BIOS chip damaged by mixing RAM of differing latencies???

Hello all,

I hope someone can help. It SEEMS the BIOS chip has been damaged by mixing RAM of differing latencies???

I have an Asus M4A89GTD mobo, which has been running merrily with G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model F3-12800CL7D-8GBXH, CL7 (7-8-7-24), 1.6v.

I ordered a second set - or what I THOUGHT was a second set of the SAME ram (different color). But unbeknownst to me, what I received was G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL, CL9, 1.5v.

Upon arriving home from a 14 hour work day, I found the ram in by mailbox and promptly installed this second set next to the original set.

The fans and drives all powered on, and the red MemOK! button illuminated, but the machine would not boot. I read the instructions in the Asus manual, pressed the MemOK! Button, let it cycle through progressively faster flashes, then back to solid red. One note - the maanual states that the mobo will reboot after each test cycle, but it never rebooted - the flashes just changed tempo.

I pulled the new ram, tried booting in the original configuration - which has worked beautifully for months - but to my surprise, it did the same thing: power up, but no boot. It will not boot from cd/dvd.

Eventually I discoverd that the second set of ram was not in fact identical to the first.

Thus began the cycle - try each stick individually in each and every slot; clear CMOS with jumper; remove battery and clear CMOS again; press the MemOK! button with it this way, then that... All to no avail.

I removed and reinstalled the CPU (Athlon X3 455) and both sets of RAM (individually, of course) in a machine I'm building that's lacking only the CPU and RAM  . It all works fine! In fact, I'm typing this post on that machine now!

So it SEEMS perhaps the BIOS chip has been damaged? By RAM of differing latencies???

Or the MoBo itself?

Any suggestions?

Thank You!