hehe...i meant ghetto in the best way possible.
summary:
the M7NCD setup pretty easy. BSOD when first booting...but that was ok since it was such a change from the KT266a board XP was originally installed on, etc. i ran an XP repair and it worked perfectly.
the software that comes with for overclocking wouldn't install, so i got a different version from NVidia's website. it gives basic FSB and memory timing options that change on-the-fly. no advanced options since this board doesn't have them in the BIOS.
my mistake was that i didn't get the M7NCD "Pro"...so there is no cpu multiplier option in the BIOS! my fault because i didn't read closely enough...so no big overclocking for me with this one. my 2100+ is happy with o/c'ing via multiplier adjustment...but i'm not a big fan of FSB cranking anymore (plus, my DDR is only 2100...so i don't have far to go with it).
there was also a full bundled version of Norton Internet Security and Ghost 2003. pretty good plus if you don't already have it. the board was $53 shipped from newegg.
soooooooooo...i will either be returning the board to newegg and take the restocking fee hit, or sell it to a buddy locally.