it seems i have some sort of oscilator problem...

it could be a bad solder joint or something like that... but it once lit all 8 LED's and then once i disconnected the power it refused to work again...
so i rebuilt the circuit on a small piece of plugboard and used a salvaged 1.4MHz crystal... wouldn't mind so much, but the pair of 20MHz crystals i've got spacifically to do the job are brand new...
The second crystal is allready in my proper build board...

I don't need the timing acuracy of an xtal but the speed will be required, has anyone got a formula for using RC? or is that not advisable at such speeds?

Thanks to everyone