Why it's good to check obvious things...

Sometimes it's good to be reminded to always check the basics so that they don't bite you in the butt later.  This happened to me a while back, but I'm posting it here in order to help others catch similar things.

I bought a Rampage III Extreme motherboard back in may.  The first one died within 2 weeks.  I'd heard the thermal interface material (TIM) was always pretty shady, however I was waiting on a waterblock, so never bothered to replace it.  When I finally got around to installing the waterblock I found that the TIM wasn't even properly applied.  Asus had forgotten to remove the wax paper in between the TIM and the heatsink!  No wonder my temps were so high and no wonder the first board died so quickly.

So the lesson - always check your heatsinks, because you never know what you'll find!  Also, I may not buy Asus next time!

Underneath the south bridge heatsink - that paper should not be there!

North bridge heatsink - good job Asus!