Jump to content

Don't buy MSI stuff

~pcwiz
 Share
29 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

~pcwiz
~pcwiz
Posted
Posted

Hi,

 

Just wanted t o give everyone a word of advice. Don't buy MSI hardware. Its horrible, low quality Made in Taiwan hardware...Not to say that Taiwan stuff isn't good, look at ASUS for example. Great quality. Nope, its just the MSI stuff that's causing the trouble. Especially stay away from MSI video cards. Trust me, I know from experience. Heres the story,

 

So about 9-11 months ago I got a custom-built computer with an MSI RX1300-TD256E video card (ATI Radeon X1300 PRO chipset). While the chipset was from a reputed manufacturer, the video card's fan/heatsink wasn't. After about 11 months after I got the computer with the MSI card, the computer started to have graphics problems. After leaving the computer on for about 40 minutes, the screen went all green. It just got worse and worse, Windows woldn't even boot and I couldn't back up my latest files. I thought it was a software problem and I was about to hit the F in Windows Setup to format the drive and reinstall windows when I realized, looking through my computers see-through case that the video card fan had disconnected itself from the video card's heatsink.

 

Upon closer inspection, I saw that there was a little transparent slab of plastic that was screwed onto the heatsink using 3 tiny screws. The fan had been glued on to the slab of plastic (cheap work, eh?). The fan had come off because the slab of plastic had been broken and it was disconnected from the heatsink. Because the fan wasn't working, the video card kept on overheating and the heat eventually destroyed the circuitry.

 

Anyway, I replaced my video card with a shiny new ATI Radeon X1650 PRO PCIe card from ATI Technologies. Anyone else have problems with MSI stuff?

Link to comment
https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/61543-dont-buy-msi-stuff/
Share on other sites
Headrush69
Headrush69
Posted
Posted

Zero problems with MSI motherboards and video cards for several years.

 

Sorry to hear about your problems, but I'm sure a same story can be told about every manufacturer out there, it happens.

You said it happened 11 months after purchase, was there no warranty left?

 

I haven't bought a MSI video card recently, but the last few cards I bought all had a minimum of 1 year manufacturer replacement.

~pcwiz
~pcwiz
Posted
  • Author
Posted

No warranty. :(Just wanted to clarify. Its not the performance thats bad with the MSI cards, the performance is as good as any other card with the same chipset (though its junk compared to my new X1650 PRO). Its the longetivity and lifetime that I find horrible with MSI graphics cards, at least with my particular model.

Headrush69
Headrush69
Posted
Posted
No warranty. :(Just wanted to clarify. Its not the performance thats bad with the MSI cards, the performance is as good as any other card with the same chipset.

Never thought it had anything to do with performance. (Since most of these cards are identical across manufacturers anyways. :)

 

Its the longetivity and lifetime that I find horrible with MSI graphics cards, at least with my particular model.

So is this based on this card only or have you had several MSI video cards fail?

 

Like I mentioned, the MSI video cards I purchased several years ago are all still running fine. The only problem card I ever had was an XFX card that the fan failed. It was under warranty but quicker for me to replace the fan myself.

~pcwiz
~pcwiz
Posted
  • Author
Posted
Hmmm...how did you get your ATI 1650 up and running?

I couldnt get mine working.

 

 

Why couldn't you? All I did was install the card in the right slot. Then, however the drivers in the CD were bad and they wouldn't install, so I downloaded the latest drivers for the card from the ATI site and they successfully installed. I had no problems other than that minor driver issue.

U.C.
U.C.
Posted
Posted

Hmmm, I have had major issues, with ASUS. MB's going bad, they not honoring warranty, lots of {censored}. Though my recent MSI board has been going strong for more than a year.

 

That slab of plastic, was probably a hardened slab of Thermal Glue.

 

But then again my bro's ASUS has been working great.....so you never know.

 

Moral Of The Story: If you want a headache free computer, buy a Mac. I know people had a lot of issues with the initial versions, but then again I avoid buying 1st gen stuff.

