Seems we have an ongoing problem with the above motherboard compatability to the phenom II X4 940 processor. it wont enter BIOS with first start-up. The processor is too new.
Result is that people like myself have to :
1) Rma the board back to supplier to have bios flashed. ...OR
2) Buy a cheap AM2 processor to get into BIOS.
We can then flash to a higher Bios level, remove the cheap processor, then re-install the bigger processor X4 940. .... mutter mutter and curses...
... seems like the AMD athlone64 socket am2 will do the job.
Apparently the motherboadr is very good once we get it going. Only time will tell.
Upgrading the guts of my system, to above with 8gb 1066mhz ram, and Vista64. keeping the Sli 8800 gts graphics cards. .... benchmarking posts with differences in the two systems will follow in a few weeks.
Like the chinese proverb/curse: may you live in interesting times ..