Steve, I hope your new motherboard works out better then the troubles you've had with this one. I've powered mine on by accident once without the 12V cpu plug in but all it did was spin the fans up and stall out.

I'm not using either of the onboard NICs either though, I'm using an Intel Pro/1000 pci-e card. I had enough of onboard NICs and their issues a year or two ago.

I got a new E8400 yesterday and this is much happier then the last one, will complete orthos testing with 1.29v VS the 1.44v needed by the old chip.