Well, I took off the cpu, and was shocked to see what happened. It looks like there are ~25 charred pads on the CPU, and the corresponding pads on the MB are charred as well.

I was able to clean it up a little bit, and some of the substance came off as well when I scraped at it with a knife. However, it leaves little marks where I scrape, so I don't want to do that.

I'm figuring when I was cleaning the board, some as5 cleaner made its way between the chip + mb, and oxidized the connections when the board supplied it with power. I don't know for sure, cause I've never seen anything like this before.

I took the chip slightly better than what you see in the pics, and put it on the board and put my waterblock on the cpu. I was able to actually see the board+cpu POST, but due to my absolutely WONDERFUL luck, the pump on my water reservoir decided to die on me.

Being too afraid to see if it worked, cause I went into the HW Monitor and saw the temperature just rising without stopping, I shut it down. As you guys with watercooling solutions know, the cpu block is very small, and isn't designed to run very well without any kind of flow.

So I guess my plan now is to toss the motherboard, get a p35 (any suggestions?), and go air cooling for a little while. I don't have the extra cash to spare now to get a whole new water solution, which i desperately need, cause the pump going is just the latest of problems that have been plaguing my crap boxset water solution.

If the CPU still causes me problems when I get the new mb, I'll cross my fingers and HOPE that intel takes the chip in for warranty. I just don't know how to even approach them about what I see on the cpu without having them void my warranty for misuse or something.

Sigh. Stuff like this always happens at the worst times. I leave on a cross continental vacation in less than a week, and I really need this time to research plans, options, and things to do. GRRRRRR. </rant>

pics:

^- look at the bottom pins, which lined up to the left pins on the image below (mb)


^- look at the left part of the board.