shall i get motherboard or processor first?

I would think that if the motherboard was good it would beep even with a bad CPU.

Therefore I suspect the motherboard.

If you can afford it now would be a good time to replace both.

Intel has just cut all their existing products by up to 50% as they prepare for their new line of CPU's.

I agree. Unfortunately, buying a new motherboard often means you MUST get a new CPU, and RAM, and sometimes graphics card too - and then a new PSU to power the hungrier stuff.

well i got the new motherboard and it all works fine. Fortunatly i didn't need to get any of the above.

However i get this message when booting and it beeps at me for a couple of seconds. One continuous beep.

intel cpu uCode loading error
press f1 to resume

Everything works fine it's just really annoying having it beep at me and having to press f1 everytime i turn the computer on.

My motherboard is an asys p5l-mx and my cpu is an intel pentium dual core E2180 2.0ghz

If you enter: intel cpu uCode loading error in Google, youi will get a quite a few hits, and most suggest a BIOS upgrade fixed it.

Check out ASUS Downloads and your manual for upgrade instructions.

I am glad you have got it all sorted out Quackers, very frustrating when the dam thing thing wont work and you cannot see why.