Unfortunately, this upgrade has so far been a failure. I read other web chatter about this type of upgrade and apparently most people just plugged in their new dual core CPU and had no problems. Most never even cleared the CMOS.
I installed the dual core CPU (factory sealed boxed CPU with heatsink and warranty) and was greeted by a blank, non energized monitor screen on boot. The motherboard put out a series of 5 beeps each time I tried to boot. The Asus motherboard guide says that it includes a beep troubleshooting guide, but it appears to have been edited out. Does anyone have this info?
Thinking that maybe I had made an installation error, I then reinstalled the old single core CPU and it worked like a charm. I then reinstalled the dual core CPU and was greeted by the same screen/beep experience. I then re-reinstalled the old single core CPU and it's currently running flawlessly. I'm out of thermal paste, so I'll have to wait until Monday to try to re-reinstall the dual core CPU. Hopefully, someone will have some input on this problem by then.
I am not jumping to the conclusion that the dual core CPU is defective,- just yet. I would suspect my so far trouble free power supply, except that it's a new Antec Neo 480 watt and has never shown a hint of instability with the old single core CPU. It has fairly low demands on it, just a single video card, an anemic MSI 6600GT PCI-E, and two 250 Maxtor hard drives striped in RAID 0.
So far my plans are to go to my local PC Club store on Monday to buy more thermal paste. I once overheard a tech there say that they could test CPUs, so I'll take the dual core and it's heatsink with me and see what they can do. If they can test the CPU, and it's good, then it's back to the drawing board. I also have a NIB Enermax 600 watt power supply that I could swap in.
I think that from all my CPU switching, I have pretty much eliminated the motherboard as a culprit.