Upgrade help please

[svenpurple7]

Hi all.
I just bought new parts to replace current ones that I have.  They should be delivered tonight or maybe tomorrow morning.  Anyway, I am replacing mobo, cpu, video card and ram.

I am currently using the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe for a mobo with an AMD Athlon 2500 Barton cpu and an ATI 9800 pro.  I have just purchased the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo with an Athlon64 3200+ cpu and a Geforce 6800 Ultra PCI-Express graphics card.  I am not changing out my hard-drives yet.

The question that I have is, is there anything critical that I need to know and/or do before I start swaping out parts?  My main concern are drivers and such, or is it as simple as just replacing those parts and installing the new drivers?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me with this,
Ben.

[|| Andy ||]

Turn the power off  ;D  ::)

Dont wear anything that can cause static  :D

[GunnerMan]

Dont force stuff. Out of curiosity what core is that 3200?

and........

RTFM!

[svenpurple7]

Thanks Andrew.  I am well grounded to a can of beer.

Gunner, the CPU is the Winchester 90nm one.  I bought it at newegg.com for $190 US.  It comes with fan and heat sink which I have heard is sufficient enough to OC to about 2.4 GHz (maybe more).  I haven't tried it yet.  I started replacing the parts last night, but I started too late and never finished.  I guess I'll finish it during my lunch break today.  I am very anxious to see the improvement in performance.

[BrittMac]

svenpurple7.......
I upgraded from a 2500 Barton to the 3200 64 chip just as you are doing.  You will be happy with the performance upgrade.  I was surprised with the stock fan and heatsink.  They stay pretty cool.  I think it runs a little warmer now than it did the first week though.  Somewhere around 35C at full load.  OMG, it is extrememly quiet too.  I haven't O'ced it yet, but I haven't needed to either.  Good luck and enjoy the new system.

[svenpurple7]

Hey BrittMac, thanks for the encouragement.

I have been enjoying the new system for about 3 days now and saw tons of improvement immediately.  I haven't oc'd the cpu (and probably will not).  The CPU was running at about 39 - 40 C at full load, so I built a cheap and crude duct system that blows cold air into my case and now the CPU runs at about 30C at full load.  The way I look at it is why waste that cold air?  The air conditioning is going to be on anyway.