Quote Originally Posted by burt123 View Post
Hi acebmxer,

Hopefully you're still there, somewhere.

OK, what do you think of this problem solving....I have stripped everything off the motherboard, I did your extended cmos clearing, pushed the button and it was the same, so I unplugged the main power plugs, tested the PSU (it's only very new) then plugged in only the 24 pin plug, and it worked, as soon as I plug in the 8 pin plug, it starts the quick off & looping...tried a different PSU, same thing.

I guess the next thing is to take the board right out of the case, and breadboard it, to try & determine whether there is a short to the case.

But I reckon the motherboard is a bin job $415, only last's 12 months
I think you might have a bad cpu. You can try pullling the board from the case and see what happens. but the fact that you losen or remove the heatsink and the system started to respond. I would test with another cpu if you have access to one.