Oh boy. Where to begin.
First of, let me introduce myself. I would describe myself as a graphic designer/digital artist with geekly leanings, but I'm not a hardware expert and I have never put a computer together on my own before. As luck would have it, I chose this mobo for my first experiment with such a project.
I've paired it with an Athlon 3400+ and PQI 2GB(1Gx2) DDR400 and a 400w power supply.
At first I couldn't even install Windows (XP Pro) -- I was getting a plethora of what seemed like memory-related errors. When I came to the memory conclusion, I swatched out my new PQI dimms with a couple 256s from my old machine. Everything worked beautifully and I was able to finally install Windows. As I continued to investigate the issue on the web, I found this forum and all of it's revelations about this mobo's memory issues. (Which, I might add, are nowhere to be mentioned on either Gigabyte's or Newegg's (where it was purchased) site.)
I've tried using just one 1MB DIMM and it *seems* to work alright. I forgot to mention -- when I put in two, it can only even see 1. I've tried all the slots, 1 and 2, 1 and 3, 2 and 3 (that wasn't pretty).
Also, I updated my BIOS to F5, to no effect.
I'm not interested in overclocking. I just want a stable system that will take the 3400 and will let me expand up to 3 or 4 MB RAM and has the onboard RAID and Firewire. Pretty much the only thing I do on this machine is Photoshop work and some occasional 3D.
My question is, would I be better off switching to slower RAM (which, with all the unresolved issues I still feel nervous about getting to work) in order to get the 3-4 MB or should I just try a new mobo altogether, and if the latter, what would you recommend?
Thanks for any advice.