This was...and I'll try to do this as best I can in just text...
*beeeeeeeep* *beep* *beep* all in the same pitch as a normal startup beep.
Then a *BEEP* *_BEEP_* in two more tones, the second lower than the first one. I told the guy at Tigerdirect.com (that's the new name of the outlet store) that it sounded to me like hardware, and he hooked it up, but when I told him about how the only way to get the thing to start correctly was to go through step by step startup, then skip reading the windows registry (say no to the first question) but YES to all others, he seemed to think I'm going to need my registry cleaned out and re-initialized. He better NOT! Regardless of how f---ed up the registry is, it STILL works. I still get wireless Internet, I still have all my apps working, and most importantly, I have a region-free DVD-ROM. If he screws THAT up, I'm gonna be pissed.
I noticed that while scandisk did a whole 2-3 hour surface scan with no problems, if I let it go to Windows, it would restart spontaneously, and without warning. I'm starting to agree with FP that it's probably RAM, as, due to the design of the motherboard, RAM is shared between video and main memory (the amount shared is allocated in the BIOS - 256 total installed, and video uses 64). I probably could have checked that theory myself with a spare 128MB unit of PC2100 DDR, but after the bashing my fingers took changing the 128 out for the 256, I decided not to. I'll let someone else do it :P
Maybe I can get them to install a case fan too, as right now it's only got a CPU fan. And hopefully nothing on the motherboard itself is 'burned out.'

This will be my last post today - they're supposed to get a hold of me tonight about the unit, so we'll see. More details later.