MSI gaming cards are a joke and the warranty is a joke

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0055

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 27, 2010
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415
Bought an MSI r9 280x "gaming edition" for mining purposes which was more expensive than my other options purely because it had a 3 year warranty.

1) Undervolting/overvolting is a crap shoot with these cards, msi's own afterburner program needs a special config file to allow undervolting, and then gpu-z doesnt even report the undervolting, you just have to trust that its working.

2) A month of mining = one dead card (i have two). So i send it into them with fast shipping, a week AFTER they confirm receipt of my card they send me an email saying they got "HQ to approve RMA credit of $265".. uh what? I never asked for a credit, what are these fools doing? The email from "Tom Ho" of course says "contact me if you have questions" ive called and left a message every hour for the past 3 hours. I call their main RMA line since im tired of wasting my time. Some mopey sounding guy answers the phone with "MSI...." (no greeting beyond that, just a pause), so i explain that i got an email and ive been trying to contact tom ho for the past 3 hours and need to get this resolved. He interrupts me and says "one---one second *CLICK*" and the phone starts ringing. The idiot transferred me to Tom Hos line! So of course i got a fucking answering machine!

MSI is arguably one of the largest hardware brands in computing and this is what they fucking have to offer? What a shit company.
 
So you buy a card for something that is known to kill cards and complain about over clocking abilities that are never guaranteed. Oh do tell more.


On a bit more serious note, 280X's are horrible with their VRM's, they get insanely hot.
 
xIronCrossx said:
So you buy a card for something that is known to kill cards and complain about over clocking abilities that are never guaranteed. Oh do tell more.


On a bit more serious note, 280X's are horrible with their VRM's, they get insanely hot.
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Hmm. I thought he wanted to under-volt for mining but wasn't able to, at least that's how I read it. I like MSI (their lightning line, specifically) from a hardware standpoint but i've luckily never had to RMA anything to them. Sounds like it would just be a pain all around. Which really isn't cool regardless of what a GPU is purchased for, you know? At least that's my thought. 265$ for a 280X is just a spit in the face, because the OP cant' even buy a similarly performing card for that price. It's straight up bullshit IMO. If MSI is only offering 265$, they should be called out on that fact - if that's their regular practice (not paying the market value for a broken GPU) then I would certainly think twice about buying a card from them again.
 
xIronCrossx said:
So you buy a card for something that is known to kill cards and complain about over clocking abilities that are never guaranteed. Oh do tell more.


On a bit more serious note, 280X's are horrible with their VRM's, they get insanely hot.
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A lot of shitty r280x let you underclock, its not about overclocking capabilities, its about not locking your card, especially a gaming card that demands a premium.

Basically, i get it, you want to thread shit. Now please tell me why anyone should buy an msi card after hearing what im telling you??
 
I can't believe you guys are siding with MSI on this. Seriously. What the FUCK. I can't believe i've read defense of MSI on this issue. He wanted to undervolt his card for mining, couldn't do that. I think that was unrelated. Card then stopped working, MSI said "fuck you" and only offered 265$ for the replacement. Is this what happened? If so, am I missing something here? Why the hell are you guys siding with MSI on this? Why would you side with MSI not giving him a replacement or fair market value for a card? I don't give a flying fuck what a card is used for , if it's not over volted or overclocked MSI should cover it. Period.
 
xoleras said:
I can't believe you guys are siding with MSI on this. Seriously. What the FUCK. I can't believe i've read defense of MSI on this issue. He wanted to undervolt his card for mining, couldn't do that. I think that was unrelated. Card then stopped working, MSI said "fuck you" and only offered 265$ for the replacement. Is this what happened? If so, am I missing something here? Why the hell are you guys siding with MSI on this? Why would you side with MSI not giving him a replacement or fair market value for a card? I don't give a flying fuck what a card is used for , if it's not over volted or overclocked MSI should cover it. Period.
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Not quite. He killed the card mining. The RMA had nothing to do with "wanting to undervolt,"
 
okashira said:
Not quite. He killed the card mining. The RMA had nothing to do with "wanting to undervolt,"
Click to expand...



Yeah. Point being? So what? MSI should cover that shit.

