Mistake? Bought P35 in a rush, return for a P45?

I posted a thread a few posts down ( http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=5844552#post5844552 ) regarding the BIOS problem I have with my MSI P35 Neo2-FR board but I will reiterate here. The E8400 I received from Newegg is the E0 version and the BIOS on the mb is V1.8, apparently I require V1.9 but to flash it I need to find another socket 775 CPU to use temporarily. Problem is I don't know anyone who has another 775 chip save for one person and due to the case it is in it would be a royal pita to remove it. And the lovely "city" (120,000 people or so) I live near doesn't have a single f'ing store that sells CPU's where I could "borrow" one lol.

So now I'm wondering if I should just return the P35 to Newegg and order a P45 but I'm having a little difficulty in determing if the P45's support the newer E0 stepping. I don't see much point in returning the P35 if the BIOS still won't support the chip. I have zero intentions of running any type of SLI configuration and should be plenty happy with my 4850 considering I am upgrading from a X1950PRO. I have 2 X 2GB sticks of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 1066MHz RAM that I am also debating on returning as I saw the Dominator series on sale for the same price I paid for these or maybe something better for the same price if anyone has any suggestions.

So yeah...would I still be in the same boat with the BIOS issue if I got a P45 board?

33 views and no replies? I know I'm not a regular poster here but throw me a bone please

I'd return it for a Asus P5Q Pro which will work out of the box as should any P45 based motherboard.

awesome Thanks trap...so the P45's and associated BIOS's were designed with the E0 stepping in mind? Like I said I couldn't really find anything specifically stating this and I really do try to do my homework...just having a slight problem locating specific information this time. I looked at the ASUS before ordering but I just don't care for them for some reason...I've always used ABIT boards and loved 'em, never had a hint of a problem.

Now I'm having issues with my 4850 which I installed in the system (wiped all previous ATI CCC and drivers and then installed them fresh) in my sig...definitely better than the X1950PRO but in Crysis it went to a black screen a few times in the demo. I bought the full version and it ran for about 90 minutes before going black...and it only does it when I die and am waiting to respawn. It also did it in Oblivion IV after only a couple minutes of play. So that's another issue I'm dealing with and apparently am not the only one. I don't think temp is the issue as with a bunch of instances of Furmark running it would barely touch 70C after an hour of running. *shrugs* But that's a story for the GPU forum...

Perhaps an aftermarket cooler would be an option. The AC accelero S1 Rev 2 keeps my card under 50c while gaming even in the summer

I agree, 70C is pretty high but from what I've read regarding the 4850's the spec cooler used on most of the cards has temps hitting close to 90C! *ouch* The MSI card I have has an alternate cooler on it that looks identical to a Zalman cooler... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118037

I haven't compared fan speeds and such though which is why I say it looks identical. I need to do some more testing with it to see if I can determine if it's a temp issue or something else...I may end up saying screw it and order a GTX260 as I've usually used nVIDIA but my last build I wanted to try something new. Right now I am checking to see if it would be better to switch to an nForce 700 series NB or stick with the P45's if I go the nVIDIA GPU route...

btw, I wish our summers were as cool as yours Summer temps here get in to the low 100's sometimes (90's normal) plus the heat index from the humidity

I'm in a apartment that sometimes hits 98f in the summer so not much different. If you want an sli motherboard I'd pick the EVGA 780i FTW