Hi Cryptik,
Well this is the point I ask for help. I got a Q9550 E0 step (1.18xx VID), put it into the M2F and put in all 8GB (2GB x 4) Mushkin RAM (996580) onto the board with a vanilla 8800GT 512MB...powered up...and NO BOOT. Pulled out 2 sticks of RAM from the white sockets and it POSTED...

I swapped the 2 sticks I pulled out into the blue sockets and posted again, so I guess all 4 sticks are alive...

Vista 64 SP1 loaded onto the 300GB Velociraptor in less than 20 mins

Now could you point me in the direction to my settings; I know you probably have given them before to someone else to get up and running with 8GB of DDR2 but I've started to trawl through from page 1. I'm not sure if I should be trying to get my OC up before getting the 8Gb stable or try to get the CPU up to speed and then add the other 4GB. Any advice at all would be welcome