MSI Z77A-G41 LGA 1155 Motherboard Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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MSI Z77A-G41 LGA 1155 Motherboard Review - While it's usually the high end boards that get the most attention, it's often the lower end and mid-range boards that many people purchase. With this in mind we get back to basics with the Z77A-G41 which is an entry level offering from MSI that boasts many enthusiast features.
 
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With the issues you all had with that board, I'm not sure if anyone should purchase it. Thanks for exposing this kind of stuff.
 
I had an old MSI board the P6N and loved it till I needed to get some help with it. MSI has gone down hill and their decline in quality seems to match the same time their marketing started using terms like "supercharger" and "extreme overcloackability" and my personal favorite "military class II components."

They need to spend less on marketing/advetisement and more on quality control and design. Oh and throw a little cash at customer service its complete ass.
 
I had an old MSI board the P6N and loved it till I needed to get some help with it. MSI has gone down hill and their decline in quality seems to match the same time their marketing started using terms like "supercharger" and "extreme overcloackability" and my personal favorite "military class II components."

They need to spend less on marketing/advetisement and more on quality control and design. Oh and throw a little cash at customer service its complete ass.

MSI is pretty bad when it comes to marketing speak. They use a lot of it consistently and almost none of it helps the consumer in any way. As for their quality I've found it to be cyclical. Sometimes they do great and other times not so much. One thing I will say for them is that they do listen to criticism and take action. Albeit very, very slowly.
 
I put a PC together for my roommate using the MSI z77a-gd65 motherboard. He had a lot of problems with what appeared at first to be a video card issue. His video card was fine during the few months of use from his previous Core i7 920 machine. On his new box he was being dumped out of any 3D game after about 15 minutes. His graphic card heat levels were nominal but his CPU, which is liquid cooled, reported an idle temperature of about 5c by both RealTemp and SpeedFan. That did not seem normal. When I swapped out his video card (GTX 680) for mine (GTX 580) his PC refused to boot. I swapped them back and it still refused to boot. It was reporting error 55 on the motherboard LCD.

This seems to be endemic across that motherboard.

http://www.google.com/search?q=msi+z77a-gd65+bios+error+55

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=159409.0

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=2i7ruf5nhv1kq2c91n0m11bie4&topic=158224.0

BIOS manual:
http://www.ami.com/support/doc/AMI_Aptio_4.x_Status_Codes_PUB.pdf

We have tried to boot using any individual stick of RAM in any of the four slots to no avail. Replaced the power supply with no effect.

He went through the hoops to get the board RMAed and should be getting a new board back relatively soon.

I am having serious trust issues right now on MSI in specific and other brands in general. I am concerned that any PC I build may have a bad motherboard. Online ratings seem abysmal lately or perhaps that is just me being pessimistic.
 
I love this
''Beyond these odd issues, I did not have problems with the MSI Z77A-G41 overall.''

nice work, shows you get what you pay for and less..Gotta admit, am a bit shocked a board in this era is so bad out-of-the-box. The people who would most likely buy this board, lotsa legacy bits and pieces, probably wouldn't have multiple vidcards to try and get a post to turn off hot-swapping, so in most other hands this board would be a DOA or @best a PIA if you got it to post. Mobo makers pumping out mega amounts of similar boards - dropping and adding features, not surprised duds appear.
Anywayz, thnx for the efforts - will be keeping my shit, no MSI upgrades in the foreseeable fyootcha!!:):):)
 
From the review...

"I also noticed that my voltage readings fluctuated quite a bit. With a setting of 1.28v, it read anywhere from 1.98-1.28 and everything in between."

I find these voltage setings extremely odd.

" However, there is no PLX chip and only dual PCIe x16 form factor slots."

For $90???? Cheapest MB that has a PLX chip that I am aware of is the ECS Golden Z77H2-AX(1.0) for $269.99.

I enjoyed the review and enjoyed the harsh critique.

If I was on a tight budget I think could get by with this MB. For peace of mind for the over clocking I would save up my nickels and dimes for a month and then get some decent copper heat sinks and put them on the VRMs.

Something like this.

LL


47xmultiplier is basicly 4.7GHZ at 1.192v is a very nice over clock but your voltage going as high as 1.98 seems very odd. My experience with MSI MB is that they do a good job with improving BIOS after time to fix stuff. Could be that in time with some BIOS updates some of the oddities experienced could be fixed.
 
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Typo on my part. I believe it was 1.18-1.28v and everything in between. And yeah, I know the board was too cheap for a PLX chip. My point in mentioning it was that it isn't ideal for multiGPU systems.
 
One thing I didn't pick up: is the second x16 slot fully x16?

No.

All Z77 chipset MB are limited in bandwidth speeds by 4 things.

1. PCI EXPRESS 3.0 Speeds can only be reached with an IVY BRIDGE CPU. Sandy Bridge CPU will run lanes at PCI Express 2.0 speeds.


2. Z77 chipset with IB CPU can run PCI 3.0 slots at:

A) 1x16
B) 2x8
C) 1x8 and 1x4 in Xfire/SLI with a third lane at x4 for "Thunderbolt".


z77_small.jpg



3. How the Main Board is physically designed. IF max bandwith of a PCI 3.0 EXrpess lane is x8 then that is limit of its bandwidth.

4. If the video card is designed to operate at PCI 2.0 or 3.0 speeds.

Looking at the back side of the PCB of the MSI Z77 G41 it appears to have one full PCI Express 3.0x16 lane and the second lane is hard built to max at PCI 3.0x8 or PCI 2.0x16 when using a PCI 3.0x16 video card only with an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU.

