third time's a charm? booting issues on the sy-p4s-645dx dragon ultra

well this is downright frustrating... my first board, bought around
june or so, worked great until august 21, when i realized that i had
left my celeron 2.0 ghz cpu overclocked to 2.6, with the side case
off, and i was working on a project for around 8 hours straight. i
got a lockup, (i still use windows 98 se...) so i pressed and held the
power button for the four seconds, and, being that is was four oclock
in the morning, flinched when i heard the power go off, pressing it
back on again. i dont know that that made a difference or not, we'll
get to that later. so anyways, it turns back on and gets as far as
telling me the first line (i cant currently remember it) and the
second line, intel celeron 2.6 ghz. thats where it promptly froze.
realizing the extra .6 ghz, i decided to clear the cmos. after doing
so, my "speed" went down to 2.0 ghz, which is all fine and good,
except it continued locking up.

so, i assumed i fried the processor since i had the case open, the ps
fan and the standard intel heat sink/fan going but nothing else (save
for the thermal compound). never having done in a processor before, i
removed it to look for damage. when i unlocked the fan and pulled
upwards however, the processor was removed from the LOCKED socket as
well. maybe the socket was broken, or maybe the compound formed a
bond, i dont know... i put the processor back in after inspecting it,
fired it up, and this time, i didnt even get the lovely two lines i
was receiving earlier. just a blank screen and no post beep. i just
decided to buy another processor, 65 bucks...

the processor arrived and was installed but to no avail. i went
through ALL troubleshooting i could locate, and was not successful. i
even broke out the volt meter and tested every lead of power going
into the mobo. so i sent back the motherboard, shipping is quite
expensive these days... and was excited when soyo returned to me a new
motherboard, not my old one fixed. unfortunately though, they didnt
mention what was wrong with the other one... i plug all my hardware
in, using the newer processor, and it runs like a champ. i get
curious, plug in the "chargrilled" processor and it works too...

so i run my computer with the older processor for around a month, and
while changing some settings in winamp while listening to music in wmp
at the same time, it freezes. thinking nothing of it, i press the
reset button, and i receive absolutely nothing. fans spin up, (my
case is closed this time, and i have left the bios' original
settings...) but there is no post test "beep" and no video. the hard
drive spins up, but does not seem to load anything. again, i go
through all troubleshooting options, and here i sit, with another
broken motherboard. i've already foolishly spent an extra 75 bucks on
this motherboard, plus the original 80 that it cost, i'm to the point
where i just want to buy another board and give up on this thing.
what i'm looking for now is someone with a similar problem who got it
fixed, recommendations for an inexpensive, RELIABLE motherboard, and
of course, some pity...

the way i see it, i have an extra working processor, i might as well
buy another motherboard anyways, and hope that soyo can "fix" this one
again. that way i wouldnt feel so bad about spending the 65 for the
second cpu. oh well, we'll see how things turn out. thanks for
reading all this crap...