### Symptoms

This is on a system with *just* PSU, motherboard, CPU, case speaker, one stick of RAM, and display. 

* Gigabyte Z97 Motherboard
* Intel i7 4790k CPU
* Cooler - CoolerMaster RR-212E-20PK-R2 R
* PSU - CORSAIR | CX750M 750W R
* RAM
	+ 4 GB OEM RAM from an HP Pavilion p6-2326s
	+ 4 GB of a model I no longer have records on
	+ 8 GB - two 4 GB sticks called TEAM TPD38G1600C11DC01 R
* Graphics - Gigabyte GTX970 |GV-N970WF3OC-4GD RT
* SSD - 120G PNY SSD7CS1111-120-RB RTL
* OEM HDD from the same HP Pavilion

The operating system that was loaded on the SSD was Windows 10 64-bit

It starts up, MOBO lights come on, the speaker makes a ticking noise. It ticks once, then again, then the computer shuts down. Then it starts again, ticks again, then beeps for POST. The display shows a cursor, then it shuts down again. Then the process repeats. Every other time, it POSTs.

It's important to note that this is the most recent symptom of a number, described in "Backstory"

### Things I have tried

* Used a different PSU - same symptoms. To me this indicates a working PSU.
* Removed RAM - case speaker beeps. To me this indicates a working chipset.
* Placed USB drive in with Parabola GNU/Linux - no change
* Put CD drive with Windows 8 installation media - no change. Interesting observation though - it showed the GIGABYTE logo and the Fkey recommendations for a few seconds before showing the cursor. To me this indicates that it's making it to BIOS? Is this right? **What stage am I getting to?**
	+ Inserted alternately a PS/2 and a USB keyboard, pressed the Fkeys at the prompt. No effect.
* Cleared CMOS - no change
* Reseated CPU, breadboxed build - no change

This is what is so baffling to me - I seem to have eliminated every possible thing that could be going wrong.

My current (far-fetched) hypotheses:

* Dy*ing* motherboard that will POST but not much more.
* Software / Firmware problem that won't allow me to get to BIOS options (I had only a broken Windows install pre-failure)

Any idea how to test these? Any new ideas?

### Backstory

(Feel free to skip). Start 4 months ago, there's a power outage (not during a lightning storm). It caused a hard shutdown that somehow broke the operating system. I [ran some diagnostics](https://superuser.com/questions/1095195/no-display-after-cmos-and-bios-reset) and somehow ended up with a pc that wouldn't display at all. Somehow it turned into a hardware problem. After further diagnostics, I determined incorrectly that I had a broken CPU. I got my friend's same CPU as mine and plugged it in. Lo and behold, post and BIOS. So I figure it's the CPU, return the CPU. I got the new CPU two days ago, put it in, and it got to BIOS! Great! Then I restarted, and I got nothing but a ticking sound. Removed RAM, mobo beeps "no ram." Added 1 stick of RAM, booted to BIOS! Great. **Added all RAM, still booted to BIOS! This was the only stage except the first boot that everything worked. Then I added a keyboard to navigate BIOS and it went back to ticking only.** Removed graphics card, hard drives, keyboard, etc to current config (see above). However adding back the hard drive/SSD does not change anything.

I've been working on this for So Long. Any help at all would be most appreciated, thank you so much. Sorry for the really long post.