The joys of hardware
Well, I discovered months later that the instability in that PC was due to the RAM requiring an odd non-standard voltage, which the motherboard fails to detect. The system builder never mentioned this and never configured it properly.
I made this discovery by accident while scouring reviews on Newegg for parts for a new workstation and server. I must say that hardware compatibility has become a much thornier issue than I remembered it being 10 years ago. I had to deal with hours of work finding parts that on paper would work together, only to find out that they don't work when assembled because of some undocumented detail.
At least the end result when I built the machines myself was complete working computers.
I made this discovery by accident while scouring reviews on Newegg for parts for a new workstation and server. I must say that hardware compatibility has become a much thornier issue than I remembered it being 10 years ago. I had to deal with hours of work finding parts that on paper would work together, only to find out that they don't work when assembled because of some undocumented detail.
At least the end result when I built the machines myself was complete working computers.