Ok so I purchased a new M4a78 Plus (sorry skiman) from mb today and it's now installed and it seems I'm having some cpu issues.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
When I took my 7750 out of the safety packaging w/pin protectors, I noticed that about a dozen or so pins were pretty badly bent. I figured it was toast, but after an hour of meticulously adjusting each pin with a needle, credit card and twist tie. I got them almost perfect and reseated it back into the socket.

Install went great, booted up into my old os and win7 loaded all the new drivers so no need to reinstall windows. Temps are good.

Here's the kicker:

Everest is telling me my CPU clock is jumping from 2.7 (stock) down to 1345 or even lower. It seems to do this only when idle. So I'm not sure if I should be worried, as performance in games has been great thus far. But still, it does go up and down pretty often so I'm a little concerned.

Maybe there's a motherboard feature that's adjusting the cpu clock dynamically to ease the load on my cpu. I don't know. Anyone got any ideas?

Fixed! Cool n Quiet was enabled. Should have known I had that problem on my old board! lulz

I figure it's working as intended. Why not run Cool N Quiet?

I'd like to know how one ends up with about a dozen bent pins. lol

Also aint nothing wrong with running cool and quiet. Its good for a machine to power down some when not in use. It should have no bearing on performance whatsoever.

So all your issues have gone away?

Think about it. Wouldn't a cpu clock going from 2.7 to .9 every few seconds STRESS a cpu? I know it does with gpu chips.

Either way probs are fixed except for the initial hitches i still get in cod games for the first minute and a half when joining a new server.

I get that from time to time with COD4 when joining a server. Its not always smooth. If its not - I simply join a new server. There's really only three I play on anyways as they are usually always fairly busy with players and tards get the boot.

Have you run fraps to check frame rates after the mobo change?

Not with technology these days no. That has been surpassed. Most boards (99%) have some sort of power saving feature that will drop the multiplier if the PC is not under a substansial amount of load.

If you live with your parents i'm almost positive that they will appreciate you leaving this setting enabled as it a very "Green" setting and will reflect your/their power bill.

lol @ 'living with parents'

I wish.

Frankly, and you can laugh if you want, I do not conserve power because I simply don't want to. I live alone and pay my own power, but I really don't care how big the bill is, it will get paid either way. What's really important to me is how well I can effectively run all my devices the way I want to.

Right now in my living room:

2 gaming PC's, both running 24/7. One acts as a media/file server.
1 LCD monitor and 1 CRT monitor, both without power saving enabled.
32'' LCD TV. Runs all day, every day.
1000w Home Theatre. Runs all day every day.
Xbox 360. Runs all day every day.
Powered Altec lansing speakers, all day every day.
Lamp is on almost 24/7
heat stays on all year

If you ask me it's the cost of living in comfort. To my liking. Maybe not others.

And yes, I'm getting a great performance boost in games now that the new board is up and running. No longer get the big dips in CoD games. Finally I can get back into competition and not worry about blowing a match with sub-10fps.

It was quite honestly a miracle that I was able to fix all those bent pins. I have concluded that my cousin's daughter got ahold of it one night and smushed it. If I took a pic and showed you guys how bad it was, I GUARUNTEE most of you have never seen anything as bad as this. Somehow I straightened every single pin though.

CPU is the weak link in my system now anyways, so I imagine it's time to move up to the world of Phenom II's and get some more power under the hood.

Wow, everything on all the time I bet yer looking forward to the GST getting stripped off the power bill heh.

Ya, that power usage is kind of ridiculous to be honest. I can understand that not everyone is as concerned about it as me, but leaving things on when they are not needed and not activating/disabling power-saving settings that come with a device I just don't get. It almost makes me wish power rates were higher so that people would be forced to make these changes in their lifestyles or end up paying such a high tax on it that everyone else would benefit from it.

All my opinion though.

^^ Agreed.

true - with the rates that NS power has now - its amazing that your able to afford that. Think of how much more money you would have tho if you went even a little green. I dont like to needlessly give away money if I don't have to - So I can spend it on more useful things like 'cigrits and dope and mustard and bologna liquor and whores' (way to go bubbles). in all seriousness, upgrading things etc.

I fail to see how leaving a blaring tv and home theatre, pc screens on, lights on 24/7 is cozy lol

Living in the afterglows has it's charms

I think you remind me of Homer Simpson at times with the past history.