Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar (More info?)

Hi,

i try to decide between three mainboards:

1. Asus A8N SLI Premium
2: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
3: DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR

What about the Bios support of MSI and DFI, i have always used Asus so
far.

Thanks

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar (More info?)

MSI seems to have decent support...have built a few systems based on their
boards. I also had a Ti4200VTD8X video card with a noisy fan....they sent
out a replacement free of charge(fan). As for DFI..I built 2 systems based
on their boards..1 failed within 6 months and I tried to contact them for
warranty. After 3 straight weeks of emailing them I had to eat it and buy my
customer a new board.SO for me..DFI is hands off. Also being a builder have
no issues get RMA's from Asus, but if you buy from a local store they should
stand behind it also.

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar (More info?)

I have used probably 6 MSI boards now and none of them have died on me.
Support in the way of drivers is great, but I have never had to test their
RMA policies.

I always hear of issues with ASUS and Bios flashes going bad.
I was interested in DFI as its supposed to be a nice high end board, but I
have no experience there.
"dino" <whyme@help.com> wrote in message
news:gVMTe.14858$I02.830605@news20.bellglobal.com...
> MSI seems to have decent support...have built a few systems based on their
> boards. I also had a Ti4200VTD8X video card with a noisy fan....they sent
> out a replacement free of charge(fan). As for DFI..I built 2 systems based
> on their boards..1 failed within 6 months and I tried to contact them for
> warranty. After 3 straight weeks of emailing them I had to eat it and buy
> my customer a new board.SO for me..DFI is hands off. Also being a builder
> have no issues get RMA's from Asus, but if you buy from a local store they
> should stand behind it also.
>

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar (More info?)

On Thu, 08 Sep 2005 20:36:21 GMT, "Philburg" <philburg2@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

>I have used probably 6 MSI boards now and none of them have died on me.
>Support in the way of drivers is great, but I have never had to test their
>RMA policies.

They're the only mobo maker replied to a support email for me, answer
led me to solution, me happy with MSI mobo.

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar (More info?)

Well,asking this in a msi group will give you biased opinions ofcourse.
But the important question is which cpu core you are gonna use.
I have a venice core in my k8n neo4 plat. and it runs very well,also
overclocking is painless.
But older cores do have some quirks,so beware of that.

I recommend this msi board,it's very fast,stable,and regular bios updates
for those that run into trouble.
As for DFI,their first nf4 batch had many hardware failures,but the next
releases are fine.
Asus is also fine,but browsing their forums i found also alot of problems.
So i would say,they are all on par with eachother,so go for the brand you
feel is right for ya.

"Roman" <zydra@yahoo.com> schreef in bericht
newsqvuh1h8f1jgqlfg8h1qskn96qd71k6mn7@4ax.com...
> Hi,
>
> i try to decide between three mainboards:
>
> 1. Asus A8N SLI Premium
> 2: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
> 3: DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR
>
> What about the Bios support of MSI and DFI, i have always used Asus so
> far.
>
> Thanks
>
>
>

MSI support has been fair to poor in my case. I will probably never buy another MSI product because of it.

I bought a K8N Diamond Plus motherboard about a year ago. A few months ago, the NVIDIA Ethernet controller stopped working. The OS intermittently failed to recognize the Nvidia 1GB Ethernet interface, with the problem gradually worsening until it was permanent. Then a MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION started appearing with increasing frequency until I could no longer run Windows XP.

MSI issued an RMA, then sat on the board for three days before opening the box and starting work. They allow themselves 10 to 14 business days (3 weeks) to repair or replace the board, and they take all of it unless you push for expedited service.

Weeks later, I finally got the board back. The MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION had been solved (they couldn't tell my what they did), but the ethernet problem was still there, suggesting a bad NVidia Nforce controller. A week later, the board died completely -- no POST, all 4 diagnostic LEDs red. I removed, reseated, replaced everything I could, but no go. Now it's two weeks into the 2nd RMA and still no board.

MSI offers no loaner or board exchange program to keep your system running in case their product fails, and they regard it as a matter of no urgency when it does. That isn't good enough support for critical components. (Contrast that with AMD support: they accepted the processor under an RMA, just in case it was at fault, and turned it around in one day. They also sent a email telling me exactly what they had done to test it.)

I'm sure the RMA staff at MSI are working hard, but the diagnosis and repair time should be a day or two, not several weeks. I know that ABIT leaves its customers hanging out to dry when its products are defective, and I've seen Asus fail to provide working drivers with brand new boards and fail to support its boards generally -- that's why I gave MSI a try. But MSI goes to the bottom of the list for my next system.

Talk about bringing up an old thread....

I also bought K8N Diamond Plus motherboard, it is also about a year old. So far they only have offered one bios update. The corecenter utiliy that is supposed to allow you to overclock from windows doesn't work for me. If I put it at anything over 5% the system restarts and goes back to normal settings. I have 2 gig Corsair matched ram modules and amd 4800x2 processor. I formerly only bought Asus boards, and after trying to get help from msi, I will be going back to them. Only thing I got from them was no reply. I tried to get on the diamond forum for this board but was not allowed because I did not have a pin number. Tried to get one from msi support and they said it was on a card in the box with the board. None there. Told them same and that all I wanted was access to the forum so that maybe I could get some help from actual K8N Diamond Plus motherboard users, but they said they could not do that. I emailed them copies of the invoice to prove I bought the board, but they just said so sorry, but no can do. Seemed like a reasonable request from me but not to them. Asus never gave me the run around like this. Nice board but for whatever reason I can not overclock it and that was one of the reasons I went with this board was the reveiws were so good. I would like to be able to use the overclock function but no luck