~pcwiz
~pcwiz
Posted
  • Author
Posted
Never thought it had anything to do with performance. (Since most of these cards are identical across manufacturers anyways. :) So is this based on this card only or have you had several MSI video cards fail?Like I mentioned, the MSI video cards I purchased several years ago are all still running fine. The only problem card I ever had was an XFX card that the fan failed. It was under warranty but quicker for me to replace the fan myself.
Its just happened with that specific card. The MSI RX1300PRO-TD256E.
Hmmm, I have had major issues, with ASUS. MB's going bad, they not honoring warranty, lots of {censored}. Though my recent MSI board has been going strong for more than a year.That slab of plastic, was probably a hardened slab of Thermal Glue.But then again my bro's ASUS has been working great.....so you never know. Moral Of The Story: If you want a headache free computer, buy a Mac. I know people had a lot of issues with the initial versions, but then again I avoid buying 1st gen stuff.
I know it isn't a hardened slab of thermal glue. The slab is 100% transparent, is smooth like glass, has three holes in it, where the screws that secure it into the heatsink go. As for ASUS motherboards failing, my P5ND2-SLI hasn't had a single problem for what makes about 1 year and about a month. What MB models failed for you? Note that I'm not saying that MSI MBs are bad, I haven't ever even touched one, and I haven't heard of them failing either. Its the graphics cards I'm talking about. The ones with an ATI X1000 series chipset, if you want to get specific.
Hi,Don't buy MSI hardware. Its horrible, low quality Made in Taiwan hardware...
Alright, I might have been harsh there... -_-
If you want a headache free computer, buy a Mac. I know people had a lot of issues with the initial versions, but then again I avoid buying 1st gen stuff.
I did have a mac before. iMac G3 Summer 2001. Bought it used for $500. It was in mint condition when I got it, new hard drive, new CD-RW drive, mint, unused set of CDs.....Then, all of a sudden, with no warning after little more than a year of using it, something short-circuited inside and the computer wouldn't boot. There were sparks and a bad smell and the circuits were fried. You can't exactly call a mac a problem-free computer, the older models anyway.On the other hand, I have an old Compaq Presario 5447 thats eight years old and is still running in top shape. AMD K6-2 450MHz processor, 164MB of RAM, 8MB VRAM, 8GB Hard drive. Low specs but the only hardware upgrade we ever did was upgrade RAM. Still running Windows XP Professional (updated from Windows 98) good, but slow. No hardware replacements, no problems (other than a couple of Windows reinstalls)...ahh the good old days ;)
Headrush69
Headrush69
Posted
Posted
Its just happened with that specific card. The MSI RX1300PRO-TD256E.

Obviously everyone is entitled to there own opinion, but I think telling people to avoid a brand based on a single failure is a little premature. ;)

I'm sure we could pretty quickly eliminate every manufacturer using that criteria.

 

Electronic parts fail and although there are some poor/cheap manufacturers, even for reputable manufacturers sometimes is just a {censored} shot that you happen to get that one dud from a batch of electronics parts while another maker had no duds from that same batch.

EPDM
EPDM
Posted
Posted
I've used MSI for years & never had a failiure due to bad manufacture.

 

I've build computers all my life and from my experience MSI uses second grade materials at premium prices.

 

When I worked for a PC parts distributor, we got more RMA's from MSI mainboards than any other known brand. At that time they sold Chaintech (Special editions like Zenith/Apogee of Chaintech boards are very good), ECS/PCchips, Shuttle (very good boards but bad fans), a small assortiment of Asus boards, FIC and boards from an American (I think) company which where packaged in a milky-white transparant box of which I can't remember the name (they had amazingly fast boards of great quality but due to their unknown brand very unpopular).

 

In fact I supplied my family with several ECS K7S5a equipped PC's which still run today (albeit slowly).

 

A few years later I did repair/assembly work for another distributor who only sold 2 major brands (MSI and Gigabyte). And I've repaired a LOT more MSI equipped PC's then Gigabyte equipped. At that time I replaced my own K7S5a mainboard with a Gigabyte 8IPE1000L i865 mainboard which still runs fast, stable and shows no daft capacitors at all.

 

Never had so much mainboards with blown capacitors as with MSI throughout the years. Particularly the socket 478-era is known for that. Strangely I build less than 2 years ago to 2 PC's for a company using the a more recent MSI 915P-combo mainboard. Hoping things had somewhat improved. BOTH mainboards had blown capacitors in less then 2 years. Ridiculous.

 

I've replaced these boards with Gigabyte products bearing the "solid capacitors"-logo and hope they'll keep working for the foreseeable time. Sure they cost a tiny bit more than MSI but it shows in durability.

 

My HackIntosh uses an ECS 915P-mainboard (which is from the same age as those MSI 915P-combo boards) with a slightly overclocked P4 631. No problems so far thank you :-)

 

So I fully understand pcwiz's grief and frustration. I hope your present card will last longer.

karmatose
karmatose
Posted
Posted

Ive had a lot of success with MSI motherboards and video cards. Granted the last one I bought was in 2002~2003 sometime. I can't remember the model of the board but it was the first to use the VIA KT400 chipset. I sold that machine to buy my iBook and to my knowledge that machine is still being used today.

