I actually used the cables from the 1200w.  Apparently, some say to only use the cables that come with the PSU.  At least that tells me that my PSU cables were probably fine.
 
Well, I took the Noctua off as well as the CPU and took a picture of the pins that I'll send to the service tech.  It's all back together again now.  Oddly, it looks like the CPU is running just a bit cooler than before.  Probably got a better coverage of the thermal paste.  When I took the Noctua off, I did notice some places that didn't have thermal paste coverage...and oddly more in the center, even though I put down a center pea dot, as well as smaller ones on the corners.  

Yeah....it seems to run fairly cool, none the less.  Just have this website open only.  Temp on the motherboard says 28C.

I was thinking there was too much paste on those.  
 
Anyway, I did send them the image of my CPU socket pins.  Hopefully they can get an idea out of the image.  My phone doesn't take the best images.
 
Question.  It seems I'll have to RMA this motherboard and it will be replaced with another Classified.  Would it be worth doing [if it is something that can be done, that is] to upgrade to the Kingpin, or would that require me to refigure a bunch of stuff?  If I get another Classified, I guess all I need to do is put the CPU, hard drives, cables, etc on the new board and it should work, right?
 
Another question.  Is there anything I could have set up incorrectly that would cause these problems?

frankd3

B0baganoosh
Just to clarify, that picture above is not mine, but pulled from the internet. Too much paste in all those pictures, in my opinion.

I did have at least one good picture of proper paste spread in that thread though.

Sorry about that
Should have just posted a link.

No worries! I just wanted to clarify that those are not...ideal. I was on my phone when I posted that comment, otherwise I would have just given the actual picture of a pretty good paste spread, as it looks when removing the cooler:

Raven, as you can see, the cooler squishes out a lot of the paste, so seeing what look like bare spots in the middle (where it has been squished away) is pretty normal. I'm assuming that's what you meant, anyway. I didn't have any coverage on the lower left corner in that picture, but the rest of the CPU was covered pretty well.
 

RAVENEVGA
I was thinking there was too much paste on those.  
 
Anyway, I did send them the image of my CPU socket pins.  Hopefully they can get an idea out of the image.  My phone doesn't take the best images.
 
Question.  It seems I'll have to RMA this motherboard and it will be replaced with another Classified.  Would it be worth doing [if it is something that can be done, that is] to upgrade to the Kingpin, or would that require me to refigure a bunch of stuff?  If I get another Classified, I guess all I need to do is put the CPU, hard drives, cables, etc on the new board and it should work, right?
 
Another question.  Is there anything I could have set up incorrectly that would cause these problems?

OK, for the swap. They have two ways to do the RMA, one is you take it out of the case (remove all the CPU, M.2 SSDs (careful removing those slowly because the thermal pads can be sticky and cause the m.2 drive to bend...slow and steady when lifting), cables, etc.,) put the plastic socket guard in the socket, box it up, mail it out...wait some period of time for it to get to them, have them inspect it, then ship you a replacement. Do your install of all the parts like new.
 
Option 2: cross-ship. This one you have to put down collateral (I think it's the price of a new board now), they ship you a motherboard in a basic box (no accessories). You receive that, swap out your motherboard, get yourself up and running with the new board, then ship your old one back in the basic box (keeping all your accessories). They inspect the returned board and return your collateral payment. I personally like this option because there's barely any down-time and if there is some kind of issue with the replacement board, you can just call them immediately and get approval to send that one back while they mail you a second replacement and you can keep using your old one in the meantime, as much as it lets you anyway. You just have to wait a couple weeks to get your money back.
 
