Quoted from Validpowerdetect:Repaired the ground plane. Board booted right up.
Still would like to know what that had to do with VMA, but what the hey.
Thanks Quench!
VMA is an output from the CPU chip. If the CPU is crashed / locked up don't expect the VMA to be doing anything meaningful.
Wrong / no activity on the VMA is typically a symptom of a locked up CPU not really a cause of it being locked.