So I ordered a "new" A8N-SLI SE mobo from ebay. First thing I notice is that the mobo must not be actually new - I see some thermal paste on the white part of the CPU socket. Also, the CMOS battery came 100% dead according to my multimeter, which correctly reads a new CMOS battery @ 3.3V. Well, I decided to give it a shot anyway (with a new CMOS battery). Plugged in just the CPU (and cooler), outside the case. Flipping the PSU on, the mobo still needed me to jump the two "power on" prongs on the mobo to start it up, as expected. I did that, and to my joy I got a single beep out of the MOBO as it tried to post. Thinking it was odd that I didnt get more beeps (no memory, no VPU), I turned it off by cutting the power on the PSU. Started putting things back into the case, and before I got too far I tried firing it up again. Now when I flip the PSU on, the mobo comes right on w/o jumping the "power on" prongs b/c of the "restart on power failure" "feature" apparently. No big deal, except now its acting exactly like the other mobo. No beeps, no POST, power button will not turn the machine off. Pulled it all back out of the case, removed everything but the CPU to match my first test. Same thing - no beeps, no POST.
Is this a cut and dry case of "the CPU is bad"? Or am I missing something? I thought for sure, based on my tests of the first mobo, that the mobo was to blame. Now I'm not sure since the new mobo doesnt work either. However, the new mobo has me wondering, b/c I could tell that it was not actually 100% new, and the CMOS battery came 100% dead.
Adding to the variables here, I experienced something very very strange with the CMOS batteries. When testing the first mobo, one of the things I tried was replacing the CMOS battery with a new one, which I verified at 3.3v using a multimeter. Well, when I got the new mobo and noticed that the CMOS battery on that one was dead, I first pulled the new battery I put into the old mobo. Much to my chagrin, the battery was showing only 1.6V on my multimeter. So I purchased another new battery, and it showed at 3.3V as expected, so it's not a prob with the multimeter. So I put the new battery in the new mobo, and it was in there as I tried to get the new mobo to post/beep at me a few times. After each time where I turned on the PSU and fired up the mobo, when I pulled the battery out and retested it with my multimeter, the battery lost .02-.03V of charge. In just a few tests, it went from over 3.30 to under 3.20. So it's like when the mobo is running, my battery is being drained. What would cause that?
I'm just so confused/frustrated . I know this post is huge, but I wanted to answer as many questions as I could before they are asked. Any insight would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
-Brett