I'm putting together a new system- the MB is the Asus Maximus (P38 / DDR2) and I've got a QX9650 in it.

Just about everything is unplugged at the moment other than the Power Supply, CPU, RAM and the little LCD screen for the POST -*test*-('").

When I turn it on the motherboard status LEDs (it has status LEDs for voltages for the CPU, Northbridge, Southbridge, and memory) flash briefly except for the CPU one. Then they go out except for the memory one which lights up all three LEDs.

I've tried several different sticks of memory, all of which work in my P5K system.

Any ideas? Bad CPU? Bad connector to the +12V power supply thing? I'm a bit at a loss for how to start diagnosing this.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Alex

Try hitting the CMOS reset switch and then booting - a few times. Mine takes a few resets to come to life sometimes. Hope you're board's not bad. I had one bad one, that I had to RMA.

No luck so far clearing the CMOS. I'm afraid of the bad-board thing too. Any idea how to tell the difference between a bad motherboard and a bad CPU? Or I gather a bad CPU is a much more rare thing?

One other question- the CPU came with the Intel heatsink which has thermal contact stuff on its bottom already. If I have to remove the CPU and put it on a new motherboard, do I need to apply some new thermal paste or will the existing stuff work?

If you have another cpu, you could try that to rule out the cpu as the problem.

When you put the heat sink back on, you should clear off the thermal paste that's still left there and start over with a thin coat of Artic Silver.

Its pretty rare to have a CPU go, more likely the board, i assume you have made sure all plugs are firmly seated etc?...

Do you have 1 or 2 4pin 12v ATX connectors hooked up?