Asus A8V-VM CSM Bios Post

My Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard (Socket 939 with Athlon 64 X2 CPU) died.

Before it died completely, following were the symptoms:

It started by not going into POST at first startattempt. No start beep, and screen remained black.CPU fan and HD drives started spinning.

Most of the times it did start after stopping (either switch at PSU or keeping startbutton pushed for some seconds) and quickly pushing startbutton again.

When going into Bios setup I could make changes, but it would not
obey to 'Save and exit', other than complete freeze of screen and keyboard.

I flashed the bios (DOS program Afudos) with three different versions of bios from Asus site. Flashing was accepted with no problems.

Disconnecting everything but one memory stick, keyboard, monitor and mouse did not make change.

Now the board has died completely.

I tried another PSU and another CPU (known to be good). No change.
All capacitors on the board look healthy (no bulged tops and no signs of leaking electrolite).

Considering the initial Bios-related problems, I wonder whether it could be a faulty bios chip.
In that case it would be possible to buy a preprogrammed bios chip.

Question: Do you consider a faulty bios chip likely causing the problem or should I just accept a dead MoBo?