Is your monitor plugged into the card or the board? The board video could be disabled when a card is plugged in.
I have powered usb risers that Im connecting directly to the pci-e cables to the PSU with the USB circuit board obviously connecting the mobo PCI-E slots. Am I missing something here? Do I need to plug the MSI molex connector into the actual cards? Right now Im using the molex attached to the USB pci-e riser to connect to PSU cables?
I'm not sure I'm understanding what you are doing here.
You are plugging the PCI-e connectors from the PSU directly into the cards correct? Then using a molex from the PSU to power the riser cable with the connection on the riser board? You need both. Should be a 8 pin and 6 pin connection on the card that needs to come directly from PSU, and then a 4 pin molex on the roser board that comes from PSU.