well, let's add a bit to the story of this 8600.

it was only seeing 128M of the 288M of ram that was in it.  odd.  but, not
entirely unexpected since i had to reseat the ram in the first place to make
the bloody thing stable.  open it up, pull the ram.  the one 64m dimm has 6
gold fingers BURNED OFF that are stuck in the slot.

yeah.

so i cleaned it up so it wouldn't short out, put all but the 64m dimms back in,
and the machine boots, but we are back to the unstability that i had before.

as luck would have it, there is an 8600 motherboard on ebay for $10.  ;)

now i wait.

-brian
-- 
"Suits, man.  They are as incapable of
logical thought as they are of honesty."	-- Dave McGuire --