P35 Platinum: I have to press the power button multiple times to start

Question

Hello fellow MSI customers,
 as written in the subject, I have a problem with starting my PC. When I press the power button, the computer powers on, but there is no output to the screen. In fact, my LCD stays in standby mode. I can hear the fans running, so something is going on. According to the LEDs on the mainboard, it is a memory problem.
 Now I turn the computer off, using the power button (have to hold it for a few seconds). When off, I start again and everything runs as it should.
 After starting, I ran memtest86 multiple times without any errors. I ran a few games, compiled some programs, installed Vista 64bit, Linux, all without any crashes or hangups. It is just the starting that makes problems. After booting it is very stable.
 Seeing that it could be a memory problem, I brought another pair of memory, just to be sure. I couldn't reproduce the problem on that day! Any type of memory I put in (the one before, or the newly brought home) the computer always started on the press of the button. So I thought, OK, maybe they were not seated correctly. But, alas, two days later it is again only starting by pressing the power button three times.
 What I tried:
 1. Boot using only 1 piece of memory stick
 2. Boot using only 1 piece of memory, but different one
 3. Use another pair of memory   <-  worked, but on that day it also worked using my original memory
 4. Disconnected everything except graphics card, to make sure it is not a power supply issue (minimized power usage)
 5. Tried all of the above with a different processor
 6. Used another power supply
Any other ideas?
Here are my specs:
MSI P35 platinum
Core2 Q6600
Nvidia 7900GT
4GB V-Data DDR2 800MHz      <--- I think this is the problem, any experiences?
Enermax Liberty 400W
a few other things (HDDs, XFi, DVD-RW)
By the way, how can I boot from an external DVD-RW? It doesn't show in the menu when I press F11 (boot menu).
 Thank you for any help, muro
And just to let a bit of steam off:
1. I had major problems with the RAID controller (not MSI fault, rather intel) - I put two disks into a RAID 0, then RAID 1 and they always failed after a few boots - member missing on both disks. I was getting angry, so I put them as normal (non RAID) disks and everything is fine since, although no RAID.
2. Installing anything except windows with an IDE DVD-RW is very hard. It took me ages until I got Ubuntu booting (there are guides on the net, google is your friend), and much longer to get grub (boot loader) working. Long story short - if you have multiple disks, use the Linux disk as the bootable, do NOT put grub on the disk where Vista is installed.
3. I have no idea, how to update the BIOS, if I had to. I'm using 1.1 that came on the board. I use 64bit Vista and Linux, none of which is supported to upgrade the BIOS. Any hints how to do it (if I needed to)?

Answer 1

Hello,
 now today is the day I've finally received my replacement board. The good news first - it DOES work! Yepeeee!
 Now some more information:
   The jmicron controller seems to be missing - a screen with something about "Marvel" is shown before the intel raid screen. However, it is only visible for a fraction of second, so I cannot read it. I think it detects my IDE DVD-RW so I'm quite certain it's the replacement for jmicron. I won't miss it - it took me ages to install Linux with the jmicron controller.
   The problem where I had to restart the computer sometimes because it didn't even post (RAM error) is gone. It boots just fine now.
 I had an extremely long first post - about a minute, but after that it boots very fast now.
 anyway, regarding some questions around here - the manual states MSI recommends using an 350W power supply. My 400W is more than enough. Please note - it is an Enermax, not one bundled with a cheap case. My cheap RAM sticks also work very well now. I did try them on different boards before, so now I know I just had a faulty board.
 In the end, I can only say this: This is my 3rd board already and it's the first one that works well. As the hardware changed, I presume there were major issues with this board that lead them to make a new revision. What is strange, though, is that the revision is still 1.1, as were my previous two. I pity everybody who had the same problems as I did, but I can now say that I'm very happy about the board now.
 Cheers, muro