I was going to recycle my zalman cooler since the new MB is drilled for both patterns (dualcore and i7). But when I went to install the backing plate I see there is a large reinforcement plate for the cpu retention on the underside that screws everything up. There is significant interference with the MB tray and I really don't want to get out the sheet metal cutters to make room. My HTPC has water cooling for silencing and even that plate is incompatible. So I will need a new heat sink now despite my efforts to recycle. X(


Everything is assembled and I tried to get windows 7 beta installed this morning from the dvd I burned a while back. Windows 7 install just hangs up once the mouse goes active. So I have to wait for the snail mail now for the new Vista license. At least I can finish up the HTPC setup and get it done right while I wait.

Oh yeah, the system started up with out a problem with 6 gb of ram installed. Boy this new ram standard is very finicky anyone building an I7 machine needs to really look over the ram configurations of their MB because overclocking has some serious limitations on what you can and can not install in what slots. My ddr2 800 ram setup worked with out much complaining. The manual for this board states the Intel standard only supports 4 populated slots, in a specific order, for dd3 1600 OC. My ram supports the XMP profiles which, I believe, makes it much easier to OC the ram by selecting a predefined profile.

Whew! Now its time for work.