1----? Windows explorer only recognises 698gb of the 1tb of hard disk space?
RAID 5 will chew up the disk space if you are using 4 HDD ? 5 is optimal and space beneficial however if you want it all or all(ish), run them as individual partitions ie drives or a stripe (note: these will optimise space but offer little or no redunancy/security).
2----? Vista only recognises 2814mb of the 4gb of RAM?
2814 MB seem strange however you will never see tha 4 gig because of the 32bit addressing constraints 64 bit windows will fix that. However you may be able to squeeze more memory out with a BIOS update ASUS isn?t the greatest for BIOS update but give it a try. (For Future Ref: Intel make the greatest boards with magnificent support)
3---- ?When attempting to install the latest nvidia 650i sli drivers, all i
get upon reseting is a momentary flicker of a blue screen and a crash?
Make sure you have plenty of power going into those cards. Any whimsical power nuance is gonna cause it to fail.
A rock solid power supply is a must. 4 HDD and 2x 8800?s and your going to need at a minimum a good quality 650 watt PSU like an ANTEC
4---- ?After installing vista, one of my main chassis fans have stopped working ?
(Again this is not Vista related ? Try power related ? Your board needs Juice!)
Stay Smooth
I recently purchased a computer from a manufacturer, the specs are as follows
Nvidia 650i SLI chipset
intel e6600 core2duo @ 2.4ghz
2 x 1gb corsair ddr2 RAM
4 x 250gb toshiba hdd
Samsung Dual-layer DVD burner
2x Geforce 8800 gts 320mb
Windows XP MCE pre-installed
But before i received this system, i requested the retailer perform a number
of modifications, these are as follows
1---- 2 more gigabytes of EXACTLY the same 1gb corsair DDR2 ram was installed
2---- 1 more samsung dual-layer dvd burner was installed (also an excact
duplicate!)
As soon as i got this beast home, i immediately got on to upgrading to
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit (after going through the setup for XP first, of
course). And ever since then i have been working out the kinks with driver
updates and so on, but i still have a couple of problems which i just can't
seem to get rid of, these ae as follows
1---- Windows explorer only recognises 698gb of the 1tb of hard disk space
2---- Vista only recognises 2814mb of the 4gb of RAM
3---- When attempting to install the latest nvidia 650i sli drivers, all i
get upon reseting is a momentary flicker of a blue screen and a crash
4---- After installing vista, one of my main chassis fans have stopped working
My theories so far
For Problem 1---- My hard drive configuration (RAID5) may be responsible for the low hdd space. A different configuration?
For Problem 2---- I have purchased the worng version of vista and it is running my system at 32 bits, therefore only recognising 2gb of ram. 64 bit Vista Ultimate will solve this?
For Problem 3---- I may have to finally swallow my pride and follow the proper Windows procedure for updating drivers
For Problem 4---- The AI booster software on my ASUS motherboard is preventing one of the fans from working. Is there some 3rd party software available to fix this without having to get one of those LCD displays in my CD drive bays?
I consider these as major issues as i paid for all of these components to be
added to my pc by qualified technicians and i do not beleive i am getting my
money's worth if i cannot take full advantage of them, any help would be
appreciated!
Snoman

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic