I was wondering if as long as I don't have the mobo resting on anything conductive is it ok for me to hook everything up to it and test it out? I've seen them do this in repair shops and I figured as long as I have a static strap on it might be ok. What about the foam that comes underneath the mobo when you first open the box? With that on top of the mobo box then the board on top of that would that be ok? (If this is even possible) I'm not talking about extended use here just a hour or two at the most.

Yeah that's the same stock fanas mine cept mine has a plastic retention lever on it I believe. I was figuring the scythe was better just wanted to make sure, (Or at least see how the stock performs if I can't fit this beast in the case...) I also read warnings about cutting yourself up when installing lol. I guess the aluminum fins are pretty sharp. I'm gonna have to take pics of this for those that haven't seen it in person, The default pics really don't give the scale of this thing. Hell with no case I've got time on my hands... I'll try to get some up now.

EDIT: Bah, Have to charge my camera for about 5-10 mins....

Just got my stuff in the mail today and I did order a diff fan setup for the CPU, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185074

But, the stock fan that came with the CPU doesn't look all that bad. I'm guessing that the Ninja 2 is the better one but the stock has the heatpipes through it too, Just not as long as the scythe and they don't really run vertically which would help with better heat dissipation I'm guessing, If anyone knows thanks in advance.

You need to flash the BIOS on that board to get it to work with first gen Phenoms, let alone with PhenomII's. I'm not sure if it will apply the same to the PhenomII's, but with Phenoms, you could boot the system up once, but then would have to reset the CMOS everytime you wanted to restart your machine. This allowed me to install windows and then flash my bios using the BIOS flashing utility (I don't have a floppy drive). It was a pain, but it worked just fine. As for any special settings...I don't see why things wouldn't just work right off the bat once the BIOS is flashed. Unless you're trying to overclock, things should be just fine. I guess the only thing I could think of is that my board did not properly detect the voltage of some higher voltage RAM I used to have (2.1v), and I had to manually set that value. Otherwise, everything just worked.theragu40

Well it looks like I might have to flash the Bios right off the bat, If it doesn't come with the newest version already. With a x4 940 I'm reading the system will freeze on startup without the update.

Nvm i guess im going to stick to the 180$ Cpu with the 85$ Motherboard. I can't afford to go higher then that.RedxSniper