buying new mb. upgrade bios with unsupported cpu possible?

[hiyo]

hi, i am trying to upgrade my friends cpu/mb while keeping his old agp card (agp 7600 gt). after reading the midrange cpu roundup article on anandtech i intend to purchase a Pentium Dual Core E2180 and overclock it using stock cooling. i searched on newegg and found only one board that supports socket 775, agp, and ddr2 ram. the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA LGA 775 VIA PT880 Ultra ATX Intel.

the "problem"
the cpu support list for the mb (http://www.asrock.com/mb/cpu.a...del=4CoreDual-VSTA&s=) lists the E2180(M0) as supported by bios P1.80. but i cant seem to find information on what bios will come preinstalled on the board. when i read the reviews on newegg alot of people seem to be complaining that thier board wouldnt boot up. i assume the problem was that they were running a newer cpu on an older bios .I am afraid i wont be able to startup with the E2180. i have only flashed my bios perhaps 2 times in my life and they were both experiences years in the past.

the "question":
is there a way to flash the bios without a cpu installed or perhaps have the cpu run at a lower freq until the bios update is installed? or is there a better mb out there for me to use that anyone recommends? i would like to keep costs as low as possible since this isnt really a very high end system and will most likely be semi-temporary. more of a stepping stone but i would like the board to have decent overclocking abilities and preferably at least ddr2 667. given the option i would also like to have an pci-e slot that ran faster than 4x like this board does. but that is only secondary in case my friend decides to upgrade his videocard before he ups the rest of the system.just to throw another wrench in the gears i have been unable to find a tested memory support list for this board or will any ddr2 667 sticks be compatable.

i hope i was clear in my writing. any help or comments will be appreciated. i thank you for your time in advance.

hiyo

 

[RayvinAzn]

I'd recommend picking up a motherboard with onboard graphics instead (G33 board), and having your friend save up a bit of money for a new graphics card. That way you won't have to muck about with all the problems that plague the ASRock board. He should be able to get at least $120 for that 7600GT AGP card, and with that money he can either buy something like the 8600GT/HD2600GT (maybe even the 8600GTS), or he could just tough it out with onboard graphics until he gets a little more cash together for a higher-end graphics card.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

The motherboard has to recognise the CPU to know what multiplier or FSB to set. If it doesn't recognise it I don't think there are defaults it will revert too, it just won't boot.. You need to use a compatible cpu to flash it I think

 

[hiyo]

thanx for the responses.

rayvin i will look into another motherboard what u say does sound right but my friend is strapped atm. hell im actually buying most of it for him. we game often togther and onboard wont be able to do well in our games. i will recommend he try to sell his videocard and we will take it from there.

jmmtn4aj thats what i was afraid of. maybe this will still be possible ill ask around with friends maybe there is one that can lend me thier cpu.

guess that means neither of you can think of a mb off the top of your heads that has agp that would work well for this situation?

 

[RayvinAzn]

Originally posted by: hiyo

guess that means neither of you can think of a mb off the top of your heads that has agp that would work well for this situation?

That ASRock is the only thing that comes to mind, and even that's a pretty poor option. If your friend will have more money later to buy a new motherboard and video card (and most likely OS), then you can go ahead an run with the ASRock, but I still think my idea would be much cheaper in the long run.