. Gratz.

Damn, now I need to 3dmark my box too. :p

Well i decided its not enough. So im looking at this MSI board and a intel core 2 now.

MSI P7N SLI Platinum

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3,0GHz 1333MHz 6MB S775.

Now i have questions regarding RAM. This is what the Official website sais about the board:

Main Memory
• Supports dual channel DDR2 533/667/800, using four 240-pin/1.8V DDR2 DIMMs.
• Supports a maximum memory size up to 8GB

So would my DDR400 work on it or would i take a major performance hit? And what the hell is Dual Channel?
HyperX? CL4 vs CL5 or CL6?

I would suggest checking the MSI website regarding that Mobo, and see if it has a list of compatible RAM, some boards are very choosy in what runs well and what doesn't.

EDIT: just re-read it, if you're mobo does not support that mobo stay away with your other stuff, otherwise you are asking for trouble. It may not even boot with it installed.

I've never swapped one out, always rebuilt. Out of interest, do you have to re-install windows at all or is that just with a new board?

Do i have to reinstall windows?

lol...ok....

if you replace the cpu and nothing else, no, you don't have to reinstall windows.

If you add/change memory, no, you don't have to reinstall windows.

Regarding the memory, get the DDR800. It's not that much more expensive and it's a big enough performance difference it's worth it.

8GB of RAM? Don't bother. 3GB at most with a 32 bit O/S. If you're going 64 bit I think you can max it out. With a 32 bit O/S (ie, Windows XP and Vista 32 bit) you can only use 3GB of memory.

Hope I covered it all. :p

Oh, regarding reinstalling Windows, basically the only time you need to do that is if you have to change out your base system drivers. IE, motherboard, basically. You MIGHT be able to squeak by with booting into save mode, removing all your mobo drivers from add/remove programs, then rebooting into normal mode and reinstalling them. In some cases, you can even boot into normal Windows with the wrong mobo drivers installed. If it's the same chipset, you probably won't have issues. If it's a different chipset, it may lock up on boot, it may freak out and crash, or it may boot up but perform really poorly. It really depends.

What I would probably recommend doing if I had the foresight is right before you swap out the motherboard, uninstall your graphics and motherboard drivers. Then shut down. Presumably the next time you boot up (with your new motherboard), it'll be like booting a fresh copy of Windows. Or so one hopes. I haven't ever done this so who knows if it'll actually work.

DDR2 800 or just DDR 800

Ram is dirt cheap lately anyway. I can remember a time when I'd fork out tons of cash for -gasp- 8 mb of extra ram.

Yeah...we're getting old.