yup wound up being the mobo. So, think I will take your advice...pay the 315 for a temp board, then when I go up in April, do a complete switch. Buy a i5 quadcore, mobo, ram, case, bd burner. Pull the hard drive, vid card, use an exisiting 850w power supply, to make a new system. Then take an old ide drive add it to the am3 board set up, use the on board graphics and give it to my kid.
Thanks again.