I'm on my third DS3 mobo (RMA'd the last two), and all three of them have had a bent socket cover.  Here's a picture.  It takes a large amount of pressure to close the socket lever down over the cover to seat the CPU, and I'm afraid because of the upwards bent cover, I put more force on the CPU/socket than it can take.  Hence the RMA the last two times.
 
So, I get the new DS3 and CPU today, and voila, the socket cover looks bent in exactly the same way as the last two (in the above picture).  So, is this normal, or am I getting messed up motherboards?  And if this is normal, why am I having to put a large amount of force into closing the lever.  I've had several local techs tell me that it should take minimal force to close the lever arm down.

Looks OK to me.
 
Open the arm
Open the cover
 
Lay the processor in the socket observing the correct orientation. You should not apply any force at all.
 
Close the cover
Close the arm so that the bend in the arm traps the lip on the front of the cover,
 
Then apply stiff pressure to the arm to engage the arm under the clip in the side of the socket.

That bend is so slight that I would not worry about. What is really going to put your processor under pressure is when you install the heatsink. To get it to click, you are going to have to put some force on it. Make sure that you hear that click or else you will be running high temps and have to reseat it.

Maybe that picture doesn't show the bend very well, but is very very noticeable.  I've read a bunch of different tutorials on installing into this socket, and forum posts about it, and no one seems to have had the same problem I'm having.  The CPU is seated properly, I'm pretty sure.  When I lower the arm, it hits resistance almost immediately (when it's around 120 degrees from intended position under the arm clasp).  With my first mobo, I pushed the arm down until about 40 degrees from closing, and heard a scrunching sound, so I stopped and took it out to inspect the socket pins and the processor gold plate contacts.  The contacts all had score marks in the center of each one corresponding with each socket pin, so I'm fairly sure it was seated properly.
 
I went ahead and forced the arm down, and again heard a very noticeable scrunching sound.  Hooked everything up properly, and the mobo fails to post.
I RMA'd them, got the second mobo and cpu, and same problem.  I took it to a local tech, and he forced the lever down too.  He didn't appear to have any experience with lga775s, and didn't seem very experienced in general.  Again it failed to post.
 
So, either i'm messing up the socket/cpu, or something else is wrong.  But the PSU appears to work (case and vid card fans spin up on power on).  So I'm not sure what else could be hindering the computer from posting.  Possibly a short somewhere in the case (the mobo is not touching the case, it's properly sitting on the risers, no other metal is touching the mobo to short it).
 
When I say I forced the arm lever down, I mean forced.  It's not simply applying firm pressure, and it's not just stiff to push down at the bottom of it's arc before latching it under the arm clasp, it takes a lot of pressure to push down from top to bottom of the lever arc.  The pins are noticeably pushed into the gold contacts on the bottom of the cpu, is this normal?  Or should there not be any marks from the socket pins on them?  I'm running out of ideas.  As I said, the only local computer shop I could find didn't seem experienced, and seemed to know less about this than I do (i'm in a small town).
 
I'm basically looking for confirmation that the problem lies in the socket cover, but that seems unlikely given that the three motherboards I've received all looked the same with respect to the cover.  So, is it normal to have to apply a very large amount of pressure to seat the CPU, and to hear a scrunching sound, and to have the gold contacts have somewhat deep pin scores?  If yes, then the problem probably lies in a short somewhere in the case (possibly a bad POWER SW case connection, possibly a bad PSU 24pin power connector or 12v power connector).  Am I thinking this through properly?

 
You got it. The problem is elsewhere.

 
You got it. The problem is elsewhere.
 
Ok, so:
 

 
I should also mention that the socket pins did not appear to have been bent in any way after either previous attempt...

 
You got it. The problem is elsewhere.
 
Ok, so:
 

 
I should also mention that the socket pins did not appear to have been bent in any way after either previous attempt...
 
As long as you are fixated on the socket, you will never find the true problem. But don't take my word for it - go ahead and RMA this board. And the next one, then the one after that...

 
You got it. The problem is elsewhere.
 
Ok, so:
 

 
I should also mention that the socket pins did not appear to have been bent in any way after either previous attempt...
 
As long as you are fixated on the socket, you will never find the true problem. But don't take my word for it - go ahead and RMA this board. And the next one, then the one after that...
 
Well, I installed this mobo, and this time the arm lever faced much less resistance.  I didn't hear a scrunching sound, and everything appears to work.  I'm formatting it as I write this.
 
So, a note to anyone who is having similar problems closing the socket cover on their DS3 (or possibly any LGA775 socket mobo), just RMA the board until you get one that doesn't do this.  I have no idea what causes the resistance, but it doesn't appear to be the upward bent curve in the cover, since this current mobo had just as severe a bend.