The board supports dual channel mem but the person building only has a single stick of PC 3200 ddr. I've read that most dual channel boards will also switch to single channel mode if thats all they have.

I can't seem to find out if this particular board will do so. I guess I'm wondering if this would cause the system not to post or if I should be searching for another problem.

there could be plenty of reasons for not posting. give more information on the system and it's configuration. booting a dual-channel capable board with a single stick should not pose any problem(s) at all.

mobo: ASRock "P4V88 RAID" VIA PT880 Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478
ram: WINTEC AMPO 184-pin 512MB DDR PC-3200
cpu: Intel Celeron D "320" 2.40 GHz, 533MHz FSB, 256K L2 Cache Processor
vid: GIGABYTE ATI RADEON 9250 Video Card, 128MB DDR

We just sent back this guy as they told us it wasn't compatible...perhaps I missed something when selecting it. I've only built one comp and I'm helping my roommate build this system (on a tight budget)

Personally would not wish ASRock on my worst emeny there boards are not very good at all yes they are cheap and you get what you pay for.. How much do you have for everything?

This one here is a better board and chip check it out

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1197962&Sku=MBM-KV7V-2900

what strikes me as odd is the use of a celeron with a nicer viceo card like you mentioned. if you're on a tight budget and you want to play games you might as well go with an amd athlon XP, as the celeron is a weak processor.

We were about to go with an onboard video card as the girl that will be using the computer pretty much just needs an emachine. Then we found that on sale somewhere.

then i doubt her use will justify spending the extra dollars unless you sell the graphics card.

To be perfectly honest she doesn't even know how to burn a CD =P

Anyways...we're thinking maybe the power supply is bad or that she fried her processor sometime or that the mobo is bad. We tried using known functional memory and my video card to no avail.

PC repair places....do they charge like a flat fee to troubleshoot this kind of thing at all?

Yes most do I charge 20.00$ mim.another guy in town charges 40 min. What exactally is it doing and please tell all the detials and we will go form there...

Well we've uncovered that she used the processor in an incompatible motherboard....and were told that that could very well have fried the processor.

It doesnt post..doesn't beep..hard drive powers up. We tried hooking it up to another power supply and it did the same thing. We've also tried functional memory and a working video card so we've narrowed it down to the mobo or the processor.

Unfortunately she threw away the processor packaging and I doubt new egg will take that part back. Plus she claimed her last mobo wasn't working about a week ago to get this new one when it was just incompatible....to avoid the restock fee...so I'm thinking we're shopping for a new CPU and just going to have to eat it on the one she bought.