@danasan:
It looks like the bend/crack doesn't extend across any of the lanes on the back of the board, so I'll give it a shot. The first question will be if it can be screwed onto the chassis properly without it cracking more or the bend making it impossible to get it firmly seated.
I ordered the PSU and I should have it tomorrow. I can take a spare monitor/kb/mouse home from work to get started and see what happens with the mobo. The only thing I still want to order new is a kb & mouse, but that can wait. I may need cables to hook up drives if what I've got aren't as long as I'd like, but I won't know that til I get some components in place.
When I'm handling the sensitive hardware I always make sure to touch something else metallic first, I've never had any problems.
@Jan: I waited too long to look hard enough at the board to see the defect, so I'm long past Tiger Direct's return window. That was my mistake so I'm not gonna go back to them and cry about it.
And I do think the paste is already pre-applied to the fan.
