Just to update here, I was finally able to get the computer to boot into windows! I did a few things at the same time so it's difficult to say which one was the fix. One thing was I messed with the gigabyte sata chip settings a couple of times, but ultimately I decided to just disable it because I don't have anything connected there (if I understand correctly it is for the IDE connector). Also, the details of what happened when I had tried the F6c bios is that windows would BEGIN to load, but wouldn't get beyond the animated logo screen. At this point the hard drive access light would light half way, then eventually go full on and the computer would be frozen at this point. Then, when I would reboot, windows would bring me to a repair screen. The other day when it happened I selected to try the repair, but THIS time I bypassed the repair option and whaddaya know it booted into windows! Again, not sure if disabliing the giga sata chip or bypassing the repair did it, but now I can move on to installing the Q9550. Should I expect that to be a fairly straightforward process?