by Carla Schroder
Managing Editor
It all started with a simple CPU upgrade. Or so I
thought.For those of you who have been following my hardware upgrade
adventures, the saga appears to almost be at an end. Though I am
taking no bets.Quick recap: last month I decided to upgrade the CPU on an AMD
system. Bought a new Phenom x3, plugged it in, and lo! It worked
most splendidly. Life was good and I was happy, all full of
multi-core goodness.Well, the good times did not last and after a couple weeks of
very nice performance, the ECS motherboard failed. By the time they
replace it will be about a month from when I first put in for an
RMA.So I ordered a new motherboard and RAM, reasoning that I would
get it sooner, and I could use the replacement board with the old
CPU and memory for something else. Then I would not have an orphan
CPU. The new stuff should come early next week. (Yay, Newegg!)For those who care about these things, I ordered an ASUS
M4A785-M board, and two sticks of Kingston DDR2 KVR800D2N5/2G RAM.
From what I read, there isn’t much performance gain in dual-channel
or DDR3 memory, so save a few bucks for some other toys.Finding the right motherboard literally tooks days of research.
There are more pitfalls and traps than there are boards. (Read all
about it in Linux
Motherboard Follies, and perhaps pick up some useful
information for your own motherboard shopping.) Many many thanks to
all the great suggestions and advice from readers, you were a big
help.That is all, nothing witty, flamey, or particularly deep for
today, just tying up some loose ends. Hopefully when the new parts
come they will install and run without further drama!