I just built a system yesterday. The case had stand-offs already in it. I put in a brand new asus m5a97 evo(i bought 8 months ago) but didn't notice 3 of the stand-offs should have been taken out. so after i got everything put in and wired up. I go to turn the system on. led's come on for post, graphics card fan spins for one revolution and that is it. I re-arranged the PWR and reset plugs, reversed them. tested ram, tested for beeps(no beeps), cleared cmos. still nothing. Everything was wired up correctly as far as power to cpu and all that. I checked quadruple times before I first plugged it in. I took everything a part and removed the 3 stand-offs but before I try it. I wanted to know if there was even a chance that it might work or if the board is done?
Yeah the board might be done... call the company that you bought the board from and ask them what to do you might be able to rma it but if they dont cover that then you might be out of luck
Look at the back side of the motherboard where the extra standoffs were and see if you can see any “arcing or splatter” marks. If you do see them there is not much hope for that board. Dead shorts to ground are really bad. Electricity is like water, it will travel the path of least resistance so that ground fault will go just about anywhere throughout the board. If it is clean, meaning no arching you might have gotten lucky. If there was any kind of sparking or smoke, price up a new board. Sorry to hear about your bad luck.