ASUS Motherboard Woes

[Flux]

Hello all,
I would like some of your expert advice. I recently bought an Asus P53 Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131219), along with all new hardware, I am having trouble getting the board to POST. Here are the steps it it's downfall:
1.) Put everything together, green light is on, but when I hit the power button, nothing
2.) I removed my video card and hard drive and tried again, success! I also noticed I put the wrong power cord into the video card...oops.
3.) Put the video card back in with the correct power cable and tried again. Success!
4.) Put the hard drive in with power cord. Success! It stated that my CPU is unknown (it's a INTEL Core 2 Duo E8400) and that I would have to use a BIOS updated to unleash it's full power. It still tried to boot and said there was no boot device, which is expected since I am yet to load the OS.
5.) Plugged in all the fans and situated everything in the case. Tried to turn it back on....nothing.
6.) I systematically unplugged everything from the Motherboard and I am not able to get it to POST again. This includes taking the Motherboard out of the case to see if that was the problem.

I have a few questions:
1.) Will the board POST if I have nothing plugged in but the power cables from the PSU?
2.) If my case switch was faulty, how could I start the computer (it worked before, but who knows....)?
3.) Any advice?

I am yet to browse ASUS's website, but I am about ready to send this back to newegg. My main hang back is that it worked just fine before simply plugging in my case fans....sigh.

[Apoptosis]

suggestion...

come over and hang out for a night and I'll look at it for you ;)

I've built several systems with the ASUS P5E now. Here is one of them - http://forums.legitreviews.com/about13659.html

Sounds like you have an old BIOS that needs to be updated... I have plenty of older LGA775 CPU's we can use to flash the BIOS to the latest. If you can get the system to post you should be able to update the BIOS with just the floppy. Since you've got the system to boot before it sounds like you can update it yourself though...

BIOS 0601 is the latest for the P5E - http://support.asus.com/download/downlo ... &model=P5E
Just download the BIOS and put it on a USB key... insert the USB key into the motherboard and power it up. When it posts enter the BIOS and go over to tools and then use the Flash utility... Should be easy from there. BIOS 0601 came out on 1-29-2008 and has a number of Wolfdale fixes, so that might be the issue.

[Flux]

That's the main problem, I can't get it to POST. If I could, I can update the BIOS as you suggested...I'm thinking I'm dead in the water.

[Apoptosis]

4.) Put the hard drive in with power cord. Success! It stated that my CPU is unknown (it's a INTEL Core 2 Duo E8400) and that I would have to use a BIOS updated to unleash it's full power. It still tried to boot and said there was no boot device, which is expected since I am yet to load the OS.

I thought you said it posted here, since it got to the point where it was looking for the OS to load? That means you can update the BIOS ;)

[Flux]

Exactly, but then I plugged in all the fans in the case, situated the powers cords a bit nicer, hit the power button, and it would no longer POST. I have no idea why it will not POST now, when previously it was working fine, hence me asking for advice.

That is why I am baffled.

[Apoptosis]

well if you were having an electrical issue and stuff was shorting out you might have fried the motherboard by accident. That sucks if that is the case. If you took the motherboard out of the case, cleared the CMOS and fired it up with no hdd and optical drives and nothing happened that is a bad sign. You could always try one stick of memory to see if it's a memory issue.

[martini161]

sounds like you fried the mobo with either a surge or maybe by esd

[Flux]

But, but...the LED GREEN light is on

[Apoptosis]

doesn't mean the board isn't fried...