..

[varenne]

.

[Slammer64]

You might check to see if there is a bios upgrade for your board varenne, I'm running a MSI Z68A-GD55 (G3) and only had a problem until the first bios upgrade, since then, smooth sailing.

[Rayblue]

Also, try using a USB LAN dongle (and a powered USB hub) if you don't have enough PCI slots for a LAN card.

 

Never liked asking from tech support but instead rely on any other information available online to fix things.

[lordofthedread]

Because you had a problem with one of their product does not mean that they make bad products, having mounted too many PC to count MSI motherboards usually proved quite reliable and I had far more problems with ASUS ones.

 

Thus said I wont say to anyone to avoid ASUS motherboard even if I will do so myself, many users are very happy with their ASUS motherboards and many others with their MSI motherboards.

 

Hardware and drivers problems are inherent to PCs because when you buy a motherboard you dont buy only one brand but many, the chipset is either made by Intel or AMD, the sound and the ethernet by Realtek, the USB by another manufacturer and so on..... Actually before buying a motherboard you should first look at its specification and search for each major component to see if they have proven reliable or not, but I understand it is a lot of assle for the normal user. 

 

[Jerbsinator]

I had a MSI board that died 3 months in, infinite power cycle. They replaced it and no problems since but I am wary of MSI because of this. I have had a problem with their video cards in the past as well. The board also has a few glitches that are annoying but easily worked around. I would probably go with something different if I had the choice (or a lot of money to throw around) but other than some little issues and the power cycle it's been a good board so I can't really say that MSI sucks. Every company will have a lemon.

[Guest airdance]

Varenne

     I have always been an Asus fan, and have never experienced any of the problems you described.

Now using Technical support for anything usually gets me the boys and girls from India. 

• they have never heard of my problem before
• Maybe one of the cables are unpluged
• maybe I should get in touch with the manufacturer.

Last but not least, if a product requires you to turn off your firewall and your antivirus, then the product is definitely faulty.

Or another thought is that the guy wants to hack into your system.

 

Anyway we have a whole bunch of very bright people here hopefully someone will be able to give you useful advice.

[Slammer64]

The Realtek chipset for ethernet is a definite problem with Windows 7, you might also try installing a different ethernet card and see if that helps.

[EternalDamned]

My best advice for you would actually be to check some of the MSI support chat boards. The Realtek hardware isn't the problem, as it normally works fast and reliably. It's their DRIVERS that can be a hassle. So check boards for "stable" versions and only update the realtek driver when a newer version is reported as being stable. It's kind of a pain doing it that way, but as the rest of the board and live update works great. I can overlook one subcontractors struggling to keep all drivers stable will all other hardware and dealing with windblows.

[Rayblue]

Before I update the BIOS I read what changes have been made to the firmware; last thing I need is bricking a board because of bad firmware.

 

(Burned badly by early ECS, Gigabyte and BIostar boards, MSI was then my primo brand for reliability, before in recent years I switched over to ASRock by word-of-mouth and improved build quality.)

[Slammer64]

Actually varenne, trying the board out with a Linux distro might not be a bad idea, you could either install a full distro besides or instead of Win7 or use a live CD for testing.

[XunAmarox]

I agree. MSI motherboards are problematic and their support is total dogshit.

 

I'd go with ASUS or something.

[Rayblue]

Asides from ASRock, I've been also hearing good things about Gigabyte and its quality improvement, where the return rate for defective boards are lesser than other brands.

[lordofthedread]

I am a Gigabyte user for the last 5 - 6 years and I had also my share of problems (with Relatek sound chips) but the support was always fast and reliable and they always replaced my motherboards when I needed without too much questions.

 

I had a MSI laptop and not only it was a great laptop but I never had a single problem with the support, they were always fast to answer all my questions, after 6 month the keyboard died and they replaced it in 3 days, never had a single problem after that and the computer is still used by one of my firiends (5 years old now).

 

It is always the same, some people will go through nightmare with a specific brand while others will be very happy, thats why IMO it is better to stick with a brand that earned your trust, and if you have problems with the brand you are using right now, just switch to another one until you are satisfied. If you are a gamer there are big chances you will change your rig every year or 2 anyway....

[Guest]

I used to have an MSI and I agree. Asus works much better for me.

[Bootaka]

What power supply are you running, and for how long? If you're having issues with all the USB ports, that's more than likely a power issue. Power issue can also cause your devices to go dark get readdressed by the Device Discovery Service. Have you tried disabling the DDS? This is what windows uses to decide a iSCSi device hardware has been added/removed and needs to add/remove drivers. I come across a lot of iSCSi conflits with network adapters/printers and what not that do the same thing, but its not always the same thing. I would still guess power supply!

 

I have the same board. Newest Bios work fine, drivers too, but I don't use the onboard audio so idk about them.

[Arcadelord]

Hello people!

