Farewell Epox,Hello ASUS, I hope

I have condemned my Epox board to the shelf in the back room and I`m going to order an ASUS board to replace it. I don`t need a lot of computer, no gamer, I burn some CD`s, like from family pictures, and home grown music.
Seasoned citizen, fixed income, all that good stuff.
I have some questions as to what to order. These descriptions of what I`ll be getting confuse me!
I would like to be able to use the RAM that I salvaged out of the EPOX (I`m assuming they are OK) two 256MB sticks. One fairly new stick from Crucial.
The description of the EPOX EP 8K7A Board says "2xDDR SDram slots for PC 1600/PC2100" I notice some of the ASUS boards have a 2X ahead of the DDR and some have 3X, does this mean if I order one of the 3X my ram sticks wouldn`t work? Maybe I should ask Crucial? Or ASUS?
The CPU from the EPOX used a 462 socket and an AMD Athlon. Is there any danger in trying it on the new ASUS board to see if it`s OK? It gives no indication of having been overheated (does that usually show?) and it had plenty of paste and a big fan. it was fast enough on the EPOX, I kept the heat sinks and power supply all blown out.
I`ve got numbers,etc. from the ram sticks and the CPU,if they`re needed.
Bear with me, I may just be getting started!
Thanks,
Moore

 

Moore, the 2X and the 3X should be the number of slots on the motherboard that you put the RAM modules into. You do need to fill all the slots, they are for increasing the amount of RAM by adding extra sticks/modules. The system will run with one stick, two sticks or three. The two sticks you have now are 256MB each, adding up to 512MB, they should run in the new motherboard unless they are somewhat different in their build and the motherboard may not want to run them. When you start the new motherboard, just have the Crucial installed, add the other stick later when you have the system running well.

Be careful about the heatsink paste. It only takes an air bubble to overheat the CPU. All the old compound needs to be removed. Read the instructions at www.arcticsilver.com (Arcticsilver 5) or take it to a computer repairer and ask if you can watch him/her replace the compound. You don't need "plenty ", the thinest layer is the best, you are trying to transfer the heat from the CPU to the heatsink without any insulating air trapped in-between.

Matt

 

Sounds good, Mattman,
Thanks.
Moore

 

Moore, just curious, but what's behind the change? Is this an upgrade or did you have a falling out with Epox?

 

No problem with Epox performance. I bought it in Ebay a couple, three years ago and it did fine until last week it failed to boot. I decided to try a new board after trying every thing else but the CPU to no avail.
Moore