Just remember:

1.  it is DEAD kit. 

2.  if it has  >256MB of ram in the DDR slot it will ONLY work with EDK 9.1

3. If you try to upgrade past  EDK 9.1 , it will not work unless you go to 10.1sp3 , at which point it will ONLY work with 256mb ram and all the demo projects supplied with the board will fail, you will also loose the sound and video  IP.  but you will be able to generate new projects with some work.

 If you try and run with  >256mb and you use 10.1sp3 you will not get any programs running unless they are in BRAM, your DDR will corrupt it's self EVEN if you try to configure 512mb as a 256mb board.

Also Just becasue the memory tests O.K when the board starts up , this is no indication of it working, becasue the test programs were written in 2005 under completely different memory controller IP which is now not available.

Yes i do realize that this product is discontinued! but this is the only option we have!

Today i started up the kit went thourgh the BIST using iMPACT 10.1 ... the kit seems to be working fine , i checked the sound ,video etc all was working good though the .bit was from an earlier build.

So what more should i take care of ? Can i use the DDR modules just from Xilinx or just any 2.5v DDR ? Should i get from EDK 9.1 from somewhere ? 

Thanks for your reply!

Once you are running  it is fine but:

1. it depends on which EDK you are using , I'm using 10.1sp3

2. Memory , I have a stack of 'approved' ram , and i only found 1 board  of kvr266x64c25/256 that worked 100% reliably in the  XUP dev board,

Totally i have a collection of about 20 ram boards of different manufacturers & sizes  (i just went out and bought  another 6  KVR400x64c3a/256)

This is what i can tell you:

1.  the inbuilt memory test is CRAP , it will often pass ram that is NFG , that is to say the ram will be 100% o.k in a computer mother board , will pass the xilinx memory test

but then  fail due to corruption  down to timing  issues with the  DDR ip

2. the BEST way to test ram,  make ANY ip  that has the DDR component IP  and ANY program , load the IP, use XPS and the internal debugger, download the program

BUT DO NOT RUN IT (the intergral memory access will not work until you download a program, thanx xilinx!!)

 open a memory examination window at 0x000000 , HAND modify some values ,scroll the area up and down , to see if the values remain or other areas of memory get corrupted.

3. I spent loads of cash getting 'exactly' the right ram  as approved, it was all a waste of money, I went out on sat.(after my latest DDR ram burned) got a 256mb unmarked ram board locally , and it WORKED first time with zero corruption, when set up as a kvr266x64c25/256 , but  it is a DDR 333???????, when i get time I'm going to get 3 more , it cost me   $3us

4.  your RAM MUST be single rank, either  128, 256,512, it does not matter  but it MUST be single rank.

yes  I know it supposed to work with dual rank and it passes and xilinx say  this **bleep** is ok upto 2gb, but there is ALWAYS random corruption.  (try debugging a program with stack space/ program space in DDR with random corruption)

now either my xupv2p board is from hell, or this is a common issue , only people don't check their boards as much as i checked this one. 

If you want an easy life go EDK 9.1 , if you want to be more uptodate go 10.1SP3 , but be prepared to work for it,  but once you are working the crap is mostly stable,

It's a QUALITY board , let down by piss poor support and bad IP.

Also I picked up some sort of issue , where i had a ram board that got physically burned , even though the ip had not been changed and it had been fine for several months.

Possibly a faulty ram chip, or maybe the memory core ip got confused, due to me trying so many different options. 

but whatever you are doing , make sure your environment is stable before you start working, and if things suddenly fall apart, CHECK the environment first (usually the ram).

If you can , try to work entirely from BRAM  without a DDR in the system.