Cheapest device to host an ASIC / Raspberry Pi + ASIC

I pre-ordered a 54 GH/s bASIC, along with a Raspberry Pi Model B Rev 2.0 to host it. Started reading around and it seems that the RPi might have some issues with USB devices. As far as I can tell these issues were being reported by rev 1.0 users or Model A users, as rev 2.0 was released pretty recently.

I don't have the RPi on hand (or the bASIC, obviously), but it should be arriving soon. Without having the ASIC, can anyone suggest a way to test for compatibility? It seems that the possible USB issue also manifests itself in mundane tasks such as typing and clicking, so I may play around with that and see if anything goes wrong.

I also read that the USB issues might be due to insufficient power for the RPi, so today I'm going to try to pick up a 12V microUSB charger (vs. the minimum recommended 5V).

But suppose the RPi fails regardless, would anyone care to suggest what the next course of action may be? My two thoughts are to either build a dirt-cheap PC with minimum specs, or to try and hunt down a cheap netbook. Either way, the power consumption will be more than that of the RPi, but what can you do.