And just to make matters even MORE delightful, after my initial quick look at my replacement Soyo K7VME to satisfy myself that the board, and therefore the CPU, are in exactly the same place they've always been, today -- my ONE day off each week -- I sat down to put this thing together, took the OTHER side panel off, and discovered that the PSU case was all smashed in. Turning to the back, I discovered that the back panel is so mangled -- not just BENT, but totally whanged -- that not only does the output cluster (VGA, sound, etc. connectors) fail to even protrude out of the case enough to even get a connector STARTED, but the output cluster ITSELF -- which is directly attached to, and part of, the mobo -- is all smashed in, with what result to the motherboard itself one can but imagine.
Now, the sidepanels I took off to discover this disaster are completely pristine -- not even a finger smudge. Therefore, it's hard to escape the conclusion that whoever attached this panel, and whoever put their "quality" control sticker on it, were either:
A. Blind
B, Working in a totally lightless environment, or
C. Didn't care that the box being buttoned up was totally hosed.
The first two don't seem terribly likely, so it would seem that "quality" control at Soyo is less than optimal, to put it mildly.
So, nearly three months later, RMA number two.
If I can, at long last, get this thing to work, the first thing I'm going to do is flog the case and mobo off on eBay, probably for about the 98 cents it MAY be worth, and then get myself a REAL case, PSU and mobo. Any suggestions?
Oh, BTW, I also upped my chip to an Athlon XP300+ 400FSB Barton core.
Disgusted in CT
Bart Brown