The card has a 3 year warranty and there is no disclaimer that says you can't mine. You can do whatever the hell you want to with it. I don't get why the hell anyone would side with MSI on this. It's bullshit to only get 265$ for the card.
 
okashira said:
Not quite. He killed the card mining. The RMA had nothing to do with "wanting to undervolt,"
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It ran under 80 deg C the whole time. Youre going to have to fill me in as to how i killed this card. Ive had older amd cards that run 70 deg idle in my pc. Theyve been trucking for 5 years.
 
0055 said:
Ive made far more money than ive invested in this card you moron. As far as i know MSI doesnt get to advertise a 3 year warranty on an item and then not fucking repair my card AND become impossible to contact?

You know its weird, your post applies much more to MSI than me "Business...profit... investments, all a risk. I assume you accounted for all of this, but apparently not."

Derpy derp fail.
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:rolleyes:

xoleras said:
Yeah. Point being? So what? MSI should cover that shit.

The card has a 3 year warranty and there is no disclaimer that says you can't mine. You can do whatever the hell you want to with it. I don't get why the hell anyone would side with MSI on this. It's bullshit to only get 265$ for the card.
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They should pay him what he paid for it. I suspect that's what happened.
I bought my 7970 for $225.
 
I remember a time when companies made good on their warranties. I'm actually glad this was brought up because i'll definitely second guess buying an MSI card again.

Other companies will replace a card with the next step up if they can't make good on their existing card. I haven't heard of other companies offering refunds. I have heard of even XFX offering a card one step up if they don't have inventory. And honestly, I don't like XFX at all, and if they're going a step above MSI what does that say? EVGA will offer a card one step up as well if there is no stock of the RMA'ed card.

I still cannot believe i'm reading justification for what MSI did here. It's bullshit. Plain and simple
 
Id be fine with them paying what i paid for it, they didnt even offer that, they just emailed me saying they got an "hq approved rma credit of $265".. Thats great except i spent $435 on this card, and then $12 shipping it to them insured.
 
No they should replace it for him. Or offer him replacement cost. Not $265. Some people are really bitter that they don't understand mining or didn't get on the mining train
 
0055 said:
Id be fine with them paying what i paid for it, they didnt even offer that, they just emailed me saying they got an "hq approved rma credit of $265".. cool theyre only short $170 i spent on this shit card.
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Please keep us up to date on this after this Tom clown gets back with you. I'm quite interested to see if MSI makes good. If they don't, i'll definitely keep this in the back of my head the next time I buy a GPU or motherboard.

Digital Viper-X- said:
No they should replace it for him. Or offer him replacement cost. Not $265. Some people are really bitter that they don't understand mining.
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YES. This is EXACTLY what should happen. 265$ is a spit in the face IMO.
 
Please point me to the brand new 280X that you can buy for 265$. :rolleyes: Heck you can't even buy a USED 280X for that.
 
So my experience with MSI is totally different. Had a used 6970 die on me. Sent it in, they sent me a 7970. Just arrived today.
 
tell them you want a full refund. same thing happened with me and a 6970 lightning...had it for a month, it died. they couldnt replace it so they lowballed me in the first email. i replied nicely and promptly got a full refund.
 
0055 said:
Id be fine with them paying what i paid for it, they didnt even offer that, they just emailed me saying they got an "hq approved rma credit of $265".. Thats great except i spent $435 on this card, and then $12 shipping it to them insured.
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If that's true, they will need to correct that. I suspect you will be able to resolve this issue with Tom, if not the BBB, then with a small claims case.

Or you could just slander the company on a forum after trying to call some guy a few times over a 3 hour period.
 
I will definitely keep everyone up to date as to what happens with either a refund or repair. They state that a "replacement card" can take up to 15 days to ship out to you after receipt of the RMA card (why? who knows).

I dont remember ever having to do RMA on a card, but i would expect this type of RMA process out of a "3rd tier" company like powercolor possibly, but NEVER MSI.. It really makes you think twice as to why anyone would pay a premium for msi
 
Why didn't MSI offer to give you another 280X? Or did I miss something?

Why only $265?

Something isn't right here. Cant you contact the retailer if the card is less than 1 month old and work with them?

Simple.....3 year warranty, card less than 1 month old = new card.
 
0055 said:
I will definitely keep everyone up to date as to what happens with either a refund or repair. They state that a "replacement card" can take up to 15 days to ship out to you after receipt of the RMA card (why? who knows).

