Motherboard compatibility with Core2Quad

[Amecily]

Hey guys,

I'm trying to upgrade the processor on my motherboard to a Core 2 Quad. I currently have a Core 2 Duo E4600. I've been doing research on my motherboard, but I am still unsure of which quad cores will work on my board.

My motherboard details are:

Manufacturer - Acer
Model num - EG31M
Intel P35/G33/G31
82801GB (ICH7/R)

My PC is an Acer Veriton M460 and it specifically says on the Acer website that it is compatible with quad cores. What does P35/G33/G31 actually mean? On the Acer site, it just says G31/ICH7. So does that mean that I can only use processors compatible with the G31 express chipset?

Please help me find a compatible quad!

Thanks,
Amy

[skier]

That board is a Gigabyte offering, GA-EG31M-S2 i think,
it will look like this if it is:

eg31m-s2.jpg (62.21 KiB) Viewed 5070 times

if that is what it looks like, look at the processor compatibility sheet here for what BIOS you need for a specific CPU,

and then download the appropriate BIOS here IF you need a new one for the CPU you are looking at

with the new CPU, use Ctrl+F1 in bios to display hidden overclocking options because it seems the board has a hard time with higher FSB's without using ctrl-f1 (look at the support list, the G31 board can really go up to 400 (1600MHz) max from what i'm reading, but some users have had a hard time going over 250 FSB depending on their CPU and BIOS version (looks like E5200 and E2200 are the only ones with the problem though))

it looks like the board natively supports 45nm kentsfield C2Q CPUs so you can really get any Core2Quad you can find and it should boot right up

i can also help with the BIOS update procedure, as I myself have updated a GA-G31M-ES2L recently with a Q8300

[Amecily]

Hey!

Thanks a lot for the help. The board is manufactured by Acer, so there was not much info about it on the net. I just ended up phoning them and confirming the quad compatibility. The support guy was surprisingly knowledgeable!
So I've decided on the Q9505, seems like a great chip.

Thanks again

Amy