 

So I saw this topic, started to read and thought "Hm, quite some interesting testimony there!" mainly because here in France, MSI earned a horrible reputation in less than two years because of two revolving defaults on their motherboards, and one for their graphic cards :

 

- the motherboards can suffer of innate BIOS "uncompatibility" (LOL seriously guys?!) or this exceptionnal "infinite power cycling" that usually rewards people with the infamous blue screen, or a fried component

- the graphic cards are known to be designed quite cheap, with few real efficiency regarding the heat dissipation and noisy ventirads... and the annoying habit to give up just after the one-year warranty is over.

 

I am not talking by direct personal experience here : I happened to work for less than a year for a local multimedia retailer / repairer, and nearly each time a computer was broken, me and my boss couldn't help but to bet on anything related to MSI... and we were right! Of course we got some troubles with a few products of the Gigabyte brand, but MSI surely got the platinum medal for technical failures here.

 

Personally, after several computers passing under my gloved hands to save their precious bits and bytes, I would recommend brands such as Intel (while they still produce their own motherboards, but that will stop with the release of the Intel Core i7 - 4770K so be careful with the warranty), Asus or ASRock (especially their Z87 Extreme 6 model, perfect and quite easily affordable for anyone who wants to overclock the latest Intel processor).

 

For the power supply, since sometimes a few troubles related to electrical discharges can directly come from the source, and if you're a gamer who doesn't want to blow an insane amount of money into your computer, I can only recommand the Corsair GS800. Be warned though : the integrated fan only starts working when a certain temperature is reached, and when it does it can become noisy. Also, it's not a modular power supply, but what to expect from a product worth 80€ after all?

[cretin]

I don't know...  I did a fair bit of research and landed on the mpower z87 board.  Prior board was an ASRock, and ASUS boards prior to that.  So far, it's been fine, but I only just fired it up yesterday with this 4770K.  No issues so far, no bluescreens, and no Skyrim CTDs yet.

 

I was also looking at the sabertooth, but decided it looked just a bit too plasticky for my tastes, and the msi's wifi, mSATA slot, and PCB quality swayed me.  My $0.02.

 

I do acknowledge that Asus is the gold standard, but I just thought I'd mix it up this cycle.

 

[cretin]

...Aaaaand USB 3.0 is dead on this top-end msi board.  I see what you mean.  No one gets out alive.

 

[LordJerle]

I've had a MSI 760GM-P23 since feb, no issues so far.  used to be that MSI was the go to brand name for boards. Sorry to see their reputation has fallen so low.

[Guest]

On a side-note, my MSI board was just plain broken when I got it. So after trying everything to get it working I just said "meh, fuck this.", sent it back and bought one from GIGABYTE. I've yet to encounter an issue with that one.

[SunStonedKitty]

Going fine with my MSI, purchased it after an ASRock died...

[Jerbsinator]

On a side-note, my MSI board was just plain broken when I got it. So after trying everything to get it working I just said "meh, fuck this.", sent it back and bought one from GIGABYTE. I've yet to encounter an issue with that one.

 

I'm not defending MSI but DOA stuff happens with every brand.

[kurisu7885]

HMm, my system has an MSI board and I've had zero issues.

[LordJerle]

Half of vehicle engineering is setting it up to break down after the three year warranty, so it's logical that hardware designers would start to follow this same model.  There's no real money in hardware sales otherwise.  Most of your AVERAGE users (Facebook and e-mail addicts) won't overhaul their PC to keep it up to date so long as it keeps working, just like cars.  The actual reason that older vehicles (pre-1994 if I recall) are really cheap to insure is because they're built for long term function, as well as being more metal than plastic.  I had an 85 Mercury Marquis that had more metal in it than your average truck produced today, and that thing took a beating until I had to sell it.  Also, more hardware manufacturers are outsourcing to cheap labor countries these days, which may have a huge hand in the DOA parts becoming more frequent these days.

[Lagoon0654]

Mines an MSI but I've had zero issues. Then again I've only had this PC for a week. We'll see I guess.

 

 

Half of vehicle engineering is setting it up to break down after the three year warranty, so it's logical that hardware designers would start to follow this same model.  There's no real money in hardware sales otherwise.  Most of your AVERAGE users (Facebook and e-mail addicts) won't overhaul their PC to keep it up to date so long as it keeps working, just like cars.  The actual reason that older vehicles (pre-1994 if I recall) are really cheap to insure is because they're built for long term function, as well as being more metal than plastic.  I had an 85 Mercury Marquis that had more metal in it than your average truck produced today, and that thing took a beating until I had to sell it.  Also, more hardware manufacturers are outsourcing to cheap labor countries these days, which may have a huge hand in the DOA parts becoming more frequent these days.

 

Indeed.

My 94 S10 I had was nearly invincible. However my latest few (2000-2003 models) always seemed to need a little TLC after a month or so.