Wierd Boot Problem with P5Q-E

the system is as follows:
P5Q-E mobo
Q9550 intel quad (I got it up to 4.5 Ghz, it's been reset since this problem)
-Core 0 is a good 15 degrees above the rest of them
HX 1000W Corsair PSU
ATI HD4850x2 secondary
ATI HD4890 primary
8 GB of Kingston RAM CL5
Creative Audigy 2 ZS
WD 1500RPM drives in RAID 0
liquid cooled Video (4850x2 & 4890 fullcovers), NB, SB, RAM, CPU (15degress idel) & MOSFETs

The issue that I'm having is that the computer freezes just before the Ai-Net logo comes up (press tab to see POST and Del for BIOS ect). If I unplug the PC, wait 5 sec. then plug it back in no problems boots to windows fine. Any other situation frozen. By my count if that CMOS battery was dead it would try to boot by BIOS defaults, fail (need to set RAID) and tell me it couldn't find an OS on a hard drive. I've swapped the memory, with the same issue. Damaged hard drive or damaged memory slot would result in not being able to boot at all, not periodically. I'm guessing an issue with the BIOS, but I can't wrap my head around what it could be. Keep in mind it takes a good weekend to dissassemble this damn thing.

Have you swapped out the hdd sata cables? I had an issue similar to to what you're going through. Swapping out the sata cables solved it.

oddly enough I haven't made any hardware changes, it just started happening. But I'll give it a shot.

No luck... the SATA cables are in the only configuration that will load windows. It freezes even before the mobo does the mem test. The actual memory is fine, I've swapped it for some corsair stuff I had lying around, and nothing. Is there anything that anyone knows of (short of RMAing the board) that would cause this?

I feel so stupid. First of all sorry to have waisted all of your time... Boot problems before memtest suggests PSU... with this bad *** PSU, however, failure isn't an option. A "short" in the switch on the fan on the Antec Skeleton, the Corsair HX PSU supplies all available current to the switch (I guess there's a failsafe in the switch) and not to the motherboard. This is what was causing the freezing. As to why is would only work after it had been unplugged is (I'm guessing) the PSU had to power up all the capacitors on the motherboard and was "distracted" from the short in the fan. Thank you, Nebulous for taking the time. For anyone interested, Corsair has 2 PSUs available the TX series and the HX series, I hereby stongly recommend the HX series... where all other PSU whould have let "the magic smoke out" the HX Corsair endured. Pain in the *** to figure out, but well worth the money.

I had the same problem - turned out to be a bad PSU

if you take the time to plug in a speaker to your motherboard it'll tell you everything you need to know. You can look up "system beeps" on google, and one 'freakishly' long system beep implies you don't have enough power, so with no physical problems (explosions) you start unplugging things. Hence the apology. Lien Li (another amazing company) give you a 'troubleshooting' speaker with all purchases. I'm just simple.