Just got K7N2L with Barton, any suggestoins?

Hey guys, it's been a while since I;ve last posted here, but last thing I had was a p3 650 mhz, with bus speeds of 66 mhz and 384 mb of sdram, now my computer sort of died and I'm buying a new mobo, chip, ram, and case...

This is what I bought, gonna pick it up tomorrow:

MSI K7N2L
AMD Barton 2500+
512 MB DDR 400 fsb ram (I dont know if its PC2700 or whatever)
and well the case, doesn't really matter, it's a 420V with front usb ports.


But with the mobo and the cpu, do you guys have any suggestions to as what bios version I should use, or any bios tweaks that could increase performance without risking the integrity of the hardware? Know any patches I should be looking for? (I'll be running windows xp pro sp1)

Any tips are useful,
Thanks in advance.

i hope its the delta board as the bios on the original K7N2l does not include the 400 fsb cpu officially as its fsb only goes to 200 in the bios not the 230 the ones with the newer northbridge give

i strongley suggest you go for the K7N2 DELTA ILSR

then you will get the soundstorm chip and good hardware onboard sound,the L is basically like any other board and software only

ddr 400 is pc 3200

set fsb /ddr ratio to 1.1

i assume you mean 420 watts not volts,as ive never heard of any country uses other than 240 or 110 volts

you will have to set 200 fsb in the bios

you will probably need newer bios for it to recognise the cpu properly but its impossible to say

wow, yes you're right on those corrections, and the mobo is a K7N2 Delta-L

I just relized, once viewing the motherboard, and the manual, that I have 1 less ide port on the mobo. The manual states I have one, two three, and I see them in the schematics. But the mobo itself has only ide1 and ide3.. any thoughts on that?

I'll be posting a bunch of questions probably, so please bear with me and hopefully this wont seem extremly frantic like.

only the ILSR has the 3rd one on the promise raid controller

I have the ILSR, and i know a friend has the K7N2L. He was having some sound issues with the onboard sound, but i acutally like mine.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/e_service/forum/thread.php?threadid=31219&sid=

if you use the L version use the realtec drivers for sound as detailed very well in the link