Gasp! Intrigue! Another fucking motherboard!

I suppose at this point I really shouldn’t be surprised. The number of things that have gone wrong to date rival most government run projects.

Not covering old ground:

1. The Areca ARC-1300ix 16 was returned on the basis of no Solaris driver and it being a glorified port multiplier. I waited for about a month for the Adaptec 31605 on back order. After showing no signs of turning up any time soon, I cancelled the order and decided to pony up for the highly featured and crazily expensive 3ware 9650SE-8LPML instead.  The day after, I find out Digicor has started distributing the SAS3081E-R again, a significantly cheaper option. Take in mind either choice locks me into a motherboard with at least three PCI-E x4 slots (due to needing 16 channels, and to equip the Intel quad gigabit Ethernet card).
2. The moment the 3ware arrives, I plug it in, and lo and behold, the machine no longer posts. Having seen a similar behaviour on the previous server (would or would not boot based on random hardware plugged in and how many times half the male population has scratched its crotch in the last hour while the wind is blowing west), I proceeded to disconnect everything until only RAM, CPU and GPU remained — and it still didn’t boot. Being that the only remaining part from the old server was the 850W CoolerMaster PSU, I ordered a Corsair TX-850 at AU$240 to remove all doubt, plugged it in AND;
   

   The Corsair TX-850, a PSU with a beefy 12V rail and five year warranty - AU$240.

3. Discovered that the Asus P5Q-E motherboard, which replaced the exploded MSI was the dead part, despite no sparking, despite working a week ago, despite nothing being physically wrong with the board — it just stopped posting,  meaning I’ve once again spent more cash than I have to.
   

   The excellent Asus P5Q-E. Alas, it was not to be.

Well, fuck. That’s two motherboards gone in one build, which is making me wonder if the case is shorting something somehow. At this point I’ve had the chassis for over ten months, with no working system. It’s enough to make you want to buy a prebuilt NAS.

Meanwhile the brand new Netgear GS724T, APC SmartUPS 750 and HP 22RU rack just sit there, waiting for some action…

The mighty 3ware 9650SE-8LPML, coming to a server near you - AU$915.

Netgear GS724T - picked up for AU$280.

APC SmartUPS 750 - AU$231 on eBay.

HP 10622 rack - the one I bought on eBay for AU$180 likely has a bit more wear and tear than the one in this image.