Athlon CPU maybe DOA??

[Nubius]

I thought the mobo would still power on even if the CPU was dead as long as it had sufficient power...

Some of these newer mobos are able to do that, because of when winchesters first came out, some boards required a BIOS flash before it'd be recognized....so if you had bought the board and winchester at the same time right when winnies came out, you'd would have to be able to flash the BIOS without the CPU coming on....in older systems the board would simply not post and you'd be kind of at a guessing game as to whether it was the mobo or CPU