>I think I'll update the BIOS sometime soon, then get the place I buy the CPU to do the install.

Often, when you're flashing a PC BIOS, or other configurable device such as a broadband router the upgrade process returns the device to its "default" state. If you've made any configuration changes they will probably be lost until you re-enter them.

Before doing the update, one useful trick is to use a digital camera to record screenshots of each configuration page. This will record any changes you've made. The images can easily be pasted into a Word document etc. to form a permanent record.

Of course, with devices like routers you can use Alt-PrtSc to record your screenshots but a digicam may be handy also.

For PC BIOS settings you can also directly attach a dot-matrix printer (or other DOS-compatible printer) to LPT1 and hit PrtSc, but this just gives you a paper record. This will work only with 80x25 text mode; some modern BIOSs actually use VGA graphics modes.