Question about my build, not booting, boot_device_led light on.

[beijingtelecom]

Hi. Just a question, hoping someone could help me with this.

Here is my system.

Asus Sabertooth Z77
Intel i7 3770s
Asus 680 GTX
4x 4gb Corsair Vengeance
Corsair 750w PSU
Corsait 550D

I had been playing Battlefield 3 with this computer previous to having problems with it, it ran great, but my CPU was getting super hot. I bought a Cooler Master 212 Evo and installed it today. Now suddenly my Sabertooth is hanging on boot, no display, boot device LED is on. I checked the manual, saw what it meant, removed my SATA cables one at a time to see if it was causing problems. I unplugged all of the devices, both from the devices as well as on the motherboard. I also unplugged everything, USB, HDMI, all of it to see if it would boot but I couldn't get it to run. Lastly I removed all but one stick of RAM and it didn't help. I also cleared the CMOS to no avail. During POST, the mobo has a LED light for each of the POST steps, CPU, GPU, RAM all check out fine, it just hangs on boot_device_led and won't do anything.

If anyone could assist me, I'd be eternally grateful. Has anyone messed up a Z77 and got the same outcome? Would the post LEDs pass post check if the parts were faulty?

 

[beijingtelecom]

I took the 212 evo off the cpu and it appears the Arctic Silver is brown as I clean it off. This may be telling to others but not to me. I've never had any problems with a PC not booting or anything like that. When I cleaned the CPU earlier, with the stock heatsink fan, it was the same gray color that was on the bottom of the heatsink to begin with, but now using Arctic Silver, it appears brown. I cleaned both surfaces before I mounted it very carefully, they were both in great condition and very clean.

Does this help anyone tell if I've somehow burnt up or broke the motherboard / CPU? I can't imagine damaging them, I always wear a static discharge armband and used a coffee filter to clean it with.

I have no idea how it would possibly clean off as brown-ish on a coffee filter.