...so I extract the Sempron, bending the pins as the damn heatsink pulled the processor with it, plug the new CPU in, add new heatsink, turn it on, power up and.....

...nothing. After using a jeweller's screwdriver to put the old Sempron pins straight, I plug the old CPU back in and it fires up.

Read revision notes for Motherboard BIOS. Turns out motherboard only supports this CPU with a BIOS upgrade. Ok, lets upgrade. I read the BIOS upgrade notes and find it needs a floppy drive!!. Who uses floppies nowadays? I look in the BIOS, but can't find a way of getting it to boot off a USB Pen drive. In fact, I can't even work out how to make my 4GB Pen drive bootable, or more accurately the instructions I find don't seem to work.

The saga continues, as anonimouse starts dismantling old systems to find a working floppy drive....

We'll have to see how the second half goes...

During the intermission, I'm resuming my mission to make Macedonia extend from the Atlantic Coast to Moscow; yep, it's another Rome:Total War break, and anonimouse is making Alexander look like a pussy. As ever, the Romans have surrendered been defeated, and now it's the turn of Gaul to feel the might of my Phalanxes. Only a bad scare at the hands of the Parthians (Archer cavalry v slow infantry has predictable results) slowed me down a bit.