Need advice on putting my system together

[ajaju]

Hi All,
I am planning to upgrade my current system. I need some advice on its feasibility and stability. Also some direction on what problems I might run into will be appreciated. Any advice in general for an *almost* newbie are welcome.

planning to upgrade to the following
EPOX EP-8K7A
1.2Ghz AMD T?bird
CRUCIAL 256MB DDR PC2100 CL=2.5 (184-pin DIMM)

I already have the following
ATI All In Wonder 32MB Pro (AGP)
30GB Maxtor 7200RPM
30GB Maxtor 5400RPM
Plextor 12x10x32 CD writer
Generic Floppy Drive
Generic 52X CDROM
56Kbps Modem (DigiCom)
Network Card (I know I will NOT use Netgear)
Will Use on-board Sound.

This will be used primarily for home/office purposes. Few media manipulations but No games.... and o'course NO OC'ing.

I am quite open to the choice of mobo and RAM, so if you have anything else in mind, pl. do suggest. (however, cost remains the main consideration)

thanks

 

[heffe734]

Looks good...something that comes up to me on the top of my head is...

Make sure you flash the 1606 bios, change the ram timings...most ppl like the 8882622 and 8882222 ram timings, if you're gonna OC, make sure you have a good psu and HSF, upping the vcore on ddr voltage was the key for me maintaining stability @ 1633. That's about all i can think of right now...enjoy ur new system!

 

[ajaju]

Thanks for the pointers.

The only other question is should I get a 266 or a 200 T'bird.
Its a few bucks difference, but i mean does it make it difference in the system.

 

[Boonesmi]

if you overclock it makes no difference

the only dif between the 200 and the 266 are the default multipliers

 

[ddeder]

<< Looks good...something that comes up to me on the top of my head is...

Make sure you flash the 1606 bios, change the ram timings...most ppl like the 8882622 and 8882222 ram timings, if you're gonna OC, make sure you have a good psu and HSF, upping the vcore on ddr voltage was the key for me maintaining stability @ 1633. That's about all i can think of right now...enjoy ur new system! >>




I'm pretty new to this stuff... How do you flash the bios (I assume this means upgrade to the most recent) and how do you change the ram timings?