So I have to RMA this sucker unless anyone has a magic tip for me. I was simply swapping cases getting ready for a new build and things went downhill.

Scenario -

I rebuilt into a new case, never removed cpu, heatsink, ram, vga at all. All I had to do was hook up the new headers and power supply connections. I forgot to hook up the cpu fan but I had the TRUE on there (just the header was disconnected). It gave me the standard error but let me proceed.

It got into windows but usb mouse and keyb didn't work. Did hard shutdown and started up again, got to bad checksum error, system looking for p5kd.rom file, (crashfree bios never kicked in). I was able to "reprogram" the bios with an early version once I renamed it to p5kd.rom. Well, that was according to the utility (not ez-flash, this was some pre bios thing) that said it had completed successfully and that I should restart. When I restarted I got no video signal at all. Everything powers up, no beeps, and no bios loads, nothing. Oh yeah, tried clearing cmos (wall power, battery & jumper), tried a few sticks of ram in different slots, tried it all as far as I know.

I snagged a speaker from my old case and rigged it to the new one. I get beep codes with no ram and only then.

Anything else I can try?


Questions about Asus RMAs -

Asus says RMA, but I don't want to wait if I can avoid it. They say they need the whole board just to get the bios chip. I can solder, so I'd rather just get them to send me a new ten dollar bios chip. Anyone know if they'd do that? I guess I can call. What about the new hardware revisions? I got mine in May when it first came out. Are there any significant differences that would warrant sending it in in hopes of getting a new board? Or would they just replace the chip and ship it back?