Ok, so I googled "A8V no video" and found this mess. Too bad you can't link to pages like this from the reviews online! At any rate, seeing that I was not the only one having issues, I decided it was likely that the "no video" problem was most likely not due to a bad hookup, missing wire, dropped component, or the beer I drizzled on into the spinning CPU fan, and after much trail and error, and German cursing, I did actually get the system up.
One note--I have a BFG Tech nVidia 6800 GT card on order, but it's still another week out. I have 4 other video cards, and "old reliable" Dell dinosaur of an AGP 2x card that I keep around for emergencies, an old 3Dfx 16 Mb (screaming, back in the day!), an Elsa Gladiac GeForce2 Ultra 64 Mb, an Elsa Gladiac 920 GeForce3, and a newer GeForce 4 that somehow crawled into the fray. I only had two cards on hand, but quickly determined after swapping video cables, monitors, and The Stones for the Talking Heads, that something else was the problem.
When I moved my single stick of memory from the first BLUE slot to the second BLUE slot, guess what? It came right up. I'm nervous that ASUS will tell me that there must be something wrong with the Crucial stick, but have sworn by them for their price/performance/warranty/support mix forever, and really do not want to return it (even though they would take it back no questions asked), though admittedly there are other quality vendors out there. Also, I plan to add at least another 1 Gb stick fairly soon, and don't want that to be a problem.
Questions: First, mmcdonalataocdotgov, did the new CPU fix the problem? My hunch is that it did not. Also, I completely agreed with your note on packaging. I generally always always always remove OEM/stock thermal grease/pads in favor or using my own Arctic Silver II or something similar--you may find it interesting to note that when I removed the grease from the sink that came in the retail packaging, there was a rather noticeable deep scratch across the width of the entire surface. It's covered for 3 years, so I figure if it works then it's ok for now...but I did wonder if a better packaging design may have prevented it from happening--though I fail to see how it could have happened in the box as the bottom surface of the sink was well covered with a plastic shield.
Has anyone heard/read anything definitive about this being a manufacturing, BIOS, or design problem? I read here that there was a rev 2.0 board, but was there a press release or even some reasonably solid conjecture from anyone as to why this happened or when it hit market?
Does anyone know if ASUS is exchanging earlier boards for rev. 2.0 boards? I'll check when I get home, but I'm reasonably sure I got a rev. 1.0 board.
Real special thanks to ghent56 for pointing out the obvious (so obvious, I completely forgot to even try it!) in switching the memory sticks around to see if a different result came up. You saved my system from being drop kicked from the roof 3 stories down the the sidewalk!
On a final note, I must agree with cowdog, also: Sh*t happens, and when it happens to you, it sucks. I don't take this experience to mean that ASUS is a peddler of sub-par wares. They have a very solid reputation and I'm sure they will rectify the problem at some point. It sucks though when you're socking away cash to blow and build your uber machine for something very specific and important (like HL2, Battle for Middle Earth, Rome: Total War...), and something in the mix is spec'd correctly but does not perform as designed. On the other hand, this type of eventuality is not unheard of when one dives headlong into a newer technology (939 socket design, for instance) and is one of the first adopters! It's a risk we all took, IMO.
Still, I wouldn't be too harsh on ASUS...I like their stuff, though admittedly I'm by no means an expert on it. Ok, you can be harsh on them for their mediocre tech support (if this is the case--I have never had to use it until now, so I'm oblvious to it) or other things that may be happening. But the several systems I have built in the past with their MOBO's in them have always surprised me in one way or another, super stable, super flexible, and, above all, very speedy!