Allright - full story here, be prepared for some reading but I think it gives a better picture. Also - thanks for reading :)

I'm including my specs here as I'm sure someone might find it relevant

Asus Rampage III Extreme
i7 930 @ 4Ghz (1,25V)
Corsair Dominator DHX+ 6GB @ 1878 Mhz CL 7-9-7-21
2x Asus Matrix 5870 2GB @ 997 mhz core/5000 memory clock (no voltage bumpage) in cfx
Corsair HX 750W.
Cooler Master V10.

As you see, the entire system is overclocked.

I got my new case today. So I proceeded to take out the components of the previous case.

While unscrewing the screws from the motherboard standoffs, one of them fell on the mobo under a tiiiny wire. Being a bit clumsy with my fingers I thought I would get it out when the whole thing was out.

The CPU cooler was also blocking the way.

So - I proceeded to build the rigg in the new case and it booted up just fine.

I thought the temps were a bit high, so I went to reseat my CPU cooler. Rinsed and applied new thermal paste. I booted up

Then - it asked me to restart the computer. Not sure if I had put my boot device in the same sata controller I thought it might be detecting a "new drive"

Now it wouldn't boot up. It got stuck at POST. I was frightened I had put it too tight, but I did in no way tighten it that much, and the onboard LED showed an error with BOOT DEVICE

I tried endless posibilities, clearing cmos, taking out the battery, plugging out reset switch. The whole ordeal.

I made the wise decision to redo the entire build, and of course I found the loose screw sitting there. After removing it the PC would boot fine, and I didn't really have any issues.

I ran 3dmark vantage to find the same scores as before, happily thinking I have got away scot free.

I listened to music, and suddenly when I booted up ventrilo, I got a crackling noise in my headphones and ventrilo stopped working.

I booted up, got sound - fired up a game, and decided to put the case on the floor. (I had it up on the desk while troubleshooting) but suddenly I got the crackling noise again.

I restarted the computer only to find no sound at all. It didn't detect the Realtek sound driver I used either.

I dl the driver and proceded to install, but still no luck.

I'm thinking I short circuited the board and it somehow damaged the sound controller of all things, but it would be wierd considering I HAD sound after booting up. I'm really at a loss here.

Any word of advice? I'd really rather not lay out that much money for another R3Extreme board again, as it was way too expensive for me to start with.

Thanks for reading and any input

EDIT: The PC now gets in trouble when firing up sound related software. I can't watch youtube as chrome shuts down, and ventrilo goes not responding.

I'm also running the blend test with prime95 atm, and zip errors. I thinking the system is stable apart from the sound problem