My MSI Experience (or why I won't buy another MSI product)

[Octopuss]

I do have relatively fresh experience with MSI technical support. Completely useless replies written in borderline broken english. Typical trained chimps support. At least they weren't indian though. Also better than Gigabyte, where you don't even get an answer.

 

[Komshija]

I have only good experience with MSI motherboards, starting from 645 Ultra, K7N2 Delta 2, 970A G43 to Z170A Krait Gaming 3X. But manufacturers should provide much better customer support than they are currently offering. The bigger the company, the less likely they'll reply to you - that's my experience so far with various companies and/or corporations.

 

[mrw1986]

Hi everyone!

So, I have an update. A couple of weeks ago I filed complaints with the BBB, California Department of Consumer Affairs, and the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs.

I received a call from MSI two nights ago stating they were responding to my complaints. They informed me that they couldn't process a refund, but they would be willing to upgrade me to a brand new, not refurbished, higher model X99 motherboard or a graphics card. They had me specify in an email what I was interested in, within reason. I told them I would like a GTX 1070. The next day, they responded and said they would be more than happy to give me the GTX 1070 in exchange for my dead board.

At first they offered me a brand new Founder's Edition GTX 1070, but I'm not a fan of the cooler on that card. They then offered me a refurbished GTX 1070 Gaming X 8GB which I told them I would gladly accept. They assured me it will carry the remainder of my motherboard's warranty, which is another 2 years. Last night they sent me the UPS Return Label and RMA slip for the motherboard. Once received, they will ship out the 1070.

There's almost a $200 price difference between the motherboard and the 1070, so in this case it seems they really went above and beyond for me, granted, it took several RMAs, many phone calls, and complaints to various bureaus.

 

[P4-630]

 

[GreiverBlade]

seconded good one

 

[Vario]

I had a similar problem with Gigabyte.

My Gigabyte 7970 model GV-R797OC-3GD: RMA'd it 3x, each time got a crappier card. These cards were not stable enough to sit in Windows let alone game on them. Even underclocking them would not make them stable.

I think they were different cards each time because the obvious bad quality soldering repairs were in different places. Maybe it was because of the Litecoin epidemic at the time and Gigabyte was too swamped with RMAs to bother to repair the cards properly.

I ended up buying a brand new PNY 770 2GB and selling the 7970 to a miner with some disclaimer like "factory refurbished no warranties talk to Gigabyte". Because of Litecoin bubble, I sold the card for double what I paid for it.

I don't know if all Gigabyte videocards are terrible or if the RMA department was swamped with Litecoin damaged cards but it soured my opinion of the brand.

Too bad because the 7970 would have been a nice card to have with the 1GB more Vram and the still relevant GCN driver support.

The 770 still works perfectly and has been the most reliable graphics card I've had so atleast thats the silver lining.

My Gigabyte motherboard still works fine and is reasonably reliable. Its a sub par overclocker with bad memory compatibility but is trouble free. I have to run a beta bios to support my samsung greens, and I can't exactly overclock them or my CPU as far as the Asrock z77 board I used to have.

I've reached the conclusion that all the brands have shitty RMA service and its all luck whether they will escalate the claim to a competent person, or just keep churning out bad repair jobs in an endless loop until you give up. There are Fanbois for all these brands that insist their brand is the most reliable with the best customer service, and that is bullshit. Corsair fanbois are probably the worst in this regard.

 

[mrw1986]

I had a similar problem with Gigabyte.

My Gigabyte 7970 model GV-R797OC-3GD: RMA'd it 3x, each time got a crappier card. These cards were not stable enough to sit in Windows let alone game on them. Even underclocking them would not make them stable.

I think they were different cards each time because the obvious bad quality soldering repairs were in different places. Maybe it was because of the Litecoin epidemic at the time and Gigabyte was too swamped with RMAs to bother to repair the cards properly.

I ended up buying a brand new PNY 770 2GB and selling the 7970 to a miner with some disclaimer like "factory refurbished no warranties talk to Gigabyte". Because of Litecoin bubble, I sold the card for double what I paid for it.

I don't know if all Gigabyte videocards are terrible or if the RMA department was swamped with Litecoin damaged cards but it soured my opinion of the brand.

