Finally got the PC up and running after about a week or so. Should have only had been a few days but the processor I got wasn't compatible with the current motherboard, this wasn't my fault as HP's website clearly said that the motherboard was compatible, not only did they say it can take upto a 9850, it also says it can take an AM3 processor which is complete bullshit.
So, in order for me to have this CPU up and running, I had to buy an all new motherboard and in the end I chose the Gigabyte SKT-AM2+/AM3 GA-M68M-S2P Motherboard, cheap and cheerful, does the job at a decent price plus I can always upgrade to the 6-core AM3's now if I ever wanted to.
After finally wasting my time with this, I finally get round to building it. Never had to replace the motherboard before so was a little nervous, more about if it will actually work or not or if I blow anything up as my working area isn't exactly suitable for this kind of thing. For a start I have no anti-static, I'm on carpet wearing socks and probably full of static. So to make sure I didn't blow anything, I touched the back of the PC every so often which gets rid of any static.
My other worries were silly stuff like is there a right amount of thermal paste on CPU, will it all fit, are the cables in the right place etc... The days waiting for the motherboard arrived, I must've watched and read tonnes of ways of installing a motherboard and the safety precautions.
Now onto installing the motherboard which I must admit wasn't too difficult but first I installed the CPU, heatsink and RAM as it will make it far easier to do so while it's out of the case because the heatsink can be very fiddly and hard to get at when inside the case, it also gives me something to hold onto when installing the motherboard. First I took out the previous motherboard along with any other components attached to it such as the graphics card, RAM and cables. Once this was out I removed the old back plate then fitted the new one as the back is slightly different. Next I finally came round to fitting the motherboard, first attempt didn't go far as the cables were in the way so I had to move them out the way. Second attempt went a bit smoothly and managed to get it in aligning up the holes for the screws. After screwing it in I went onto fitting the cables, double checking I got them in the right place. Then installed the graphics card which wasn't exactly easy as it was such a tight fit and the ATX 12v cable only JUST reached over the card and into the socket, I was lucky it reached.
Now it's time to start it up and with a deep breath I hit the power button, all fans working, seems to have powered fine but a blank screen, SHIT. Sat thinking for a while, looking on Google with my Ipod at possible reasons why. After long hard thinking and reading, I decided to pull out the graphics to see if it was the problem and guess what, IT WAS! To my relief it was the graphics card causing it not to boot and not me blowing it up because the first time I turned it on I smelt a burning smell. Now that I can boot it up, I check to see if I need a fresh install but luckily I don't and it's been pretty stable since. Once booted into windows, it does a load of updates which reminded me that I should update the drivers for the motherboard. I take out the CD and hit the eject button, nothing happens. It turns out I forgot to connect the power to the DVD-ROM. So decide to leave it for the day and sort it out the next day.
The next day comes along and I finally decide to see if the graphics card will work and connect the power to the DVD-ROM. I install the graphics card making sure that it's seated right because that's what I thought might have been the problem, switched on the power while holding my breath and BOOM, it works! Thank fuck for that. Windows boots up and everything seems to be working perfectly now, temps got me worried at first as they were in the 70s but are now in the 30-40s which is fine.
Now everything seems to be running smoothly, I go onto test it out on a few games, first one being TF2. Straight away I noticed how much smoother it was with no lag spikes and able to notch the graphics up as high they'll go at 4x AA and 1920x1080 with an FPS averaging 60 - 100. Also tested Crysis, Far Cry 2, Fallout: New Vegas and Mass Effect 2 which are all running as smooth as ever at highest settings.
Overall, I'm very happy with it, it's not the latest and greatest but is good enough for all of today's games, for me anyway.
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