Thanks for the replies, I appreciate your help .. Perhaps you're right about the bad flash, though thankfully I'm back up now with a new successful flash of the 0904 crosshair modded bios. The last one you gave me a url for. It all went fine, fully operational BIOS features, correct POST etc..Everest shows the SLIC table under APIC but Ultimate will not activate, gave me 26 days grace instead !! Anyway.. Thankyou for clarifying the AWDFlash usage.. I had been reading conflicting opinions. Again, thanks for your continued help