Project: Animus

Good to hear. If I'm not mistaken it also has on bard blue LEDs with different flash modes.

The only problem I've found with the mobo so far is the space around the cpu. Stock heatsink and fan BARELY fit between the board's heatpipes and sinks. SO, I think I'll have to nix my idea to put a thermaltake ruby orb in here. So, I'm on the lookout for a different cooler.

So I've got good news, and I've got bad news. I made a run to Best Buy today, picked up a pair of 500gig seagate drives, a pair of ati video cards, and an 800w power supply (along with a few games) got home and tore the computer apart, even got a wireless card and an aftermarket cooler for the video cards. Plugged it in, hit power ... nothing. Checked all of my connections, even tried starting it with the motherboard's power button, and it's as dead as a doornail. SO, tomorrow morning it looks like I'm going back to Best Buy to get a new psu. *sigh* Sadly, the motherboard has a 20+8 pin connection, and the 4 power supplies I have on the shelf atm are 20+4.

Well, the lights are pretty. But ... it's still not doing anything. According to the lcd on the motherboard it's trying to boot, but there's nothing showing on the monitor, it goes black as soon as I hit the power. So, I'm working with tech support from abit to try to track down the problem. It could be the psu I bought at Best Buy, I don't think it's the video card though since I've put 3 cards in, including the one that's in the PC I'm typing this from, and that card DEFINITELY works. So, we'll see. I'll keep you guys posted. Hopefully, I can get this fixed before Monday so I can actually install windows and try out the new games I bought.

Have you tried removing some of the RAM?

Yeah, right now I'm testing just the bare system. I've tried each piece of ram individually in each DIMM seperately. (IE 1 gig of ram at a time) And even tried subbing in some OCZ Ram I have with the same results, I also tried switching out the ATI card for 2 different nvidia cards. A 7950 and a 7950 GX2. Right now there's a motherboard with processor, psu, video card, case speaker, mouse and keyboard with a monitor on my desk and I can't get an image on the monitor. I've even tried using different monitors with similar results (trying to eliminate every possibility.)

Sounds like the Mobo. Will it let you eject the CD drives??? If not it is the mobo, same thing happened to my mate.

Yeah, I took the thing into Best Buy yesterday for a second opinion. So, tomorrow I'm going to get with newegg and rma the board and processor.

Bit of an update:
Just dropped off the motherboard and processor with FedEx, it looks like the motherboard did a number (as in burnt good on the processor) so ... I think I found the problem :P

Anyhow, hopefully in a week or two I'll be getting a new board and chip in, meanwhile I'm going to do a little more finishing touches on the case, and get a new power supply (Thermaltake Tough Power Modular PSU). I'm putting some collapsable case handles on top of the case, and doing a mesh window on the side of the case, I also ordered a Ruby Orb to keep the processor cool. I'm trying to find out how to disable or change the blue LEDs on the motherboard, since it doesn't really jive with the red light setup I have in the case. I love the back-lighting effect, just not the color. Also, I'm looking into video card possibilities. The motherboard says Crossfire enabled, but it came with an SLI Bridge. After a little light snooping, I found out it's not a mistake. And that there are some open source drivers that might unlock SLI on this board, so I'll be doing a little more research there (if I can drop a pair of 8800GTs on this board I'll be VERY happy). So, more as it progresses. I'll be working on the handles, and window next week. Meanwhile, I'll be cleaning up and prepping the other two cases for the mod.

While I was doing research on that board when I was looking to get it I was under the impression that you could turn them off through the BIOS. I wouldn't think you could change to colour of the LEDs cos they are soldered directly to the mobo and the fact that they aren't a "globe" as such I would think it to be impossible to do. I think the blue will go well with the red. I have seen it done before and the colors mix to make this coll eerie purple colour.