Anything that cools down a component (HDD, CPU, etc) will help with long term reliability. Therefor, I would check with other users to see if heat build up is common, and install a fan to cool things down. You can purchase fan units that screw on to HDDs for a few pounds..

Yeah, this could be a consideration. I'll leave it for now, however... time might tell but I may eat my words:

I used www.memtest86.com (well, memtest86) on my RAM. I have 2 modules. 3 Slots. Due to rather bad design of the mobo, I had them in slots 2 and 3. It hasn't been a problem...

Interestingly, in Windows (which was my only usable OS at one point), the computer would simply reboot, much as Ian described. I just put it down to W98 being crap. I still think it's crap, though. ;-)

I ran the test on each module in slot 3 and they worked fine, no errors. I tried them in their original configuration. The test got stuck.(actually test 7 did).

Presently, I have them in slots 1 and 3. The difference in speed is amazing. Like, it feels like the difference between my old amd k6-2 400 Mhz 64mb machine compared to this one (Duron 750, 512 MB). I am actually truly amazed at the difference.The mobo manual doesn't mention anything about a slot 1 and slot 3 requirement.

Did I say how much difference it made? I'm amazed.

So I'll see how stable this is. This is my first boot. I had to do a manually fsck on one partition, but I'm hoping/guessing this is just from the previous time I booted and it just fscked it all up.

Time will tell, I guess.

Thanks to all who helped. ALUG rocks.