That was it! Thank you so much! I was worried about breaking the cpu socket tightening it so much but it literally is like a 360 degree twist.Did you guys tighten the flathead screw on the socket all the way? You have to turn it until it feels "done", then go a little farther and it gives a bit and seats all the way.
Btw, I tested the board with the 3 cpu's I got: i5-2450m, Celeron B830, and Celeron B800 and they all work and are recognized by the BIOS.
Also it recognizes 2 x 4GB sticks of RAM. Not sure about the 8GB sticks.
Now the next thing to do is to be able to make this thing quieter...that cpu fan is loud and running at full speed all the time! Anyone tried a 60mm-80mm fan converter? Any other ideas? Also the cpu's seem to run pretty hot...like mid 40's when running Memtest.