Abit IP35 Pro Booting Trouble

[ChaosConsumes]

Hey guys,

Browsing around online I found that Abit's USA customer support is dead, and this Hexus forum seems to be the place for any remaining Abit support.

I saw the thread below about Abit IP35 Pro's not booting; but that isn't quite my problem- so I'm starting this thread in the hopes that someone can point me in the right direction.

My computer was running fine up until today, when it randomly froze up while gaming. I forced a reboot (pressing power on the tower), and it started back up. It froze another 2 times relatively quickly.

Now when I boot the computer, the background is covered with blue dots (in between the system information), and when it displays the diagnostics, the text is garbled with TONS of exclamation marks (like, the screen is covered with them).

After displaying system diagnostics, the computer just freezes again if I load it normally(though I was able to make it load in safe mode for some reason).

I went to the BIOS setup to see if I could reset the defaults (the BIOS setup screen is also difficult to read due to the exclamation points everywhere). But no matter what I changed nothing worked.

I tried clearing the CMOS memory by doing the whole 'shorten pins 2+3 for a few seconds, then return it to the default shortened pins 1+2', but to no avail- same blue dots+exclamation points+freezing. Plus- after doing this the mobo is no longer recognizing USB keyboard input, so now I cant even choose safe-mode. =(

As per the other thread, I'm repeating this process and I'm going to wait 15 min (while I post this) on the off-chance that anyone has had a similar problem or can just tell me straight up if my mobo is fried. Just seems sort of strange that this would happen out of the blue.

Here's the system info- though I am 99.99999% certain its just the damn mobo messing up.
System info :
Corsair HX620W PSU
Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9550
G.Skill DDRII 2GB (x2)
EVGA NVIDIA GT8800 Video Card
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) Pro mobo
Western Digital HD


Thanks for any help in advance,
I'll post here if the 15 min reset does anything.

[dexstar]

Power her right down, turn off PSU etc after CMOS reset.
Try Power up with pins shorted, then off again, then on in the right position.

Loading defaults will turn off keyboard under BIOS/OS option.
Try going into BIOS again.