"... so, I thought, why not?"

The MoBo is an ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus.

The system came up with the installed firmware (501) and the two Adaptec RAID cards (31605). If I installed four 1GB RAM modules, an alarm would sound; but, the system was stable with 2GB of RAM. When a Hauppage WinTV-PVR-500 TV capture card was added, the system refused to POST. (The card is known to be working in my HTPC system.)

Upgrading to any more recent firmware allowed me to run all four RAM modules; but, the system wouldn't post when an Adaptec card or the Hauppage card were added.

After hours of struggle, I downgraded the firmware, went with 2GB, and the system is okay. When the Hauppage card is added, the system refuses to boot.

This is actually a "Big Deal" for me... using this system as a "back-end" for Media Portal has always been part of the plan.