Hello everyone,

I am a long time lurker, first time poster. I am a huge WCG enthusiast and learned much of what I know about WCG and BOINC from this site.

I am interested in getting one of these 16 core monsters up and running but I have some questions and concerns. There used to be a thread here called "el cheapo 4x4" or something like that but could not find it. I think the answers to a couple of my questions lies in that thread but I guess it was moved to a different part of the forum as I can no longer find it. My questions are as follows:

1. What is the extent to which the PSU must be modified in order to correctly supply power to the board? Does this require any special tools? Can it be done by someone with little experience soldering?
2. Can it be done with only one PSU? And what are the PSU requirements? I assume the +12V power requirements are significant as each CPU is rated at 95W.
3. Is the board picky about memory? I know we must use DDR2 Reg ECC but do they have to be a certain speed with certain timings?
4. Will 4Gb (4x1GB) of RAM total be enough?
5. OS? I remember vaguely from the old thread that a member got the board to work with linux. Can we use any linux or only specific distros? Did anyone find a way to load Windows? (I have server 2008 R2)
6. What happens if I have issues with the board I get? I don't want to be stuck with $300-$400 worth of hardware that I can't use because of one bent socket pin.

Thank you all in advance for your answers, you guys and girls rock!

adict2jane