(another) MSI p45 platinum problem

So here's my problem:

I recently wanted to build a computer, and being new decided to take toms advice and made a build similar to their overclocking marathon sub $1000 machine. Specs:
Mobo: MSI P45 platinum
CPU: E8400
Ram: Corsair 2 x 2 G
PSU: Corsair 550 W
HD: Seagate barracuda 500G
optical: old drive from dell (don't remember brand)
Graphics card: 8800 GT 500 MB

The story so far: Being my first time, the setup probably took a little longer than it should of, but as far as i know I managed to get everything into place without breaking. The first boot attempt was very unsuccessful, as I had no image what so ever on the monitor. I tried to shut off and restart, as I could tell by the lights and sounds that components were working, they were just not giving me an image. I know that the graphics card is good, because until just recently it was in a different pc, everything else on the system is new. After a few restarts I decided to push a few buttons to escape out of the bios, and I did manage to get a MSI start up screen. I restarted one more time (my keyboard was working at this time... more on that later) with my windows xp CD in the drive and everything seemed peachy. I had read about the bios problems of this board and so hoped that once windows was installed and a bios update was in place all would be well.... but back to the windows install. All was going well, and I was doing a full format of my new HD, but the partioning was not progressing past 3 % for several hours. After much searching on the internet and no further progress, I decided that my only recourse was to reset (....fatal error on my part?). Since that point I have had no luck with any thing what so ever. i am unable to get any images on my monitor, and the worst part is that my keyboard will not even register at this point. I am at a loss here. Did i make a mistake by purchasing an MSI product as I have read on other similar posts? I have tried the CMOS reset and unplugging the PC with no results. I am new to system building, and must say it is a frustrating first go. I purchased my mobo from newegg, which has a limited return policy on mobo's. I could eat the cost and get another brand, possibly selling an RMA on ebay, but want to see if there is anything I am missing there. Any help greatly appreciated.

Edit: corrected newegg return policy

Thanks for the advice! I actually got a similar reply from a coworker, and it seemed that I had not seated a RAM module fully. So i did get it to boot, moved on to other problems, but long story short after a driver and bios update it is currently working well.