Not sure if this is a motherboard problem...

[wingman99]

well it's good in the sense that i didnt have to re-install any software. but it's still been a pain trying to narrow down the issue.

honestly now that i think about it, i think it was probably the NB having the overheating issues. since sound was being processed by the video card (PCIe, controlled by NB), and with the boot/POST issues, seems to be a NB issue.

I would not say it was the heat because when a chip gets to hot 100c+ you get a crash normally.