I am installing the goodies onto my Asus A7N8X-X mobo and have reached my first snag. I honestly tried to find the answer before posting but couldn't, so...

Is there supposed to be a hsf for my Athlon XP2500 Barton, or is that job handled by the fan on the back of my Antec tower? Every building guide that I am consulting mentions how to install the hsf over the cpu. And the mobo manual points out where the plugs are for the cpu hsf. I hope I am not supposed to have one, because I didn't get one with my newegg order, and if I was supposed to order one I didn't know it.

Can anyone clear this up? Thanks,

-krautdog

Yes, you will need a HSF. If you got the oem version of the processor (you probably did) then it won't come with a HSF. You will have to buy one.
DO NOT START WITHOUT A HSF!

OK thanks. Any suggestions on which one to buy?

I think I got it now. MrG had originally suggested I get the Scythe Samurai 80mm, but I told him I was getting a retail cpu that came with one which we decided would be good enough for now. I ended up getting an oem cpu, and didn't really distinguish between case fans and cpu hsf's. Hey I admit it...posterboy noob!

Hehe, a bit wrong place to save a buck...

Anyways, I can allways suggest another HSF unit, which I'm currently using, and are quite satisfied with...

ThermalTake Silent Boost. It costs a bit (31$ from newegg), but is nice and quite.
Bought it the other day and not only did it run more silently than my previous hsf, but lowered the temp by 5C...

If that is too stiff for you, just make sure you get a hsf rated for 2500+ or higher.
Also, if it's using an 80mm fan chances are it's way more silent than a similar one using a 60mm fan. And unless you've got bad hearing, or like to wear ear-phones/ear-guards, stay away from Delta 60mm fans! They're very fast, cool quite well, and sounds like there's a plane about to take off in your case...

MrG - I'm trying to find one local so I don't have to wait for shipping. I've checked the websites for every local electronics store and this is the only one I can find - Antec® Solution Plus CPU Fan. Specs say it has a 63mm fan. Do you know anything about it? I can always buy it, just so I have one now, and if I don't like it order the Scythe Samurai or a similar one.

Problem solved. I found a Thermaltake 80mm Silent Boost here in town. Back to work...

Congrats

Just let us know if you run into any more problems!

My cpu is being listed in BIOS and device manager as 1100mhz even though I bought an Athlon 2500 (should be 1.77 gig actual speed I think). Is there something I have to do to change that or did Newegg send me the wrong one? I'm still pretty green so I don't know if this is normal or not. And honestly I didn't examine the chip like I should have before I popped it in. Thanks!

-Mike

1100MHz? No need to panic, by default most motherboard set the CPU FSB 133Mhz. In order to rectify this problem, go to your BIOS and set the CPU FSB to 166MHZ and multpliers to 11x to give you 1833MHz which is the stock speed for a 2500+ Barton.

Thanks a lot young&wild, that worked, I appreciate it. CPU clock speed is now at 1833mhz. While I was in there I noticed my graphics aperture size is set at 64mb. I am running a 9600xt 128mb card so I changed that to 128mb. Was that the correct thing to do?

I would set the apartture size back to 64MB unless you have lots of system RAM. That setting allocates system RAM to be used to help with graphics.

OK thanks

No worries at all.