 

Asus, on the other hand, back in the day I had some real issues with but not so much currently. Just gotta research your parts ahead of time and see what others (or even yourself) think of build quality and such.

ruku
ruku
Posted
Posted

i had an asus ati eax1600xt video card last year and it had problems. if i used my scroller on my mouse the actual physical card made and annoying electrical whir noise. when i played videos using it in windows and osx86 it was jumpy unless i played them off disk that wasnt my main hdd. also it was totally unsupported under vista except for an early beta. i changed to a msi 7600gs and all of those problems are fixed now. i hope your wrong about msi. i have about 8 months till my year is up.

~pcwiz
~pcwiz
Posted
  • Author
Posted

Just a little reminder again. Its not MSI Motherboards, its graphics cards

i had an asus ati eax1600xt video card last year and it had problems. if i used my scroller on my mouse the actual physical card made and annoying electrical whir noise. when i played videos using it in windows and osx86 it was jumpy unless i played them off disk that wasnt my main hdd. also it was totally unsupported under vista except for an early beta. i changed to a msi 7600gs and all of those problems are fixed now. i hope your wrong about msi. i have about 8 months till my year is up.
I now get graphics cards that are made by the same manufacturer as the chipset. For example, I wouldn't get an MSI RX1300, I'd get a ATI Radeon X1300 that is manufactured by ATI Technologies, inc. Not MSI.
I've build computers all my life and from my experience MSI uses second grade materials at premium prices.When I worked for a PC parts distributor, we got more RMA's from MSI mainboards than any other known brand. At that time they sold Chaintech (Special editions like Zenith/Apogee of Chaintech boards are very good), ECS/PCchips, Shuttle (very good boards but bad fans), a small assortiment of Asus boards, FIC and boards from an American (I think) company which where packaged in a milky-white transparant box of which I can't remember the name (they had amazingly fast boards of great quality but due to their unknown brand very unpopular).In fact I supplied my family with several ECS K7S5a equipped PC's which still run today (albeit slowly).A few years later I did repair/assembly work for another distributor who only sold 2 major brands (MSI and Gigabyte). And I've repaired a LOT more MSI equipped PC's then Gigabyte equipped. At that time I replaced my own K7S5a mainboard with a Gigabyte 8IPE1000L i865 mainboard which still runs fast, stable and shows no daft capacitors at all.Never had so much mainboards with blown capacitors as with MSI throughout the years. Particularly the socket 478-era is known for that. Strangely I build less than 2 years ago to 2 PC's for a company using the a more recent MSI 915P-combo mainboard. Hoping things had somewhat improved. BOTH mainboards had blown capacitors in less then 2 years. Ridiculous. I've replaced these boards with Gigabyte products bearing the "solid capacitors"-logo and hope they'll keep working for the foreseeable time. Sure they cost a tiny bit more than MSI but it shows in durability.My HackIntosh uses an ECS 915P-mainboard (which is from the same age as those MSI 915P-combo boards) with a slightly overclocked P4 631. No problems so far thank you :-)So I fully understand pcwiz's grief and frustration. I hope your present card will last longer.
Yes, thank you for understanding. Its just really annoying when you get a $2000-3000 dollar PC equipped with an MSI Card and less than on year later, you have to pay another $200+ to get a new video card. I'm sure everyone could agree that this is frustrating.... :( Anyway, my present card is a Radeon X1650 PRO PCIe 512MB that is actually manufactured by AT Technologies. I think this card will last longer than the useless MSI card.
Ive had a lot of success with MSI motherboards and video cards. Granted the last one I bought was in 2002~2003 sometime. I can't remember the model of the board but it was the first to use the VIA KT400 chipset. I sold that machine to buy my iBook and to my knowledge that machine is still being used today.Asus, on the other hand, back in the day I had some real issues with but not so much currently. Just gotta research your parts ahead of time and see what others (or even yourself) think of build quality and such.
My theory: Maybe ASUS was bad back then and good now and MSI was good back then and really bad right now.Just my 2 cents.
i had an asus ati eax1600xt video card last year and it had problems. if i used my scroller on my mouse the actual physical card made and annoying electrical whir noise. when i played videos using it in windows and osx86 it was jumpy unless i played them off disk that wasnt my main hdd. also it was totally unsupported under vista except for an early beta. i changed to a msi 7600gs and all of those problems are fixed now. i hope your wrong about msi. i have about 8 months till my year is up.
Hope that card lasts longer for you than MSI did for me.....Good luck :thumbsup_anim:
Headrush69
Headrush69
Posted
Posted
My theory: Maybe ASUS was bad back then and good now and MSI was good back then and really bad right now.Just my 2 cents.Hope that card lasts longer for you than MSI did for me.....Good luck :)

My theory: You just happen to be unlikely with that individual card.

