So I have a very frustrating problem. I just bought a P5N-E SLI motherboard from Newegg. My problem is that I purchased it open box. What a mistake. Aside from the fact that I had to clean thermal grease out of the processor socket it looked ok from the outside but has been very difficult to work with. The big problem is with my BIOS

My BIOS just doesn't exist. I can't access it either because it's corrupt or it never existed in the first place. Basically I get the BIOS checksum error on the board's bios recovery screen. I've tried replacing the battery with no such luck. I can't boot with a dos boot floppy. My only option right now is to flash the bios using the cd-rom that would have come with the motherboard if you bought it new. Unfortunately I don't have that.

I've tried looking all over google for a fix using a cd with files burned to it. Basically I can put AWFlash.exe and a bios of my choice on a cd. It will boot from the cd into awflash but it will just say Please Wait! over and over no matter how long I wait. It doesn't seem to matter what I name my .bin . I followed the directions in the manual that apply to a bootable floppy with no success.

I'm thinking of RMAing soon but I figured I'll see if anyone else has some good ideas.

processor: e2180 Pentium Dual Core
motherboard: P5N-E SLI
RAM: OCZ2N800SR2GK
Video Card: KFA2 GeForce 9600 GT Video Card
PSU: Ultra 500W modular

Thats why you should never buy openbox. Lesson learned. RMA it.

Sometimes you get lucky with open box. 50/50

I happen to know someone who bought a P5K then a week later the P5Q Deluxe came out so he bought it. Now he sees people with P5Q3 gettin over 600 FSB and all he can get is 550 so He RMA'ed both motherboards and told Newegg they were broke. Both boards are perfectly fine. The P35 only went to 450, and P5Q to 550. I tried to tell him the guys running over 600 weren't 24/7 stable, but I guess he needs the CPU-Z screen shot saved on his computer. I think it would be funny if Newegg checked his boards and sent them back to him. I'm sure as soon as something better hits he wont be happy again.

RMA'ing should be for defective only so the rest of us innocent buy standers don't have to go through the hassle.

Thanks for your reply. I'll just RMA it today. There really isn't much point in screwing around with this motherboard even more.