System under discussion:
AMD Athlon II x3 Rana
MSI 880GM-E41 mainboard
Kingston DDR3 Hyperx/fb 2x2Gb
Maxtor 100G HD (scratch disk for setup)
Logisys 480w Power supply
corded mouse
corded keyboard
using onboard video by ATI

Please give direction on what is needed for the CPU and motherboard re: current updates before software is installed.

At present, Win XP is installed, my small HOMENET is recognized and ethernet is working to download.

This is my first post on these topics so apologies if I have missed a FAQ or stickie for noobs.