I don't trust myself, so can someone please tel me if this is compatible with my mobo please? cpu- http://www.ebuyer.com/product/235423 Mobo - Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2 Mobo website- http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2755#ov Thanks
Yes it should work. That processor has an AM3 socket while your motherboard has an AM2 socket. However AM3 will connect in to AM2 sockets. You may need to update your bios before it knows what to do with it depending on when you bought it (i.e. if it was bought before AM3 started being used). The bios updates listed on that website have the 2009/07/28 version as when they introduced AM3 compatibility. If you bought it after this it may have come preinstalled with this version already. To find out your bios version, go to the start menu and type msinfo32 in the run/search box. One of the entries for the first page that comes up should be "BIOS version/date". If it is not Version F4 then you will have to update the bios yourself, the link can be found here: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2755#bios (there is one sooner update there, F5B, but that is a beta version and may have bugs in it so I'd just stick with F4)
Well I haven't had any problems in the past, but I wouldn't do it unless you actually have to. Safeguards within the update software should protect you from anything going wrong. You can research it first, but I can be almost certain that everything that you see will just be there to scare you. Just make sure you are plugged in to the power, if on a laptop, while you are doing it so it doesn't run out of battery or turn off halfway through. Read anything that comes with the download (i.e. the Readme) to see if there is anything special you have to do during the update. If there is, print it out because you won't be able to access it while the update is running.
