Yea if you can get another stick of ram and check it out that would help eliminate one thing. No I dont think that since it supports 1.8 that you would have to have 1.8 to boot. Pretty sure it just means that it will support voltages down to 1.8. Asus boards are kinda picky with Ram not for sure about MSI boards havent used them in awhile. I,ve found Gigabyte about the most Ram friendly.