still no sign of life even with a usb floppy drive. might be caused by the fact ...that ..well ...i also tried a usb stick which has a power led as indicator - but it remains white = no power. another thing i tested: i removed the ram. it doesn´t power off then, but the screen remains blank and it accesses the dvd drive. i placed the AMIBOOT.ROM no a cd-rom and tried it that with (with ctrl+home key) but still no luck. any other suggestions? ...please?