As for the actual hardware swapping, the physical part is pretty straight-forward, just be careful not to damage the CPU socket on the old board when you disassemble things. With either method described above, when you receive the replacement board, look the whole thing over before you start doing anything with it. Check that the CPU socket pins all look normal/straight (all aligned with each other). Check that other connectors on the board are not damaged or that there's no other issues you can see with the replacement board. If the CPU socket pins all look good and you don't see any other issues, go ahead and get it into your system. A general recommendation often given is to do a test run where you hook up your boot drive, CPU, memory, and the CPU cooler with the motherboard sitting on the box or something temporary (before you put it into your case) to make sure it works well before you go through all the hassle of installing it into your case. This is totally up to you. If you find an issue, you've saved yourself a bunch of time and effort. If you don't find any issues, you've cost yourself a little time and effort lol.

So, Windows and all your drivers and software are still going to be on your boot drive. All your settings and software/files are there, not tied to the motherboard. That said, there may be some slight differences in the IC's on the motherboard, so it wouldn't hurt to re-download the drivers from the support site and just re-install those from scratch. Windows update may also re-install some things and you should be good to go. The only thing you have to completely start from scratch on is your BIOS. This is where I was suggesting you go through the BIOS screens on your current motherboard and take screenshots to either your phone, or press F12 and save them to a USB stick that you can put into another computer while you set up the BIOS on your new motherboard. You may also want to download BIOS 1.15 ahead of time just incase the replacement board doesn't have the latest one on it.
 
Hopefully that answers all your questions, but we'll be here. Good luck!

RAVENEVGA
Thanks again, guys.  Option #2 definitely seems to be the way to go.  
 
As for "upgrading to the Kingpin", assuming I'd even want to do that, is that something they would entertain?  Would I even want to do that to begin with?  

Sorry, I forgot about that question. I don't think they'll do that. They used to have a step-up program, but I'm not sure what motherboards have qualified for that for some time now and I'm not sure if step-up is even a thing for EVGA anymore. Anyway, beyond that I don't think they'd do it, I don't think you'd gain any benefit from it as you don't do any overclocking. It's 100% geared towards overclockers with a super-powered VRM and the two-DIMM slots set up for maximum memory speed. Unless you're thinking about picking up a new hobby, I don't think the cost difference would be worth it for you at all.

If your cpu socket pins look fine, than no, I don't have any reason to think you caused this.

If you have to unplug and plug your Keyboard for it to function again you have same problem I had. is not going to be fix by bios nor anything else but good old fashion RMA. That how I fix my Keyboard.

I should have the new motherboard coming in some time this evening.  Just so I am certain, this is the BIOS I'll want to use, right?
 
121-AL-E698-KR - EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED - v1.15
 
 

I have it downloaded onto my flash drive [only file currently on this flash drive] ready for when the new MB has been installed.  
 
Thanks as always, B0baganoosh!  

Got a reply back from the service person.  They said, "Thank you for reporting back. It is highly unlikely that another motherboard sent out would exhibit the same symptoms. I would suggest there may be a problem with the CPU itself. Are you able to test with a replacement? If not I would suggest reaching out to intel in regards to getting warranty through them to rule that out as a culprit of failure."
 
Comments?
 
As for testing with a replacement, I don't think I have one I can do that with.  My nephew's system is using a 12900 Intel for his build, but not sure how I could test with that one. 

If I did replace a CPU, would I have to reinstall things?  Or would it be similar to replacing the motherboard, where saved items would be kept?

I asked you this in the PM before seeing this reply.  Sounds good.  Thanks!

You may also have a keyboard problem. I think those are unrelated at this point. I agree with you everything pointed at a motherboard issue, but it seems to persist. At this point you've tested replacements for everything other than the cpu and memory. I know you've done some memtest runs, so I agree that cpu is the next thing to test. If a replacement cpu doesn't do it, I would test one stick of memory at a time and see if the problem continues.

Well damn. 
 
Not the CPU.
 

I may try my nephew's memory and see what it does.  But yeah.....this really is nuts.
 
As for the memtest86, are you saying that I should put it on a USB drive and have it inserted when I boot up the system?  I'm not sure I understand.

If memory isn't it, could the GPU be the cause?

I have a vertical GPU mount.  What is the possibility that the extension is the problem?  If I replace with my nephew's memory and it still happens, I could mount the GPU straight into the Motherboard and see how that does.