As mentioned previously, my Foxconn nForce 590 SLi motherboard appeared to be dying. The 2 gigabit network sockets stopped functioning towards the end of last year and more recently the keyboard has been playing up. Thinking it may have been the keyboard itself, I switched to a spare PS/2 keyboard to prove the theory. This too didn't work correctly, by typing random characters every few seconds. To top it all off, the AM2 cpu bracket on the motherboard itself gave way to the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64's weight.
So, I purchased a replacement motherboard the other week - a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, in other words, a motherboard utilising AMD's 780G chipset, with HDMI output amongst other things. I'm proud to say that it was bit-tech's recent preview that swayed my decision from the previously mentioned ASUS enthusiast board. The motherboard has all the features I currently need, along with future proof options, such as the AM2+ support, 16GB maximum memory and the HTPC features.
To top it all off, I purchased an additional 4GB of memory, from Corsair - the TWIN2X4096-6400C5, which coupled with my current 2GB kit (TWIN2X2048-6400C4) brings the total to 6GB - very handy for running multiple VMs simultaneously!
Once the parts arrived, I removed the 'broken' Foxconn motherboard and fitted the Gigabyte board with the additional RAM. I then proceeded to install a fresh copy of Vista Ultimate x64.
Unfortunately, within an hour of use, the keyboard started playing up again! This time, I popped to Maplin and purchased a Saitek Multimedia Keyboard to replace my current Saitek Eclipse. So far, so good as I'm typing this with no issues.
Looking back, I don't regret purchasing the new motherboard, as the current Foxconn did have some issues (Gigabit ports) that were a pain to live with. And, in a year or two I'll probably upgrade to a Quad Core AM2+ chip, perhaps converting the desktop PC to a HTPC affair. Finally, although I've maxed out the RAM sockets with 2 x 1GB and 2 x 2GB - there's potential in future to fit 4 x 4GB, totalling 16GB - ideal for a home server upgrade.
The moral of the story? Triple check your components and try several different configurations prior to binning them and purchasing replacements...