I replaced a failed Maximus VIII with the Maximus IX in February. Things have been running fine since. I was using my PC until roughly 2 a.m. on Monday night. When I came home from work on Tuesday, I noticed it looked like it was asleep. When I tried to wake it up, nothing. I noticed none of the usual, blinking case lights were active, but I could see the motherboard lights on. When I went to hold down the power button to force a shutdown, a single press of the button caused the PC to turn off immediately--not usually a good sign.

When I turn it on now, everything starts (fans, lights, etc.) but it never gets past the ASUS Press "DEL" to enter bios screen. It freezes there every time. At first, I thought it was my display port/monitor. When I used an HDMI and my TV, I could see the PC eventually freezes on the initial enter bios screen.

When I boot up now, the motherboard displays all the usual diagnostic codes until it finally ends on "AO" which I'm told means everything is fine. LOL.

I've tried removing the GPU and plugging it straight into the motherboard.
I tried removing the B slots of RAM.
I've tried a different monitor, cable, and went from DP to HDMI.

When my last motherboard failed, I bought a replacement PSU to diagnose it. The Corsair PSU I have now is 850W and only 3 months old.

What gives with these ROG specific boards and their instability/failure rate? I've never had issues with motherboards like the ones I'm having with these--and these are the most expensive boards I've ever purchased. This will be my second ASUS ROG board that has failed in less than 1.5 years.

If your advice is to RMA the board, that's fine, but I'd rather call Comcast to get my dose of garbage customer service. So, rather than put me through that, I'm looking for any advice regarding feature-comparable alternatives to ASUS ROG that you may have. Are the normal ASUS boards without the ROG name the same? Is there an MSI or Gigabyte 1151 and z270 board that would work well as a replacement?