Gaming PC Diagnostic

[Rogean]

I'm going crazy with this and could probably use some fresh eyes on it.

I built a new PC for a friend recently. Specs:

CORSAIR HX series HX650 650W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770
EVGA SuperClocked w/ ACX Cooling 02G-P4-2774-KR GeForce GTX 770 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Western Digital WD AV-GP WD10EURX 1TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
Intel 520 Series Cherryville SSDSC2CW180A3K5 2.5" 180GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

Built it perfectly fine. Originally got 2x of the RAM (so 4x4GB), but one of the sticks was preventing the BIOS from posting, so it was RMA'd. After removing it, the PC boots.

Installed Windows 7. Run into some issues during that.. it freezes during it's bootup after initially installing some drivers. Have to hard reboot it. Then it intermittently has freezing issues every once in a while.

Here's the really confusing part. It won't launch ANY games.

Everquest - It actually gets to the server select. As soon as it starts loading in.. music comes on and you can see the loading screen for maybe 2-3 seconds, then it crashes without an error, straight to desktop.

Star Wars - Won't even get past the launcher. Soon as you hit Play, about 10 seconds later you get a SWTOR has encountered an error. MSVC100.dll or whatever.

We installed DX9.. all drivers are correct and latest versions, straight off manufacturing website. Latest NVidia driver was installed.

We tried the following diagnostics...

Removed a stick of RAM.. still issues.
Placed RAM stick back, removed the other stick... still issues.
Removed video card and used onboard HD 4000... still issues.

Updated BIOS to latest.. still issues.

Tried launching games from different hard drives.. still issues.

We completely blew away Windows 7, started all over again... still issues.

At this point I'm thinking it's a defective motherboard.. possibly one of those tiny little bulbs got knocked somehow? I'm not sure, but something is definitely wrong.

Anyways, let me know what you guys think.