its been years since ive played and i used to know all this and i have looked up some stuff on the interent, but heres my question.

so i found an eth sup war sythe, and it has no sockets. so what i was thinking is, should i go ahead and try to roll it for sockets in the cube and then if it turns out to be the 4sockets im looking for can i then go ahead and upgrade it to the highest lvl which would be???? or
should i upgrade it now and then roll it???

If you happen to find the recipe for upgrading white or grey items don't sell it for anything less than a fantastillion fg.
And if you manage to sock superior items in cube go and give the finger to Blizzard and run off laughing.

actually is this not it??

http://www.vhpg.com/diablo-2-upgrade-recipe/#weapon

no

http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/cube.shtml

Not possible.