Got the new box a couple of days ago (ASUS k8n-dl mobo with dual Opteron CPUs, 2 gig ram). Transfered optical drive and two IDE drives from old box to new.

First mistake: plugged the HDDs into the second IDE controller. They showed up as hde and hdf (didn't know at this point that was my error: discovered it today).

Knoppix booted OK. SuSE no go (grub config is of course incorrect now).

After several attempts at system repair and reinstall and such, I gave up for the night. Next day, all I get is kernel panic - not syncing. From SuSE and Knoppix.

I'm running memtest86 right now. Turning up errors all over the memory blocks. I'm hoping all I've done is loosen one of the ram chips. I can check that in the morning when memtest is done.

In the meantime, is it possible to use the memtest configuration menu tools to isolate the bad memory locations, and boot properly with the remaining ram?

if its already showing errors then there is no need to continue.stop and run it on one stick at a time.if one passes, then re-run it in each slot.it's possibly just not seated or a bad slot.

Thanks, piscikeeper. Guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow. Thanks again for the advice.

speaking from experience......got a 512mb paperweight from when a girlfriend decided to upgrade ram w/o unplugging the box.(and new mobo,psu,and processor...never figured how the vid card survived that though)