MSI Reliability

Fordeus01

Junior Member
Aug 5, 2006
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Has anybody had any problems with MSI that I might want to know about? I'm looking to get a MSI 7950gx2 LINK (cheapest In Stock ATM) and I wanted to know what pple thought of them. Thanks
Peter
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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I never had any luck with the two MSI boards I owned (their tech support never responded to any of my emails back in 2000), so I wouldn't buy their products again, but most seem to like them.

It all comes down to how long the warranty is.
 

Bradtechonline

Senior member
Jul 20, 2006
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I've used MSI for many many builds. Only time I've seen any bad luck with MSI products is when I got their TurboStream PSU, and it would make my system crash any time I did 3D gaming.

All the motherboard I've used have been excellent.
 

cleverhandle

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2001
3,566
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MSI is OK. I'd rather go for BFG for the warranty and a generally classier product. You're already spending over $500 on video card, why stop now?
 

Fordeus01

Junior Member
Aug 5, 2006
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Cause I dont know if its really worth 50 dollars extra if MSI has treated people well :).
Peter
 

tuteja1986

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2005
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I have had 3 MSI motherboard and they all have died in after an year.
I have owned 2 Giagbyte Motherboard and none have died
I have also owned 2 Abit and 1 Asus motherboard and they also haven't died.

MSI motherboard sucks :( bad support also

Also i don't recommend you buying a 7950GX :( it still needs more stable driver.. some time it gets beaten by a single Single X1900XTX. I recommend you buy a 1 x 7900GT or X1800XT for $250~

Then in 2 months sell it and buy a G80 :)
 

iamaelephant

Diamond Member
Jul 25, 2004
3,816
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I specifically seek MSI parts when building my systems as I have always had really good luck with them. Never had an MSI product die on me. I'm currently using an MSI motherboard and MSI 7600GT. Their prices are great, I've never had to deal with their support so I'm not sure what it's like.
 

thescreensavers

Diamond Member
Aug 3, 2005
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I build 3 computers all with gigabyte mobos no problem but I have problemwiht my msi mobo, they guy at msi you need to talk to is ext 141 vincent hes good.
 

Lord Evermore

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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As with all things, you'll find some people who've had nothing but good experiences, some who've had a couple of bad times but no more than other brands, and some who've had nothing but trouble. The majority of users are in the middle group, MSI isn't terribly different, on average, than any other brand. Almost certainly they're better than ECS, PCChips, those types, no matter what the product, but they may not be as high quality as Asus in the mainboard area or video cards, since Asus sort of sets a high standard.

As for Gigabyte, my old roommate had a Gigabyte mainboard and a Gigabyte GF2MX card that just would not work together. No brand is immune.

I have an MSI mainboard coming Tuesday. I'll have my first experience with them then.
 

Some1ne

Senior member
Apr 21, 2005
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I've built 4 systems around MSI boards:

2x Athlon XP/nforce2 systems
1x s754 Athlon64/nforce3 system
1x s939 Athlon64 (and then later, X2)/nforce4 system

...all of them still work great, and I never once had any issues with stability or reliability, whether running at stock settings or overclocking. Upgrading my socket 939 board from single core to dual core went smoothly, and I've had a few different video cards in it, and I currently have 8 disks plugged into it (4 SATA HDD's in two RAID-0 arrays, 2 IDE HDD's, and 2 optical).

So yeah, if you're concerned about reliability, I'd say go with it, as I've never once had a problem with any of their boards. Can't speak as to the quality of their tech-support though, as I've never used it (though seriously, if you're going to call tech support for anything other than returning a product, instead of just resolving your own issues, then what are you doing trying to build a PC in the first place?)...they have good forums though, full of useful information.
 

Siddhartha

Lifer
Oct 17, 1999
12,505
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I have used 3 MSI mb based on recommendations from websites like AT and ARS. The last one I had became useless after I flashed the BIOS.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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Originally posted by: Some1ne
Can't speak as to the quality of their tech-support though, as I've never used it (though seriously, if you're going to call tech support for anything other than returning a product, instead of just resolving your own issues, then what are you doing trying to build a PC in the first place?)...they have good forums though, full of useful information.

Well, I disagree on this. Anandtech at one point used to send emails to the tech support of various motherboard companies and would see if they would respond back and how long it would take them to and make it part of the review.

Sometimes people who are new to building PC's might have a problem that can be easily fixed by support, sometimes the product is defective and it is nice knowing that you will at least get a response back.

My emails that went unanswered concerned a defective board that was overvolting the CPU and one that had to do with defective caps.

 

oynaz

Platinum Member
May 14, 2003
2,449
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In my experience is decent. My MSI mobo works fine, and the drivers are good, but the additional software (for example the temperature monitoring software) crashes my computer.
 

dcr

Member
Jul 25, 2006
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I've run two MSI motherboards with no issues, but I can't speak for graphics cards made by them.
 

Lord Evermore

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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Originally posted by: Siddhartha
The last one I had became useless after I flashed the BIOS.

Don't spread FUD like that. You can't blame a single bad BIOS flash on the mainboard maker. They don't control your particular situation when you flash, there are plenty of outside influences that can make the flash go bad, and there are ways of recovering from it. If it wasn't the flashing process itself that made the board "useless" then you need to detail it a bit more.
 

Operandi

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,508
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I don't know of mothboard reliability has anything to do with graphics cards, but I've personally built probably 10-15 systems with MSI boards.

I had one go bad (my own personal board) due to bad caps in roughly the 00-01 time frame. I contacted MSI and an RMA was setup fairly painlessly.
 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
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I've had good luck with MSI.

My fave mobo ever was the Neo2 Platinum by them.


However, i've heard support is spotty at best.
 

Bill Brasky

Diamond Member
May 18, 2006
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I've been running an MSI motherboard and graphics card since last July without any problems.

I've never tried to contact tech support.
 

Texun

Platinum Member
Oct 21, 2001
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I've only built three MSI systems. One had the KT266 chipset years ago and it went Tango Uniform in less than a year. The other 2 have been recent S754's for school and media use and have been solid as a rock, but the oldest is only 8 months old so it will take more time to see if the reliability is really there.

Anyone can make a dud. I steered clear of MSI after the KT266 and moved to Abit boards. Excellent performance and very reliable, at least for me, but I had to wrestle with the last few Abits to get them that way so I decided to try MSI again.
 

orangat

Golden Member
Jun 7, 2004
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Originally posted by: Texun
I've only built three MSI systems. One had the KT266 chipset years ago and it went Tango Uniform in less than a year. The other 2 have been recent S754's for school and media use and have been solid as a rock, but the oldest is only 8 months old so it will take more time to see if the reliability is really there.

Anyone can make a dud. I steered clear of MSI after the KT266 and moved to Abit boards. Excellent performance and very reliable, at least for me, but I had to wrestle with the last few Abits to get them that way so I decided to try MSI again.


The K266 days was probably during the 2002 which was during the bad capacitor days. I can't think of a good manufacturer which wasn't plagued by capacitor failures on their motherboards. Everyone from Asus/Abit/Epox/DFI/Gigabyte etc had many bad boards because of bad caps.

Having said that, MSI seems to have more complaints even recently.