The pink bit is to indicate pin 1 of the bios chip. To test onboard video, a clear cmos may be required as sometimes the board does not detect the gfx card has been removed. So the bios still thinks the card is installed the only way to 'reset' that flag is a cmos clear/battery out. The G31M was a bit of a strange beast with the BIOS, probably why they brought out the G41 series not long after!
Your pretty much ok with other intel chipsets for the socket 775 CPU's. It was just the G31 series in Gigabyte boards that had the odd ball bios issues.
I only recommended the G31 because it would be compatible with your windows 7 drivers (somewhat) Although you might need to re-install 7 with a better (newer/updated) chipset, it would be a better option for you. The P45 chipset would probably the farthest you can go with a socket 775 and DDR2 memory
Not bothered about that at all. Fresh installation of x64 W7 will be done once I get the new mobo. Regarding the chipset, I ll see what I can find here, from the local market. It ll be more convenient for such an item. Also, got myself another 2GB (KHX6400D2B1), making in 4GB (dual channel) in total, a minimum for enabling my transition to x64... In the meantime, if anyone reading this, runs a RX460 GPU on a LGA775 mobo, please share the specs
It's still an old board by today's standards, so you'll never get the speed and options like you would with a brand new board. Like full use of faster 3.0 PCIe slots, DDR4 memory, SSD/NVMe drives, USB 3.1 and USB "C". Also there a thunderbolt thing too
If is socket Supported FCLGA1366 it should work, also a SSD will give u tremendous improvements in the bottle neck area.
Sata 3Gps = Sata II ports (that x58 board does not have sata 6Gps) Your still going to be limited, You'll get the most out of having Sata 6Gps or Sata III ports with that SSD but you'll still see better improvement over a platter drive anyway
Already have an SSD (840PRO). Although limited for the reason you ve mentioned, I quite happy with it.