Maximus IV Extreme - dead?

Maximus IV Extreme - dead? (UPDATE: It's the CPU??)

I've had an ASUS Maximus IV Extreme based system for a while running fine. I haven't bothered overclocking the CPU, memory, etc as yet, the only thing I've been overclocking is the graphics cards.

Today I tried to boot my PC after it had worked an hour earlier and shutdown without issue only to find the LCD readout just read 00.

Tried rebooting it several times with no change, 00 on the LCD. After constantly switching it off and on again it looped through several numbers, stopped on 32, then went to F2. As I type this on another PC it's sat on F2. It hasn't actually POST'd once.

Any ideas what could be wrong here? Nothing has changed at all hardware configuration wise, no new BIOS or BIOS settings have been changed between it working and not working.

I even removed both sticks of memory and booted it, and 00 was on the display again... it didn't even acknowledge the RAM being completely missing.

The fans all work, there is just no activity whatsoever.

The RAM I am using is some G.Skill stuff which runs at 1.65v. Again I haven't tweaked or overclocked this in any way. I'd heard apocryphal stories of people ending up with i7 CPUs that stopped working, could this have happened to me?

I've tried clearing the CMOS, holding down Del when it boot - nothing appears to work.

(ps. I haven't yet swapped out the motherboard for a B3 revision - perhaps this is the time to do it? )

The board may be warped. Try loosening the CPU heatsink a little or better still, test the motherboard out of the case with the stock intel cooler.

Will try that, thanks... though if I'm taking the motherboard out of the case I might as well go the whole hog and get it RMA'd for a B3.

Would a motherboard just die like that? Or the CPU? Never really seen something that has just worked one minute and been dead the next with no configuration change.

Things I've tried to no avail:

- Removed both graphics cards (no GPU installed at all)
- Removed both sticks of RAM
- Toggled between BIOS 1 and BIOS 2

No change, LCD reads 00 and doesn't change, no POST.

I can't remove or loosen the heatsink (DH-14) without taking the motherboard out of the case really, which I want to leave as a last option if possible.

When I removed both sticks of RAM it did show a non-zero LCD code once, and beep three times (to indicate missing memory) but every other time - including when the memory was still out - it has just shown 00.

Anyone come across something similar in the past?

edit: There are by design loads of LEDs on the motherboard that show the status of different things.. the only ones that come on at the moment is an orange one to show which BIOS is being used, and a red one called (I think) CPU_LED next to the 24-pin power input. The CPU_LED one is solid red.

Taken motherboard completely out of PC and put on a cardboard box. Only thing installed is the CPU. Switched motherboard on via the power button on the motherboard, LCD says 00, CPU_LED bright red, no beep at all. Thoughts?

My rampage extreme did exactly the same thing, in the end i gave up and bought a new mobo, it's lying in my local skip.. lol.

Welp looks like its my CPU that's dead... how bizarre.

Got replacement B3 motherboard from ASUS on Friday, finished rebuilding PC late Sunday evening (was lazy & busy with other things). Didn't bother installing graphics cards but just thought I'd power it on to make sure everything was starting ok, and it's doing exactly the same as the old board did - 00 on the LCD, no POST and no beeps.

Does the same with no memory installed too.

So either I got a DOA board from ASUS (seems unlikely) or my CPU has inexplicably died despite not having been overclocked?