Who ever you get the board from. Just ask them if the bios is up to date to support the CPU.
When you say pre-R proc you mean early CPU right. That is why I said that. They can tell you if it is going to support that CPU. If you already got the board all you can do is try it with one stick of memory and see if it will boot.
If it does then just flash the bios within the bios. If you can flash it when you get done turn off the computer and unplug it. Then pull the battery and jump out the cmos pins wait 5 mins. Un-jump the pins and put the battery back in.
Boot it up load default setting reboot. Then go back in setup the bios and don't forget the date and time too. This is what is wrong with the whole system. They are moving to fast on updating the MB's and CPU's Plus leaving the people holding the bag.