Parts are going to show up today for a new build I am helping my little bro with.  I have built one computer for myself which was a budget AMD system and now I am helping him build a budget Intel system, you know the E21xx, DS3L build which seems to be so popular.
 
I am curious how vital a BIOS update will be with this mobo and a E2180?  After building my machine I am confident now in building but I did not have to update my bios.  I am hoping that is the case for this Intel build too cause from what I have read it can be alittle tricky and on the Gigabyte BIOS update pages there is a warning about it being risky.  I see version "F3 Better compatability for overclock" on the list of BIOS updates for DS3L and since we plan to OC will this one be needed?
 
Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated on the GA-P35-DS3L BIOS.
 
 
Heres the build BTW
 
GA-P35-DS3L
E2180
Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB)
MSI NX8800GT 512M OC GeForce 8800GT
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB
ASUS DRW-2014L1T DVD burner
Earthwatts EA380
Vista 64-Bit Home Premium
 
 
 

im not sure about the psu. check it out here http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=108088
 
rest seems good. n no u wont be needing any bios update (most probably). since my quad worked without it.  
 
get xp-32bit. better for gaming.  
 
im using Bios F4. didnt bother updating it. it works fine

F2 bios supports that cpu. No update needed. e2180 is an old chip. For overclocking, latest bios is usually the worst.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support [...] uctID=2629

Yeah, play it safe & pick up a 450W+ psu for that pc.

Computer is up and running without any major problems so now I have two successful builds under my belt.  The original case we ordered came damaged because of cold weather, cheap plastic, and ruff UPS shipping.  It was just a cheap Rosewill anyway so I had my bro check out BestBuy and he picked up an Antec 900 which he now loves. Cost alittle more than Newegg but we didn't have to wait a week to start building this way.
 
Bios seems to be working just fine, I havn't started OCing yet but all the key features are there.  Ram wasn't running default what it was suppose to so I had to manually set the timings.  At first I thought it was just cause the MB wasn't pumping the ram it's recommened 2.0v but even with the bump it was still running at 5-5-5-18. Going to play with ram settings more today.
 
The PSU is working just fine for now and we got a great deal at the Egg. I told him eventually he will need to upgrade if wants to start adding fancy bay devices, extra hard drives, ext ext but for now we were trying to keep the cost down and within budget and the next step up to a quality 450-500w was a big price jump.  The EA380 is a tuff little trouper and powers a basic computer no prob with a single GPU, HD, DVD drive, and even a OCed CPU.