ok, I send a mail to Asus to see if I could get my motherboard
replaced (wise advice) but I'm not overconfident (international service ?...ouch):

They are quick to write that their motherboards have a three year warranty on their boxes but they do have quite a drastic politic concerning warranties...
don't know if you could call it warranty at all...

Well, we shall see...
Let's give Asus a chance to redeem itself.

after letting my head cool a little, buyng a D5400xs isn't a bright idea after all.
The point was to get 8 cores @ 3 ghz performances at a sub 1000 euros price.
i.e. 20% better performances than nehalem now for a 400 euro premium over a mainstream PC

If it doesn't go well... I have 5 alternatives :

1) sell one xeon and use the pc with the 8g of ram and 4 cores and don't move the case too much

2) sell the mobbo, the fbdimm, both xeons and build a pc with MAINSTREAM parts (ddr2/ddr3 and quadcore)


Sell the old WS Z7s and

3) buy a new WS Z7s and hope it will work this time (

4) buy a D5400xs and a E-ATX case and hope it works

5) buy another dual xeon server mother board (expensive too ^^)