I dont remember ever having to do RMA on a card, but i would expect this type of RMA process out of a "3rd tier" company like powercolor possibly, but NEVER MSI.. It really makes you think twice as to why anyone would pay a premium for msi
Click to expand...

That's standard for pretty much all companies. Gives them time to check your card and allocate a new one, put it through their system and package it for shipping, usually it gets done faster and they say 15days as a padded estimate.
 
okashira said:
If that's true, they will need to correct that. I suspect you will be able to resolve this issue with Tom, if not the BBB, then with a small claims case.

Or you could just slander the company on a forum after trying to call some guy a few times over a 3 hour period.
Click to expand...

The day the card died their entire rma online system was down (i called in after it failed to submit my rma info several times and they confirmed that it would be down the whole day) so i did the RMA over the phone. Thats fine. Then they take their sweet time with the RMA, thats fine. Then they try to lowball me for $265 and i have to waste a bunch of time trying to get into contact with ONE guy? Thats not fine. Its not slanderous, im simply pointing out what to expect for anyone who has to deal with MSi warranties. I have called him, left messages with my phone # (3 to be precise), emailed him with phone number, nothing works.
 
Haste266 said:
tell them you want a full refund. same thing happened with me and a 6970 lightning...had it for a month, it died. they couldnt replace it so they lowballed me in the first email. i replied nicely and promptly got a full refund.
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No shit? Wow. Good info here for my next purchase...
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
That's standard for pretty much all companies. Gives them time to check your card and allocate a new one, put it through their system and package it for shipping, usually it gets done faster and they say 15days as a padded estimate.
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It should be noted that some companies like EVGA will get you a card pretty much asap. I think they even give you a loaner card to use in the mean time or something?
 
0055 said:
The day the card died their entire rma online system was down (i called in after it failed to submit my rma info several times and they confirmed that it would be down the whole day) so i did the RMA over the phone. Thats fine. Then they take their sweet time with the RMA, thats fine. Then they try to lowball me for $265 and i have to waste a bunch of time trying to get into contact with ONE guy? Thats not fine. Its not slanderous, im simply pointing out what to expect for anyone who has to deal with MSi warranties. I have called him, left messages with my phone # (3 to be precise), emailed him with phone number, nothing works.
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You are the one who wasted time. Calling someone and leaving a message takes 30 seconds.

If you have time to sit around and call someone over and over, leave repeated messages all in the same day, and write an angry post on an internet forum, then pace around pissed off about it, that's your time you wasted, not MSI's fault.

Or you coulda just left him one message, waited 1-2 days and see what happens.
 
You won't get Tom on the phone. Ever. Just keep trying the RMA # and don't mention his name.
 
okashira said:
You are the one who wasted time. Calling someone and leaving a message takes 30 seconds.

Or you coulda just left him one message, waited 1-2 days and see what happens.
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Haha.

You don't simply get to his VM immediately. It takes hours of forwarding through the system.

Reminds me of the 8 VM's I left Asus a few years back, with zero response.

I really, really don't get why you're trolling this thread.

MSI advertises a 3 year warranty. They should provide this, or be sued. It's honestly, truly, that simple.
 
Haste266 said:
tell them you want a full refund. same thing happened with me and a 6970 lightning...had it for a month, it died. they couldnt replace it so they lowballed me in the first email. i replied nicely and promptly got a full refund.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the advice, much appreciated, probably going to go this route.

THUMPer1 said:
You won't get Tom on the phone. Ever. Just keep trying the RMA # and don't mention his name.
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This made me crack up. Thanks, ill call straight to the main RMA department tomorrow when i have time and probably get it sorted out with them.
 
okashira said:
You are the one who wasted time. Calling someone and leaving a message takes 30 seconds.

If you have time to sit around and call someone over and over, leave repeated messages all in the same day, and write an angry post on an internet forum, then pace around pissed off about it, that's your time you wasted, not MSI's fault.

Or you coulda just left him one message, waited 1-2 days and see what happens.
Click to expand...

Im giving people a heads up what to expect. Thats all, take it or leave it.

Im lucky that there are helpful people on this forum that are giving me some useful advice though. :)
 
I'm actually going to hop on MSI's side and I almost hate MSI at this point.

Mining shortage more than likely has them out of stock, and hence the refund, its not MSI's fault you bought a product ABOVE MSRP and expect THEM to make you whole; they didn't put a gun to your head and make your buy their card at an over inflated price.

