I've just had to fit a new mobo as the old one died from a bad bios flash. Why Gigabyte have the 'bad' bios up for download is beyond me and I'll be contacting them in due course.
The positive thing is I'm now back online and I have a great new mobo (much thanks to Overclockers UK for the speedy delivery). This will now allow me a smoother upgrade path once the 45nm 3.00GHz Phenoms are out as they will plop straight into the board (after a bios revision).
I see there's plenty of posts which is good and Fatboy is now back amongst us...
Cool...

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Well......
what Mobo did ya get? Any pictures of the rebuild?

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FATBOY

The mobo is a GA-MA790X-DS4:
GIGABYTE - Product - Motherboard - Overview - GA-MA790X-DS4 (rev. 1.0) Awesome board for the cash £75/$150

I did take some pictures when I'd stripped the pc but forgot to take any during the build.
I'm still fine tuning and so I haven't got the software on yet but as soon as I do I'll post the shots..

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Cool ...........

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FATBOY

I'm getting a strange reading from one of the sensors. When I installed 'Speedfan' to take care of the fans and moniter temps I noticed one of the temps logged was 80c! The CPU, Northbridge, Southbridge and graphics card are all running cool (between 30c-idle, 50c-load) so what the hell this temp is I'm unsure. I even took the mobo out again to make sure everything was ok and i can't find anything that could be running at 80c. So I'm thinking it could be just a sensor error but welcome anyones thoughts on this. I've also contacted Gigabyte to see if they can shed any light on this...

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I've just (after nearly 2 days of trouble shooting) managed to find the real temp for the northbridge. Utilities like Speedfan, Everest and Sandra report the northbridge temp as 80c! I've done a 'physical' check (basically feeling with my hand) and found nothing running that hot. In fact the northbridge heatsink was only slightly warm. I've also used Gigabytes own monitering utility and this reports a temp of 36c. This is backed up by the bios which also reports the same temp. So after a near panic I now know that the above utilities were reporting the wrong temps as I really didn't want to return the board....phew

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As promised here are some shots taken during the rebuild. Sorry about the quality, I had to use my phone as my camera is still being 'borrowed'...

I've included a shot of the Heatpipe cooler on the Northbridge which is an after market addition...

In case your wondering the central fan isn't usually like that, I've just moved it to one side so you can see the cooler. They are actually a great idea as you can fit them any where and have a bendable stem..

Just a word on the above post, Gigabyte have recieved my e-mail and will be answering forthwith.

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I figured that was the problem

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FATBOY

glad things worked out 4 ya

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FATBOY

Thanks man. I'm really starting to like this new mobo. It's definately way faster than the old one and seems very stable although I haven't overclocked anything yet. The bios has plenty of scope in that area with settings for all the usual stuff like voltages ect so I'm gonna see if I can get a little more out of this chip.

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