Poweredge R805 memory upgrade not working - stuck at "configuring memory, please wait" - can't even spread working memory to A and B slots

I have a Dell Poweredge R805 that when I purchased it, had all the memory in DIMM A - I've tried to balance them to 4 in A and 4 in B, but what I'm getting is stuck on the "Configuring Memory" Screen.  I recently bought an upgrade of 8 Identical DIMMS and I'm having the same trouble.

All DIMM's exact same memory and part - 4GB (PC2-5300P-555-12 - Hynix memory - all DIMMS - same part number HYMP151P72CP4 at 667 mhz  - but even the 8 that work in A cannot be staggered to B

Latest BIOS upgraded and I can't get into memory diagnostics even because I'm stuck clocking on "Configuring Memory"

Am I missing some stupid BIOS setting or memory disable jumper I have to look at?  I tried disabling memory testing in BIOS - seem to be hosed and bummed I can't expand to 64GB without a new memory investement.  I also may have lost the utility partition installing ESXI on the harddrive instead of on a SD card but I have time to fix that and can wipe/reinstall anything on these hard drives right now

To reiteritate - it's not the new memory because the old 8 which are inefficently stacked in DIMMA can't be spread out to 4 and 4 in DIMM A and B (slots A1-A4 and B1-B4) -

appreciate any help the forum can give me - I'm bummin

RB