New motherboard DoA?

[GregWinston]

I recently bought these components to upgrade my comp:
MSI 760GM-E51 Motherboard
VGA MSI|N560GTX-M2D1GD5 GTX560 1G
PSU RAIDMAX | HYBRID2 RX-730SS 730W
MEM 4Gx2|GSKILL F3-10666CL7D-8GBRH
CPU AMD|PH II X4 970 3.5G AM3 RT

Ok, so I put the comp all together and when i plug in the power supply i hear a high-pitched whining noise and nothing else happens. No LED's light up on the MB. Nothing. So I start breaking it down and testing parts. The power supply works on other comps. The RAM sticks work. I have no way to test the CPU. When I plug just the MB (onboard video card) into the PS with one stick of RAM, I get nothing but high pitch noise. So I return the MB thinking it is DoA and get another one shipped out.

I just got the second one and I am having the EXACT same prob. I know it is nearly impossible that I got 2 DoA MB's with same symptoms. I had my roommate, who builds comps as well, check it out, and we are totally stumped.

We have checked the wires a 100 times to make sure they are in the right place according to schematics and have made certain that there was no static.

The PS fan and lights come on when hooked to another comp, but not when hooked to either of the new MB's.

 

[o1die]

Bios version 7596.32 is required for the 970. See if you can borrow your friend's am3 cpu or his power supply for testing. I doubt the board or cpu are bad. msi's live update software is fairly easy to use. install it on your hardrive, and run it while online. It will automatically update your bios and drivers.

 

[GregWinston]

Bios? It won't even post and no LED's are lit and PSU does nothing when connected to this MoBo. Correct me if i'm wrong, but I don't think updating the Bios will help with basic power issues.

 

[o1die]

Have you tried a different power supply yet? That was my first suggestion.

 

[GregWinston]

Ya I tested a different CPU and PSU and still didnt work.

 

[GregWinston]

Turns out it was a grounding issue with the case I bought. And the MoBo does not turn on unless plugged into the power button on the front of the case. So, when I would "breadboard' it as ppl suggested, nothing would happen because I did not have it plugged into the case at all. I find it strange that all the breadboarding instructions I got, including from the manufacturer's tech support, told me to put one RAM stick in, graphics card, CPU, and hook up PSU, but nothing about attaching case power wires. Also, the tech support at MSI is atrocious. I got a guy that barely spoke English on 3 different occasions and all he could say was, "According to your symptoms, you have bad capacitor." Said the same thing for all 3 MoBo's, even when I told him this was the 3rd one in a row. Well it turns out all 3 MoBos are good, I simply needed someone to tell me to hook the case power wires to them while breadboarding. Searched the web like mad and apparently no one has ever had the same prob. I feel like an idiot, but can't understand why everyone left a key connection out. Is that so basic that no one thought to mention it? I just can't believe they told me to take it out of the case to breadboard, but didn't say, "But keep the power wires to the case connected." Would have saved me about 2 weeks of frustration.

Anyway, it works beautifully now and I appreciate the suggestions .