Time for an update, returned the mobo to newegg and was dead set on not getting another one from them since they wouldn't cross ship. So I ended up getting the mobo at my local Microcenter for the same price as I did at newegg.
The mobo I went with : a
GA-P35-DS3L
So once I got the board and got everything hooked up, I turned it on and... the damn thing didn't spin up, further investigation showed that I missed a board riser from my old board and I think it was shorting out, either that or something wasn't plugged in tight. After removal of the board riser, and plugging everything in we had lift off.
On to load Vista Ultimate - this was a killer - my dvd/cdrom is an old ide drive, and during the install process vista couldn't see it anymore, so after finding the right driver I was under way. (nice feature of vista is being able to stick in a usb key and browse to the driver after you have started no need to reboot)
However I was met with a few blue screens, determined to be a bad stick of memory, so down to 1 2gb stick I finished the install and things were running perfect, literally perfect.
I decided to RMA the ram with gskill instead of newegg and found out I have to send back both sticks, so I ordered another 4gb kit that I am using now and am sending the other 4gb in for replacement, when it comes back I will be cruising along at 8gb.
In the end here is what I ended up with (or will when the memory comes in)
- GA-P35-DS3L Motherboard
- Intel Quad Core Q6600 @ 2.4ghz
- 4 sticks of PC2 6400 2gb
- Soundblaster Xfi Music
- eVGA 8800 GTS 640
- 40gb 10k RPM WD SATA hard drive (for the os)
- 300gb 7200 RPM WD SATA hard drive (for data)
- Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150
- Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit