Quads need higher NB and FSB voltage on this board (>1.5)
OK, found out something useful with my 9450 quad. My bios corruption, and hung boot problems were coming from what seems obvious now - lack of NB and FSB voltage.
So, if you have a quad don't mess around. Move up the NB and FSB voltages to > 1.50 like so many other boards require. I was trying to :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:foot around 1.39-1.42 v. It has caused me nothing but going half bald with bios restores, hung boots and kicked cats.
For some reason that I don't yet understand, using my Dominator or Ballistix ram really agravated this problem further. No doubt this board likes the GSkill 8500. It seems much less cantankerous with it. Still, it took 1.5-ish to gentle it down and get clean boots above 448. Something happens on this board when you cross 450. I don't get that yet, either.
I hope this saves some of you some aggro.