Maximus Formula CMOS ERROR

Hi, I am new to all this and an old coder too, so please be gentle with me guy’s.
I have just built my sixth PC.

My setup is…

Maximus Formula MB (NOT Special Edition)
Intel Core2 Extreme QX9650 LGA 775 PCU (Plus Heat sink and Fan)
NVIDA GeForce 8600GT 1Gb ((Sparkle) 1024Mb, DDR2, HDTV, DVH, HDCP)
4x Kingston 2Gb PC2-6400 CL6 240-Pin DIMM 2
Oryxx Tornado 750W PSU (With fan’s)

HD’s x 4…

80Gb Seagate SATA 2
750 Gb ST3750640a SATA (As yet not connected)
750 Gb Seagate Barracuda SATA
1000Gb Samsung (3Gbps) SATA

Standard Generic Floppy Drive
Pioneer SATA DVR-21 DSV 2x DVD RW

All housed in…

Antec Nine Hundred. Which has…

Tricool 200mm fan (Top Mounted)
Tricool 120mm fan’s x2 (Front Mounted)
Tricool 120mm fan (Rear Mounted)
Optional 120mm fan (Side Mounted)

OK, my problem is…

Several months ago I built the above but I used a Striker Extreme Mother Board. It fired up first time, but every time I gave it some real work to do, running 2/3 programs at the same time, downloading etc: it kept giving me the “Blue screen of death” after 2 mounts of trying to solve the problem I gave it to an expert? To sort, but that did not work either, so I stripped it and exchanged the MB for a Maximus Formula.

When I fired it up for the first time I got a “CMOS ERR”? On the External LCD Poster, AND the onboard MB LED Southbridge (Presuming that the LED at the bottom right is the Southbridge?) light came on as orange for a few seconds and then went out all together? All other LED’s are on and at green.

Remedies I have taken..

Every combination that you can think of with the Memory sticks. i.e.: 1 x2Mb stick, 2, 3, 4. 2 in the blue slot 2 in the white etc: etc: etc: no joy.

Moving the Graphics card to a new slot. no joy.
Although my PSU has only a 20 pin connecter it also has 2, 4-pin’s. One of which I have use NEXT to the 20-pin, Making it a 24-pin. The other 4-pin I connected to the open EATX 12v connecter leaving the black cap on. This did not work, still stuck with the “CMOS ERR”, so I used a 20 to 24 pin adaptor and put the spare 4 pin into the EATX 12v connecter, no joy either? It dose say in the manual that it will not boot unless the 8-pin is connected, but my PSU dose not have one, and according to several other forums the manual is a bit ambiguous, “SHOULD I USE A 4 TO 8-PIN ADDAPTOR HERE”????

I could go through the process of disconnecting each item i.e. fan’s, HD’s and DVD RW, but they did not give me any problems on the “Striker Extreme” MB that I use before, so I am presuming they work fine?

I have scoured the ASUS website, Googled the problem and read all I can find, all to no avail.

It sounds a simple problem to solve at first but this is slowly turning into a nightmare. Is there any one out there that has the knowledge to help, I obviously don’t have enough.

yeah RMA it thats your only choice