FreeBSD 6.1 problems on AMD64 Athlon 3800 - crashes from day 1

[Angie Ahl]

Hi freebsd 64 bit users.

I've just got a new server at a new ISP.

AMD64 Athlon 3800+
1024MB Kingston RAM
160GB SATA Western Digital Drive

They've got good prices but are having a hell of a time getting  
FreeBSD running on their AMD64 Athlons.

My server's one of the first they've tried to install I think and  
it's currently under no load at all, ie nothing pointed domain wise  
to it.

They're bundling DirectAdmin with the servers and it doesn't run in  
64 bit mode so they've set the machines up in 32 bit mode. From day 1  
it's been crashing. First it was some dodgy ram, after that was  
sorted we still had crashes so they changed the mother board. They've  
tried Asus and and Asrock and for a while today it looked OK.

Then suddenly I was getting complaints when trying to install ports. eg:

checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... /lib/cpp
configure: error: C++ preprocessor "/lib/cpp" fails sanity check

Strangely a restart of the machine seemed to clear these errors. I  
basically tried to get all of the ports I'm using right up to date  
and nearly got there, another cpp fails sanity check error occurred  
so I issued a restart using shutdown -r now and the box didn't come  
back up. They tried booting from remote reboot system and no joy so  
now the tech's back inside trying to figure out what's wrong.

I'm no FreeBSD expert but I'm going to keep reading until I get there  
so if there's anyone out there who's got a clue what could be wrong  
and point me at what to google for I'd be really appreciative. It's a  
good spec of machine at a decent price and so far my research is  
telling me to go to Centos... I REALLY don't want to do that. I may  
be no FreeBSD expert but I like it... a lot.

I'm waiting for some answers to exactly what chipsets on the  
motherboard etc. Is there anything I should really check for if/when  
I can get back into the box.

Thanks very very much

Angie