Trying to do some upgrades... trying...

I have recently purchase a titan extruder to go with my e3d hotend.  I have been researching and understand that due to the gear reduction, you are only required to use a stepper motor with 1/3 of the torque that the original stepper has.  Ok that is great, so I got a lighter stepper motor being that I have ran as fast and far as possible away from bowdern and would like to lighten up the x axis as much as possible...  That was the only good thing that the bowden setup brought.  I used bowden for a couple of years but as I progress and the desire to print more and more complicated prints comes, bowden just isnt worth it.  Anyways, I wire the new stepper, and all it will do is vibrate when I jog in one direction, and nothing when I jog in the other.  I have read in one spot that the wiring may be different to davinci steppers than what would be considered standard for nema 17 motor?  Can anyone help with this?

I also bought a MKS 1.4 board.  When I ordered it I was kinda rushed for time and had to make a decision quickly.  Well it isnt at all what I wanted cuz the stupid chinese vendor had totally mis represented what it was.  It was tagged as a 32 bit smoothie board clone... not quite...  I was going to put it in anyways to see if it brought any improvement but got worried halfway through I would end up with NO printer so I turned around.  Anyone have any insigh?  Will it be that much better to go to an atmega 2560 with cheap drivers?  even though the drivers are adjustable current through software, I still am not sure being that they arent the best.  What board is recommended.  Obviously I dont have a lot of money so keep that in mind, otherwise I woulodnt still be running the due.

Last thing is recently while printing, circles come out oval and walls on the y axis are not connecting at the top.  I think everyone chalks this up to backlashing, is there any other reasons it could be?  How to fix besides tightening belts?  Thanks everyone!