 

Hopefully your new card does last longer. (Odds are with you it will. (Not because of being ATI though.))

If for some reason it went bad after 11 months too, you will start running out of manufacturers! :P

 

I think the comments in this thread proved my point. You can find someone who recently had a card from pretty much any manufacturer that failed. Same thing with all computer parts whether it be motherboards, HDs, optical drives.

~pcwiz
~pcwiz
Posted
  • Author
Posted
My theory: You just happen to be unlikely with that individual card.

 

Hopefully your new card does last longer. (Odds are with you it will. (Not because of being ATI though.))

If for some reason it went bad after 11 months too, you will start running out of manufacturers! :)

 

I think the comments in this thread proved my point. You can find someone who recently had a card from pretty much any manufacturer that failed. Same thing with all computer parts whether it be motherboards, HDs, optical drives.

 

 

I've activated the 1 year warranty with ATI So I have until about August 2008 before the warrant is over, so If this card fails in 11 months like the last one, I can get it replaced. If this one by any chance fails soon, I'll get a nVidia card and ditch ATI.

 

By the way, the ATI AMD website is n00by and very annoying. I tried to regsiter my card online for warranty but it wouldn't let me. The online cards that were on the list that you could register were the Radeon HD 2600 and the Radeon X1950. And yet, the manual for the X1650 said to register the card online in "3 easy steps". I eventually had the phone ATI to get it registered......

Headrush69
Headrush69
Posted
Posted
By the way, the ATI AMD website is n00by and very annoying. I tried to regsiter my card online for warranty but it wouldn't let me. The online cards that were on the list that you could register were the Radeon HD 2600 and the Radeon X1950. And yet, the manual for the X1650 said to register the card online in "3 easy steps". I eventually had the phone ATI to get it registered......

Odd, works fine here. I see your card listed along with about 100 others.

 

Maybe they fixed it after your call! (thanks to you!) ;)

sarahbau
sarahbau
Posted
Posted

I agree with HeadRush69 that you can't determine the quality of an entire line just by one experience. Even working in a repair shop, you don't get enough information to make that determination. You'd have to know the percentage of failures, and to know that, you'd have to know how many were sold - not just at your store, but at others as well. If there were another store nearby that sold a lot of MSI boards, but did not have a good tech department, that could easily skew EPDM's numbers since he can only see the number of boards coming in, which is only half of the equation.

 

It's perfectly fine if you don't want to buy another MSI product, but telling others not to because of one experience isn't really fair to MSI. I've only had one MSI video card as far as I can remember, and it lasted two years before I sold it a couple months ago. It was still working just fine when I sold it. However, that doesn't mean MSI video cards are good. Just like you, my sampling is too small to make that assessment.

paranox
paranox
Posted
Posted

Totally agree.

All stuff i ever bot by MSI works only serval month and then give up the ghost.

5 mainboards i ever had from MSI all burned down or has serious troubles after serval month of usage.

And i must mention, that no any system tweaks was made , no any overspeeding or tunings.

4 MSI Graphic cards - dead on my table, including warranty's (serval times exchanged),

Finally bot for me Leadtek Nvidia cards and never has any troubles ever again.

Those 4 cards still have warranty but will be never used in any of my PC.

Headrush69
Headrush69
Posted
Posted
Totally agree.

All stuff i ever bot by MSI works only serval month and then give up the ghost.

5 mainboards i ever had from MSI all burned down or has serious troubles after serval month of usage.

And i must mention, that no any system tweaks was made , no any overspeeding or tunings.

4 MSI Graphic cards - dead on my table, including warranty's (serval times exchanged),

Finally bot for me Leadtek Nvidia cards and never has any troubles ever again.

Those 4 cards still have warranty but will be never used in any of my PC.

Interesting first post.

 

Why would you keep buying that brand if so many failed so quickly? Maybe 2 or even 3, but 5?

(rhetorical question really, doesn't matter.)

 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...