ok so i've passed richard the gerber files for a review, and i've done the replacement of all 10uF 0805 capacitors with twin 4.7uF 0603. full details outlined in a new update, which will likely be out next year.
i'm now in to "examining gerbers closely" mode which usually takes me 2-3 days, i go over them dozens of times, looking for things like "GND VIAs that have been removed by PADS" and "tracks that aren't separated by GND when they were previously" and "power lines and power planes that might not hold enough current" and so on.
it needs to be done several times as there's so much detail it's easy to miss things.
then when both richard and i are happy it'll go off to mike for him to order, that'll take about.... 3-6 weeks. there will be NO rushing here, they tend to screw it up. another set of 10 components will need to be ordered, and we get to make 10 more 2.7.5 PCBs.
this time the assembly will be .... complicated by the fact that we need to try out 1666mhz and 1800mhz DDR3 RAM ICs (which will be run at only 375mhz), because the 1033mhz DDR3 RAM is getting F*****G expensive, it's hit the tail-end of its lifecycle.
i might also have to ask him to track down some 1GB (4x 256mb) RAM ICs as a "just in case" as well.
l.