GA-EP45T-UD3LR - No video, no beep, no boot

[cacjr]

I am sorry. I am tired. I have been battling this PC for two days. However, I am stuck.

Setup - Home Theater PC
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-EP45T-UD3LR
PSU - Antec EA650 650W ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz
RAM - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB 32MB SATA
GPU - EVGA 896-P3-1260-AR GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3
DVD - LG GGC-H20L 16X Blu-ray/HD DVD
Heatsink + Fan - MASSCOOL 8WA741 92mm Ball CPU Cooler
Case - Silverstone LC13B-E
Other - Capture Card and Wireless Card (no relation to problem)

Scenario:
Assembled system. Turned on system. System booted for 2 seconds. Heard a POP, smelled something burnt. Turned off PSU. Couldn't identify where the smell came from: either the PSU, GPU, or the area in between. Looked closely at mobo, no area seemed to be burned. No capacitor seemed to be fried.

Turned system back on. PSU started to click. The DVD-ROM was "spazzing out", turning on and off. System fans continued to whirl, speed of fan changes slow, fast, slow fast with the clicks. The LED on my wireless card kept blinking with the PSU clicks and changes in the fans speed. No beep, no boot, nothing.

I stripped everything down piece by piece. Stripped it down to just CPU and memory. Moved RAM around, tried not using RAM. PSU still clicks. No change, no beep, nothing.

I noticed that the case does not have front panel sound because Gigabyte uses beeps to relay problems to the user. I switched to a new PSU and case.

Replaced...
PSU - Antec EA750 750W ATX12V version 2.3 (w/ LED)
Case - COOLER MASTER ELITE 335 w/ Front Panel

New setup is still stripped down. Connected the front panel SPEAKER device to its proper pins. Cleaned the processor and heatsink of its thermal grease and then reapplied it. I thought the CPU might be overheating.

Now, there are no more clicks. System fan continues to spin. BUT, the LED in the PSU is faint and blinks repeatedly. The fan in the PSU spins slow, fast in unison with blinking PSU. STILL, no beep, no boot, nothing!

My Thoughts:
It's the motherboard. When I replace or take away the RAM, the mobo should at least beep and tell me I'm a fool. I also can't see my CPU being dead because I've tested it on another system. Plus, my application of the thermal grease was a work of art. I think the POP and burnt smell may have been my mobo instead of my PSU but there's no evidence of it.

I am angry and tired. Hopefully, you guys can help resolve this situation. I read the other topic regarding this mobo and it seems it was the RAM. I fear it is not the case here. However, I may be wrong. My apologies if the verb tenses in this post don't match. It's late.

What do you guys think?

 

[DaveF1953]

I would check ohms between the various voltages and ground. You have a short, I'm almost positive. Sometimes, the older floppy power pin would let you plug in one pin off. That would ruin a day. You have a lot of balls having heard a pop and smelled that familiar smell to keep the system powered on for more than 10 sec.
It appears, somehow you've escaped major catastrophy. This will take some time :
Remove every component - even Ram. Plug speaker in with only CPU there. If Leds are still funky, turn off quickly. Remove CPU and try again. If leds still funky, youi have nothing to lose, so check your main voltages with a voltmeter to find who is dragging the system down. I could go on but at this point you probably want to see a tech. Peace.