Its too bad this thread will probably be deleted, but this is a good example of one of the negative impacts of buying an AMD card at this point in time.
 
I hate MSI right now. At the time I was in the market for a new GPU so I purchased x1 Twin Frozr 7950 & the first day i got it, it ran like garbage. No matter hat I did I could not get it to run right at all. It played games like poop.

So I all newegg and got a replacement. Second card artifacts right out of the box. Dumb founded & ticked off I call newegg and got another replacement. Guess what. DOA. Newegg refunded me and gave me a discount on a Sapphire Vapor-X 7950 and the card ran like a dream. NEVER again will I buy an MSi product.
 
4LC4PON3 said:
I hate MSI right now. At the time I was in the market for a new GPU so I purchased x1 Twin Frozr 7950 & the first day i got it, it ran like garbage. No matter hat I did I could not get it to run right at all. It played games like poop.

So I all newegg and got a replacement. Second card artifacts right out of the box. Dumb founded & ticked off I call newegg and got another replacement. Guess what. DOA. Newegg refunded me and gave me a discount on a Sapphire Vapor-X 7950 and the card ran like a dream. NEVER again will I buy an MSi product.
Click to expand...

That probably has to do with Newegg employees putting defective returned items back into the inventory instead of returning it to the manufacturer. Plenty of similar stories with Newegg and motherboards as well.

I blew up two MSI boards overclocking a Phenom II 1090t. MSI RMA'd them without a question, received replacements about a week after sending it in. A MSI Big Bang Xpower board I got was defective. Subsequent replacements were also defective (they did pay for the return shipping without me asking them to), and eventually they sent me a brand new retail board with complete packaging (again, no intervention necessary on my part). Once again, turnaround times were about a week.

Also, about the EVGA advanced RMA thing... you have to buy the advanced RMA service upon registering the card (remember, to qualify for EVGA extended warranty, you have to register the card within 30 days of purchase). I believe the cost is around $30-50, it is not free.
 
Sodapopjones said:
I'm actually going to hop on MSI's side and I almost hate MSI at this point.

Mining shortage more than likely has them out of stock, and hence the refund, its not MSI's fault you bought a product ABOVE MSRP and expect THEM to make you whole; they didn't put a gun to your head and make your buy their card at an over inflated price.

Its too bad this thread will probably be deleted, but this is a good example of one of the negative impacts of buying an AMD card at this point in time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, except, other non shit GPU companies will replace the item with a GPU one step higher. This is what EVGA and XFX has done, and I don't even like XFX. The fact that XFX has better support than MSI in this respect really is telling.

Hey at least MSI has never released a design as shit as the 79xx DD cards were, right? But even with that being the case, i'm pretty sure XFX will right their wrongs, whereas it sounds like MSI may not. XFX apparently knows their 79xx DD cards were shit and will correct their mistakes and honor their warranty. 7950 out of stock? No problem, from what i've read they will replace it with a one step up product. What they won't do is go one step down or pay you less than you deserve. I have direct experience with EVGA in this regard and they will give you a GPU better than the one you're RMA'ing, if the RMA'ed card is out of stock. They've ever covered shipping for me despite not having to. That is good CS. Guess what isn't good CS?

Also, funnily enough, MSI is trying to pay the OP below MSRP. I don't even see how you could possibly justify that, regardless of what market conditions are - MSI should stand behind their product. Especially a one month old product that was (from what i'm reading) never overclocked or over-volted. You say this is a pitfall of buying an AMD card. I'm firmly in the nvidia camp, but this isn't an AMD vs nvidia issue, this is an issue of the manufacturer standing behind their product and doing the customer right.

I am hoping the OP gets in touch with MSI and at a minimum gets market value for his card. That is fair. If that doesn't happen, I can guarantee I won't buy an MSI product again whether it is AMD or nvidia. Now i'm just one person - peanuts in terms of revenue; I buy a couple of GPUs a year and have always been a fan of the Lightning line - but if this happens to enough people, word gets around.
 
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Sodapopjones said:
I'm actually going to hop on MSI's side and I almost hate MSI at this point.

Mining shortage more than likely has them out of stock, and hence the refund, its not MSI's fault you bought a product ABOVE MSRP and expect THEM to make you whole; they didn't put a gun to your head and make your buy their card at an over inflated price.

Its too bad this thread will probably be deleted, but this is a good example of one of the negative impacts of buying an AMD card at this point in time.
Click to expand...

