cablepro, you did not initially damage your chip or motherboard when you tried to pelt it. Currently, ABIT is having problems with the KT7A and the 1.1 gig and higher chips. I was one of those who went through the same thing you did. All I would get was just spinning fans and drives, but no posts. Here is a link to a website where hundreds of others with the same components have shared in the same pain as you and I:
http://www.apushardware.com/vb/index...feb1c19e628abd
So, there was probably nothing wrong with your cpu/board before you tore the foam off and killed the mb. Also, I can not boot my 1.2 gig TBird by setting it to 1200 in the bios. I have to set it manually. Lucky for me it is now running at 155fsb x 10 (1550 mhz) =]
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ondaedg@procooling.com