Howdy everyone, been reading the forums here and I'm very happy to have found you.

My problem began yesterday when I decided to reseat my heatsink on my cpu and re-route a cable. I routed the 4 pin pwr cable to the mobo behind the sound card and the vid card. There was plenty of room so I had no worries about messing anything up.

Here is my set-up: M2N-SLI Deluxe, AM2 cpu, X-fi sound card, Sapphire x1950xt vid card, 500w pwr supply and 2 gig of Mushkin ram.

After re-routing the cable, reseating the heatsink with new thermal grease and vacuuming out the case I get no post at all. I've checked all the connections and ram but everything appears to be correct. The heatsink is firmly seated on the cpu so I doubt that is the problem. I've moved the 4 pin pwr cable to it's original position and still no boot.

The machine powers up, all the case fans start and the green led on the mobo lights up. The graphics card fan starts but doesn't slow down like it normally does after about 10 seconds. The reset button on the system case won't work. I tried booting with just the bare essentials, but got the same results. But I haven't tried with only 1 stick of RAM as I doubt that it's my problem. The keyboard does not light up either, though the lights do come on if I connect it while the system is running but they light up for only an instant. The system will stay on if I leave it. If I try to shut it down within the first few moments of powering up it will not shut down, as if it is still posting but it's not.

My first question is about the sound card and sound header on the Mobo. If I have a soundcard installed I shouldn't have to hook up the speaker header on the mobo to hear the beep codes right?

Regards,
Chuck

Last question first. A sound card's most basic requirement is activation to the system board via the BIOS. You aren't even posting so the card is effectively dead.
Are you CERTAIN that the CPU is properly mounted? no bent pins?

It's the mobo according to a tech in town that took a look at it for me. I sent it to Asus and it's on it's way back to me now. No mention of the problem in the e-mail they sent to me. The cpu was not removed, only the heatsink. I believe I somehow shorted the board while messing around in it.
Thank you for the reply.

I have the M2N32 SLI-Deluxe, And yes! you do need to have a Little MoBo speaker hooked up to the speaker header to hear your beeps, and it sounds like you could use them right now. It sounds stupid but make sure you have your monitor turned on, but your keyboard should be lighting up, so your problem is most likely something else. Get a MoBo speaker, and listen. Good Luck!