I am closing the chapter on my motherboard hell saga. To make a long story short, I purchased a new board, the Epox EP-9NPA+Ultra. Matched with an AMD Athlon 64 3200+, I can now get up to 4GB of RAM without trouble, and rest easily at night.

I have given up on Asus. Instead of helping me troubleshoot the problem I was experiencing with their product (A7V880), they took the high road, and simply told me they will not support any module that is not on their approved list. After ordering the exact Kingston memory modules that are on their list of compatible sticks, they told me the chipsets I had were incorrect. When ordering from Newegg, I had no control over the actual chipset manufacturers for these modules. I gave up and called Kingston.

Kingston was happy to troubleshoot with me the issues I was seeing. Together we spent nearly two hours on the phone running through different scenarios. Kingston told me my Asus board would definitely support their kit of 2 (2 – 1GB DDR400 modules), even though it was not on their approved list. After ordering those and experiencing similar problems, I gave up and decided to look for new motherboards.

After reading reviews, I went with a board that I knew would support my Kingston RAM. I went with the Epox board, ordered a new processor and video card, and swapped them all out. Everything is working beautifully.

The biggest lesson learned for me is customer service is not to be undervalued. Kingston’s support team did not have to spend time with me troubleshooting an Asus motherboard, but they did. Asus’s customer support was quick to hang up the phone. As consumers, we have numerous options for choosing products. The role of customer service is integral in ensuring consumer loyalty. I am now pro-Kingston.