E8400 not working with MSI p35 NEO-F, Faulty?

I've been having a heck of a ot of trouble over the past few days with my rig after i recieved a new e8400.

My rig before i got a new E8400:
MSI Neo-F P35
Ati x800 (just a placeholder)
Intel e2180
4gb corsair xms2 ddr2-6400

everything worked fine until i put the e8400 in. When i did so, it just hung at the msi bios screen (one with image splash screen). At this point i asked for help on some forums and they recommended flashing the BIOS. So i went onto MSI and used live update to go from v1,7 to v1,10.

Now, it booted past bios screen (i can also access the BIOS itself) but still fell over and rebooted every time and appeared back at the screen where you are given booting options e.g safe mode, normal settings etc.

I was stumped, and tried : Clearing CMOS, adjusting RAM timings and voltage, adjusting voltage of cpu etc all things i was told to try.

Finally i tried testing it on a p5ne-sli (the e8400) and it didnt work on that either just fell over and looped also.

Current BIOS revision it tells me im on s 1.10

What do i do? Is it a faulty processor that needs to be sent back? As it doesnt work on the other board either.