Just a few thoughts. The blinking under X is probably related to the mouse configuration, not the refresh rate. Regarding the sym links, do the files that you link to have the appropriate permissions to make them ftp accessible?
Missing RAM is very strange. I can only imagine that one of the chips is not seated properly in its slot. When you first power up, does the machine count up 96M, or does it also stop at 64M then? Richard Hall Network Services University of Tennessee