I'm in the RMA holding pattern with the board. The tech support guys at ASUS were pretty good to deal with (502-995-0883). The basic test was to:
1) Turn the power supply switch off.
2) Remove everything from the board, except the power connectors.
3) Plug in some powered speakers at the rear of the board (green jack)
4) Turn the power supply on, then the main case power switch.
If the board is functional, the green LED will come on, and it will announce that the missing CPU is not a recognized device.
If the Green LED is off, the board is damaged or defective.
If it fails to announce the missing CPU, the board or the BIOS is damaged or defective.
If the main power switch on the front of a case is not connected, you may have to repeat the test, shorting the two pins on the bottom row that normally are connected to the power switch. (Careful to identify them correctly!) Depending on the power supply, you may have to to do that to actually get power to the BIOS and post systems, even though the green LED may be on.
This is as far as I got. It failed to announce the missing CPU. They assigned a case number and transferred me to the RMA folks, who gave me an RMA number. I FedExed the board and am waiting for the replacement.
The rest of the basic procedure looks like this:
If the board passes, then add the CPU, and it will announce the missing memory. Add the memory, and it will anounce the missing video card. Add the video card, and it should post.
So. After I get the new board, I'll need to do the rest in that order to establish that the CPU, memory and video card are intact and working properly. If not, then I guess I do another RMA with whatever other component is not working. But I don't expect that.
Slow process since I don't have known working parts on hand to swap for fault isolation. I'll post an update when I get the board
