(LPA 800) Faulty Boot, LED's on, No Fan, No Display

Using both the Official LPA USB-C Power Brick and a 12v 4a DC supply, I get a pulsating red light for a few seconds. Then a flashing Blue LED every 5 seconds. This doesn't appear to stop. If I push the power button the LED will go to solid blue after a few seconds, and it would appear to enter a boot cycle. But there is no display or flicker, the fan doesn't move at all. I have checked for ground short around the power rail and none of the components seem to indicate a short EXCEPT the Realtek ALC269 chip gets scorching hot. Whether the board is powered on or just plugged in. It gets hot. The only shorts I do find on the board with a multimeter are the capacitors directly beneath the CPU. Is the CPU dead or is there some weird shorting here because of of a faulty Realtek sound chip. The CPU does not appear to warm up at all while plugged in or powered on.



Any Ideas?

Thanks.