5850 Cold boot issue

My Sapphire 4870x2 died about 3 weeks before the 2 year warranty expired, and Sapphire was very good about replacing it (took a while, but good nonetheless). They replaced it with a Toxic 5850 2GB and now I'm getting an issue with a cold boot (machine off for >30 minutes, time for everything to cool to room temp). When I turn it on from cold, my monitor goes from orange LED (standby) to green (on receiving signal) but the screen remains black. The machine boots fine, I can hear Win7 booting and logging in. I have to restart the machine in some way, and it boots fine, display works, absolutely no issues. I can literally press the reset button after the machine has been on for 5 seconds and it starts fine.
Solutions I've tried:
Updated my MSI x58 pro BIOS to latest
Tried every BIOS setting possible, reset all to default, tried a million combos of things
Tried different PCI-E slot
Reseating RAM
unplugging all devices that use power except MOBO and 5850
different monitor and DVI cable
tried using the molex to PCI power adapter
Uninstalling and reinstalling ATI drivers (this issue is a pre-driver issue)

Things I want to try but can't:
Different PSU

Other specs:
Core i7 920
MSI x58 pro
6GB corsair RAM
Sapphire Toxic 5850 2GB
950 watt PSU


Current temporary solution:
I put a BIOS password on the machine. When it beeps asking me for the password, i just restart it by CTRL ALT DELETE and it restarts and everything works perfectly. It's annoying and adds about 20 seconds to my boot time, but right now I really don't wanna send the card in and wait another month. Once everything boots, I've had zero problems. It's like the card needs about 3 seconds to boot up which is longer than what the BIOS gives it.

Anyone out there have suggestions????? I'm at a loss right now. Is there any way to prevent the BIOS from booting for about 5 seconds to make sure everything powers up properly??