Still, it's not all bad. This motherboard *does* mean I can upgrade to a faster CPU/memory when I have some money to spend again, and the onboard sound is considerably better than my previous SB128-- the voices in Homeworld 2 now have a nice reverb effect to them :} And I can play UT2K in 1600x1200 with all the detail shoved up to max. Totally excessive. Tried a few of the games supplied with the card-- didn't really like Comanche 4 (not having the manual probably doesn't help there), and developing a love/hate relationship with Ghost Recon. And I have SATA connectors, if I ever find a need for those.
Needless to say, upgrading the motherboard is no problem in Linux (actually it's only "no problem" because I'm using a stock kernel with all the IDE/SCSI drivers on an initrd, I suppose), but Windows XP promptly craps itself and demands to re-register itself with Microsoft. *Before* installing the USB and network card drviers. No mouse or network connection. (And presumably only the keyboard because I enabled HIDBP support in the BIOS, which is *again* disabled by default, although this BIOS at least lets you change the settings in the BIOS without having to dig out a PS2 keyboard, so that's an improvement).