Alpaca Portrait

I don't go to the Gigabyte website that often, but when I have I've never had any issues. Ever since I posted that link to my mobo the site has been really unresponsive. Yeah, I know it's a Socket 775 board. I vaguely remember looking at some socket AM2 boards at one point but in the end I went with Intel. My CPU is a Core 2 Duo E8400, and after doing some research I see they can go for $15 or less on the used market now (wow!). The cheapest upgrade with my current hardware would be replacing it with a Quad version. To upgrade to a Core i3/i5/i7 would be quite a bit more expensive. As far as how I use my PC, I think you might have been unintentionally misled by what I wrote. I'm not hard on it at all. Editing big .wav files is the most that it's asked to do. I don't use an aftermarket cooler, just the stock fans. System temp rarely gets above 42C, and CPU rarely over 32C. I'm not a big gamer and only have a Radeon x1550 video card. I have nothing against having a state of the art PC, and it's pretty cool to run a bunch of benchmarks and see awesome numbers, but to ugrade to the next level would require a new mobo and CPU, so probably at least $375-ish if not more, vs. installing Win 7 on what I have now. I have another question but it's eluding me at the moment.

??? There's a link in my post above yours to the Gigabyte mobo I have.

Thank you both for your replies. I checked out the links and on the surface things look promising. I will definitely look into things in more detail as I get closer to the attempted Win7 install. FYI, my current hardware will work with Win7, but I'm not sure if I want to use it or not. It suits me fine, and I'm not sure if the cost of going to more modern stuff will benefit me for how I use my computer. When I build a PC I do my research and choose parts that fit my needs, but after I'm done I stop following what's going on in computer technology, so I don't know what's out there and what I'm missing. My Gigabyte mobo is limited to SATA 2.0 and I think PCIe 2.0. USB 2.0 as well, but I know I can add an expansion card to upgrade to USB 3.x This is it, if anyone wants to offer any opinions on sticking with what I have vs. upgrading: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2629#ov

I have an original, unused Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade DVD (not OEM) that I bought back in 2009. Naturally it doesn't come with SP1 integrated since SP1 didn't exist at that point. What I'm wondering is, does Microsoft offer any kind of exchange program that would allow me to trade my non-SP1 Win7 DVD for one with SP1 integrated? All I need is the media, correct? The product key I have now has never been used. With XP (my current OS), I slipstreamed SP3 into an original installation source with one simple command line entry and that was it. I've been reading about integrating SP1 into Win7 and it's a different and much more involved process. The websites I've been on talk about using RT 7 Lite, and then when I read the reviews of the process everyone says RT 7 Lite is buggy and doesn't work, or that you can't use XP as the host OS to run RT 7 Lite on. They also suggest installing from a USB flash drive, but the ones I have are too small. Honestly, I'm just not motivated to jump through all the hoops if there's an easier alternative. Looking for suggestions, please.