I know that generally you don't put computer stuff in here but since this is somewhat rant-ish I felt that it would be better placed here.
After buying one board with a time-bomb PCI failure, and getting a second with a bad floppy controller and flaky BIOS, I sent this letter/email to MSI.
MSI Computer Corporation
901 Canada Court
City of Industry, CA 91748
Dear Sir or Madame,
I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with both your service and your products. The motherboard contained in this box was supposed to be a working replacement for the motherboard I sent to you on May 15, 2007. This motherboard I sent you had experienced a PCI lock failure. That is, when the motherboard’s overclocking features were utilized (something that the board was advertised to do), the PCI clock ran out of sync (i.e. not 33.33MHz). This eventually caused the failure of both standard Peripheral Component Interconnect (non-Express) slots on the board. The onboard audio provided by the Audigy SE chip also failed.
I requested an RMA on May 13, 2007 which was quickly approved, on a Sunday no less. I was impressed at the speed of service and was looking forward to a smooth RMA process and new motherboard. The product left my hands on May 15 via rather costly ($21) overnight shipping, and it arrived at your facilities on May 16. However, I was in for a long wait for a replacement. Only on June 4, 2007 did a replacement product ship. Need I remind you of your own policy, of which I was informed by your representative over the phone: five to ten business days until replacement. No specifics were given indicating such things as “five to ten business days until the replacement ships.â€
E6300 @ 3.51GHz 1.392v
Asus Maximus Formula
Antec 550Watt Psu
Mushkin DDR-1206@ 5-5-5-15 / 2.28v
Zalman CPU Cooler CNPS7700
6408800GTS(OC 691MHz Core/2.132GHz Mem)
2x80mm case fans +2x120mm case fans
I had one of those very early MSI socket-754 MOBOs that had the bad capacitors on the board. MSI had a great recall effort, but my board was a gift. The other problem was, if the caps went bad and fried the board, so did the CPU too! Needless to say, I avoided using the board and just tossed it after 6 months.
It's hard to say how well MSI is building boards today. Many of the mainstream MOBO manufactures contract out the MOBO making to a third party like Foxconn or others. The MOBO brand company is really at the mercy of the third party quality controls and componets used. The smart thing is knowing what mobo brands have the higher specifications for durability for many years of service.
The thing to do is to read honest MOBO reviews, know that the comapny makes server MOBO's too and hope that the same strict specifications for server boards and used for making retail boards.
I've had a similar issue with the computer store http://www.nintek.com.au.
First i bought a motehrboard from them that they claimed could support Pentium D cpu's which it did not even support Dual core's. Then about a year later i bought two heatsinks and some thermal paste it was not until 7 weeks after ordering it and a few swaps (as in different heatsinks and thermal compund) that i got my stuff with a 70% discount on both, never buying from them again!
Main Rig: C2D 6850 @ 3.0Ghz, 2Gb DDR2667Mhz @ 833Mhz 5-5-5-15 Timings , XFX xXx 8600GTS @ 730/2260 , Gigabyte Ga-945GCM-S2L
JukeBox: Currently in an Upgrade but im too lazy to do it at the moment I² keepin it real