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To hell with MSI

Started by Sakura, July 23, 2017, 01:11:53 AM

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Sakura

To preface, this is based on me using MSI motherboards for the better part of a decade now.  I'm biased against their motherboards from having a piss poor experience more than once.  So recently my CPU died.  I don't know why, I don't even feel like diagnosing it this time, although I guess at some point I will find out if the CPU itself is fried.  Not today.  So having used AMD almost exclusively since 1998/1999 (due to cost factor, not fan factor) I chose to build an Intel unit to replace my gaming computer this go around.  I have had this computer for somewhere between 3 and 5 years now, and it's certainly not the worst computer I've ever had (quite the opposite, I've never had a better computer before), but back to my problem with MSI...

When I first built the computer, my motherboard was dead on arrival.  The motherboard would not boot.  With no other option (or so I felt at the time, nowadays my options are much better), I sunk the RMA and returned the motherboard for a replacement.  Strike 1.  So got the replacement, I had my motherboard working acceptably well mostly, but some issues with locking up with no discernible cause, I eventually resolved the issue by changing the timing on my RAM...  Not sure why that would fix it, but it did.  Whatever.

So fast forward some period of time, and in early 2015 my motherboard ended up dead.  This time the cause was MSI's own fault.  They have an autoupdater tool that looks for software/BIOS updates and installs them.  Yeah, BIOS updates.  The installer tried to install a BIOS update on a flasher program from Windows, even though MSI says on their website "don't use this thing, it will probably break your motherboard."  Yeah, it happened.  So I had to replace the motherboard, this time at my own expense .. and like a moron, I bought the same motherboard because I thought "better not muck around with my configuration!"  Strike 2 for MSI, because this was their own fault in the first place.

So I've had problems with my motherboard since replacing, but I just kind of left it because I hate removing the CPU from a motherboard unless I need to.  For one the motherboard detects 16gb of RAM, but only 12gb are usable.  Tried to resolve that with every step-by-step guide on the web it felt like, never got it fixed.  Tried reflashing the BIOS to see if that'd help, 16gb (11.98 usable) .. yeah.  Also my CPU was overclocked, from 3.5GHz to 4GHz, a moderate overclock which saw some yields but for the most part I was doing that to make up for the fact that I bought the wrong CPU.  Well, alright then.

So when restarting the computer, for some reason the BIOS doesn't understand exit codes from Windows 10 and would figure "hey, the system must have crashed, this overclocking configuration is bad!" and would make me load the BIOS.  So I would literally do nothing, and restart the computer.  Because there's nothing wrong with my overclocking configuration.  At this point I had become irritated, and it was basically strike 3.  But I lived with it for the longest friggin time.

And I kept looking at the prospect of building a replacement system, but I didn't want to just get rid of the system at the same time.  Everything seemed well enough if I ignored these glaring issues, but then the other night I went to restart my computer .. and the screens went white after shutting down .. and never turned back on again.  I tried letting it sit, tried adjusting things, nothing.  The system's components all power on, so the motherboard seems to be alright (I think), but the CPU does not POST.  Could still be the motherboard's fault, but either way...

If you're looking for a good motherboard, I suggest you steer clear of MSI.  My new motherboard is an ASRock, I've never heard anything negative about ASRock, but seen plenty of threads of stories not unlike my own when it comes to MSI while trying to fix my issues.  There's no reason you should be looking to pick up this particular unit anyway, but the board in question was the MSI 970 Gaming, which was one of the old DDR3 boards.

So yeah to hell with MSI, as the thread subject says, if I can avoid ever buying their stuff ever again, I shall.

rollntider

I used to be a big ASUS fan but they seemed to have abandoned AMD. I went with Gigabite on my last one the 990FX chipset (i think that is right) been a great board.



Sakura

Never had an ASUS product of any type, but they're listed on Logical Increments as one of the top three (the other two being EVGA and Gigabyte).  Then their secondary three are MSI, ASRock and ECS.  I didn't even look at their list of tiers though, because I was browsing Newegg on a cell phone to buy the new parts, or I might have gone with an ASUS or Gigabyte.  C'est la vie.

Anyway, thrilled about the idea of using an Intel machine for a change.  It's a Pentium G4600 (the 4560s have been scalped and are being sold by scalpers for the same price as the G4620, no joke).  Only 8GB of RAM to start off with, but I'll definitely pick up more quickly.  I figure I'll go for 32gb, cause the price for 64gb would be $700 as opposed to $300.

And then later on I'll replace the Pentium with an i7.  Gotta pay off what I bought first, though.  :D