Yep, looks like that indeed is the issue. I opened up my empeg and checked for bowing. There is a slight bow due to the hotmelt glue protruding. So when i loosen the two screws towards the front of the main board, I get different boot results and different memory size. I tried to check the RAS line on the cpu, but there's so much gorilla snot I can't tell for sure if it's a solid connection.

I have a steady enough hand to reflow the connections, sans the ones convered in snot, but should I even attempt it, or just send the whole schmere back?

Thanks
Gregory