Too bad because the 7970 would have been a nice card to have with the 1GB more Vram and the still relevant GCN driver support.

The 770 still works perfectly and has been the most reliable graphics card I've had so atleast thats the silver lining.

My Gigabyte board still works fine and is reasonably reliable. Its a sub par overclocker with bad memory compatibility but is trouble free.

I've reached the conclusion that all the brands have shitty RMA service and its all luck whether they will escalate the claim to a competent person, or just keep churning out bad repair jobs in an endless loop until you give up. There are Fanbois for all these brands that insist their brand is the most reliable with the best customer service, and that is bullshit. Corsair fanbois are probably the worst in this regard.

I think a large portion of the shitty RMA service is because most brands outsource it. I only know of a handful of brands that perform in-house RMA (EVGA being one of them).

 

[Vario]

I think a large portion of the shitty RMA service is because most brands outsource it. I only know of a handful of brands that perform in-house RMA (EVGA being one of them).

I buy motherboards from Amazon.com now.

Why? 30 day no hassle return. Don't have to deal with the manufacturer. Newegg forces you to RMA DOA boards and with that you are most likely shit out of luck.

I also don't like Amazon, and don't really give a shit about returning products to them anymore.

I had to return a DOA Z77E ITX and it was super easy. If I bought that board from Newegg I would have had to RMA it to Asrock, which would have probably resulted in a bad experience.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

First of all -- great result. the 1070 Gaming X is an excellent card -- Im still in the process of overclocking mine but so far I have the core at +150 ontop of its original overclock. Im bumping clocks up 10-15mhz at a time after a session of BF1.

I buy motherboards from Amazon.com now.

Why? 30 day no hassle return. Don't have to deal with the manufacturer. Newegg forces you to RMA DOA boards and with that you are most likely shit out of luck.

I also don't like Amazon, and don't really give a shit about returning products to them anymore.

I had to return a DOA Z77E ITX and it was super easy. If I bought that board from Newegg I would have had to RMA it to Asrock, which would have probably resulted in a bad experience.

I cant really speak for Amazon.com but with their UK dept they have always been fairly helpful when I have had issues with faulty products. I think ive had only one occasion where the amazon rep fobbed me off and sent me on an impossible task of seeking an RMA for something that didnt even cost $20 with a company that had now way of RMA'ing directly and whose website directed me back to the retailer if i needed to return something.... Went back onto livechat, made a complaint about getting fobbed off and received a small voucher to have $6 off my next purchase.

Im actually an amazon prime member now and i recently had to get on livechat with them for the first time after not receiving a GoW4 game code with the purchase of my 1070. The amount of ass kissing was just blatantly obvious... Amazon service was good before but now they bend over backwards if youre a prime member.

 

[mrw1986]

First of all -- great result. the 1070 Gaming X is an excellent card -- Im still in the process of overclocking mine but so far I have the core at +150 ontop of its original overclock. Im bumping clocks up 10-15mhz at a time after a session of BF1.




I cant really speak for Amazon.com but with their UK dept they have always been fairly helpful when I have had issues with faulty products. I think ive had only one occasion where the amazon rep fobbed me off and sent me on an impossible task of seeking an RMA for something that didnt even cost $20 with a company that had now way of RMA'ing directly and whose website directed me back to the retailer if i needed to return something.... Went back onto livechat, made a complaint about getting fobbed off and received a small voucher to have $6 off my next purchase.

Im actually an amazon prime member now and i recently had to get on livechat with them for the first time after not receiving a GoW4 game code with the purchase of my 1070. The amount of ass kissing was just blatantly obvious... Amazon service was good before but now they bend over backwards if youre a prime member.

I agree, I've been a Prime member for 6 years now - they have gone above and beyond for ANY requests I've ever had. I've also received so many credits from them as compensation.

 

[Ungari]

I think a large portion of the shitty RMA service is because most brands outsource it. I only know of a handful of brands that perform in-house RMA (EVGA being one of them).

I tried forever to get somebody to answer a phone, the person who answered was a mongoloid, transfers my call, and while I'm waiting I get disconnected.