brothers vanquish problem

could be, but troubleshoot some.  check all of your psu connections to each component.  try reseating graphics card, memory, drives, etc.  try removing any extra peripherals besides keyboard, mouse and monitor and then try booting again. 

clear CMOS (refer to your mobo manual).  verify boot order in the bios (refer to your manual on how to) is correct.  remove any overclock and reset to default bios settings.  if it's the graphics card, you can try booting without it installed and plug your monitor into the mobo directly.  

try restarting into safe mode w/networking if it still won't boot properly.  try 1 stick of ram at a time in the first slot (move to other slots if problem doesn't resolve).  if you can get the pc to stay on at any point try running the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool.  make sure all your drivers are up to date.    

do you have a Corsair psu and if so, do you have Corsair Link installed and running?  you can check you psu voltages with this app.  otherwise, you'll need a multimeter to do so.  do you have a spare psu? 

disconnect everything connected to the psu but the motherboard, does the pc still reboot? If yes disconnect fans/cooler/hdd/ssd/dvd and things like that, and see if it still reboots. At this point we are just tyring to not have it reboot and get into bios. you can have the montior connected to the mobo(not gpu) during this.

Edited by DST4ME - 07 Aug 2016 at 9:15pm

reseated the cmos, and still nothing. there is also no 2-digit q code display when the mobo is powered on

plugged the pc directly into the wall outlet and it magically started working again... i wonder why that is.

anyways, i'll report back if something new arises.
thanks for all your help!

Bypassing a power strip has fixed quite a number of issues on the forums.   Not sure why exactly, except maybe "dirty" voltage feeding the psu.

Congrats and Enjoy.