It's not his fault they made him a card with a short shelf life and can't honor their warranty program. The card just came out a month or two ago, $265 wouldn't even be a enough to replace it even if there wasn't a mining inflation. I'm not sure how MSI is getting a pass here for bad support and faulty product.

The MSI 280X's have been plagued with issues. One of the largest has been faulty VRM readings and the voltages being locked. Likely his issue is his voltage adjustments were not being made and his VRMs were overheating and he wouldn't even know.
 
This is why limited warranties are needed on these kinds of products. So it's more of a risk vs reward instead of crying foul when something breaks due to the product being operated under extreme conditions. I can imagine that mining does damage a good amount of GPU's. I have no idea what the percentage would be but I know the OP isn't the first. I have never had any issues with MSI products & I've been using them since the K8N Platinum days. I would still recommend there products to others.
 
Card refund should = MSRP of the card, as said, MSI is not the one who inflated current prices.

Anything run at %100 load will not last, their 3 year warranty is likley under "normal usage" not "extreme usage 24x7", wonder if they define that anywhere as i have seen some warranties suggest that under normal operating conditions.

Run your TV 24/7 and see how long it lasts..
Drive your car 150mph all day and night... see what breaks first..

It sucks this is going like this with their support, but these cards were not designed to be mining cards, they were designed as gaming cards, high loads for shorter periods with chances to cool off.
 
xoleras said:
Yeah, except, other non shit GPU companies will replace the item with a GPU one step higher. This is what EVGA and XFX has done, and I don't even like XFX. The fact that XFX has better support than MSI in this respect really is telling.

Hey at least MSI has never released a design as shit as the 79xx DD cards were, right? But even with that being the case, i'm pretty sure XFX will right their wrongs, whereas it sounds like MSI may not. XFX apparently knows their 79xx DD cards were shit and will correct their mistakes and honor their warranty. 7950 out of stock? No problem, from what i've read they will replace it with a one step up product. What they won't do is go one step down or pay you less than you deserve. I have direct experience with EVGA in this regard and they will give you a GPU better than the one you're RMA'ing, if the RMA'ed card is out of stock. They've ever covered shipping for me despite not having to. That is good CS. Guess what isn't good CS?

Also, funnily enough, MSI is trying to pay the OP below MSRP. I don't even see how you could possibly justify that, regardless of what market conditions are - MSI should stand behind their product. Especially a one month old product that was (from what i'm reading) never overclocked or over-volted. You say this is a pitfall of buying an AMD card. I'm firmly in the nvidia camp, but this isn't an AMD vs nvidia issue, this is an issue of the manufacturer standing behind their product and doing the customer right.

I am hoping the OP gets in touch with MSI and at a minimum gets market value for his card. That is fair. If that doesn't happen, I can guarantee I won't buy an MSI product again whether it is AMD or nvidia. Now i'm just one person - peanuts in terms of revenue; I buy a couple of GPUs a year and have always been a fan of the Lightning line - but if this happens to enough people, word gets around.
Click to expand...

Lets simplify this into reality:

Supply and demand

Replacement of a USED card for $265.

Don't know how I can make this any clearer or simpler.

gordon151 said:
It's not his fault they made him a card with a short shelf life and can't honor their warranty program. The card just came out a month or two ago, $265 wouldn't even be a enough to replace it even if there wasn't a mining inflation. I'm not sure how MSI is getting a pass here for bad support and faulty product.

The MSI 280X's have been plagued with issues. One of the largest has been faulty VRM readings and the voltages being locked. Likely his issue is his voltage adjustments were not being made and his VRMs were overheating and he wouldn't even know.
Click to expand...

Supply and demand

Replacement of a USED card for $265.


One more time, in case anyone missed it the first 2 times.

Supply and demand

Replacement of a USED card for $265.

Also since MSI offers more incentives than most companies, how do we know this isn't what the card was supposed to sell for at the time of purchase?
 
R9 280x MSRP is approximately $300. Devaluation due to being used (I'm assuming OP has had this card for quite a while, as he did state he has made a profit off of it), and $265 is quite reasonable IMO. They should have asked the OP if he would accept the refund or wait for replacement card first though.
 
Devaluation due to being used? That is bullshit people.

The item broke under warrenty, it should be repaired or replaced. Not paid for at below MSRP and below current market value.
 
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