It is kind of confusing but for 2 slots it's just as capable as any other Z77 MB that has 2 PCI 3.0x16 express slots for Xfire/SLI when running with an Ivy Bridge CPU. I think marketing of boards to manipulate the PCI lane speeds between PCI 3.0 and PCI 2.0 is to help influence the price of the main board. Ultimately the speed of Z77 PCI lanes is going to be based on what I have posted.
 
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Looking at the back side of the PCB of the MSI Z77 G41 it appears to have have one full PCI Express 3.0x16 lane and the second lane is hard built to max at PCI 3.0x8 or PCI 2.0x16 when using a PCI 2.0x16 video card only with an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU.

Thank you. This is the critical bit for me. When I again get the funds to purchase my near-silent PC - hopefully January - I will want a motherboard that fully supports x16 in the second x16 slot. This will be because the first x16 slot will be unavailable. I know that bandwidth can be split x16/x0 and x8/x8, but I've yet to see one that does x0/x16.
 
Thank you. This is the critical bit for me. When I again get the funds to purchase my near-silent PC - hopefully January - I will want a motherboard that fully supports x16 in the second x16 slot. This will be because the first x16 slot will be unavailable. I know that bandwidth can be split x16/x0 and x8/x8, but I've yet to see one that does x0/x16.

Why would the first slot be unavailable?
 
Thank you. This is the critical bit for me. When I again get the funds to purchase my near-silent PC - hopefully January - I will want a motherboard that fully supports x16 in the second x16 slot. This will be because the first x16 slot will be unavailable. I know that bandwidth can be split x16/x0 and x8/x8, but I've yet to see one that does x0/x16.

If low price MB is the goal then...


IF you want MSI brand you may want to look at getting a MSI Z68 GD65 G3 which can do full PCI 3.0x16 when using the 2nd slot with 1 card.

This BIOSTAR Z77 looks like it can do PCI 3.0x16 in second slot with only 1 video card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-na-_-na&AID=10440897&PID=3891137&SID=rewrite
 
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Just to counter the massive dislike for this motherboard...I received mine from the egg last week. Cost me $74 with free shipping plus there is an additional $10 rebate. The price was too good to pass up and I wanted to try a Z77 motherboard. Installed a core i5 2400...it boot right up and had the latest bios installed (2.4) as well. I hardly had any lag with my wireless mouse in the UEFI bios. Overclocking was easy using OC Genie II software and it allowed me to use the 4 extra multiplier bins to oc from 34x to 38x (3.80ghz). It also allows micro adjustments to the blck as I upped it to 103.1mhx for an extra 100mhz to 3.90ghz. The only drawbacks may be the limited voltage adjustments for the cpu and memory, but if you really want to do major oc'ing why purchase this board anyways? Works perfectly fine and stable for me, but oh well your mileage may vary.
 
Just to counter the massive dislike for this motherboard...I received mine from the egg last week. Cost me $74 with free shipping plus there is an additional $10 rebate. The price was too good to pass up and I wanted to try a Z77 motherboard. Installed a core i5 2400...it boot right up and had the latest bios installed (2.4) as well. I hardly had any lag with my wireless mouse in the UEFI bios. Overclocking was easy using OC Genie II software and it allowed me to use the 4 extra multiplier bins to oc from 34x to 38x (3.80ghz). It also allows micro adjustments to the blck as I upped it to 103.1mhx for an extra 100mhz to 3.90ghz. The only drawbacks may be the limited voltage adjustments for the cpu and memory, but if you really want to do major oc'ing why purchase this board anyways? Works perfectly fine and stable for me, but oh well your mileage may vary.

Some of MSI's lower end boards in the past have really been great enthusiast options for people on a budget. They could take a Core i5 2500k (or whatever was out at the time) and ramp it up to speeds rivaling that of higher end boards. That wasn't the case with this board. There were tons of issues with this one and on top of that it didn't overclock very well. But we were taking it a lot farther than a Core i5 2400 could ever go on it.

That's the difference.
 
While you can go multi-GPU with these value Z-chipset motherboards, I wouldn't recommend it, simply because multi-GPU (whether CrossFireX or SLI) is persnickety enough as it is, and trying to do so on a low-end motherboard is playing with fire. (I have never recommended CrossFireX on the BIOSTAR TZ68 or TZ77 series for the same reason.) If you're thinking multi-GPU, spend more money and go midrange (ASUS P8Z77-V or equivalent) if not higher.

Well often times motherboards at lower price points are just equipped with less features. Some of them are a solid value for enthusiasts and there is nothing wrong with a multiGPU setup on a board that doesn't have 12 SATA ports on it with three RAID controllers, WiFi, Bluetooth, mSATA disks, and more crap they'll never use. And again we've reviewed some lower end MSI boards like this before and found them to be incredible values for the money. Maybe not the best for multiGPU, but a great value just the same.

This wasn't one of those boards, but we didn't know that until we looked at it.
 
Well often times motherboards at lower price points are just equipped with less features. Some of them are a solid value for enthusiasts and there is nothing wrong with a multiGPU setup on a board that doesn't have 12 SATA ports on it with three RAID controllers, WiFi, Bluetooth, mSATA disks, and more crap they'll never use. And again we've reviewed some lower end MSI boards like this before and found them to be incredible values for the money. Maybe not the best for multiGPU, but a great value just the same.

This wasn't one of those boards, but we didn't know that until we looked at it.

Still, this is a good single-GPU option for Z77 (yes, I read the review) and for those looking for such a board that is a modest overclocker at a low price, this motherboard still deserves consideration (MicroCenter has it as low as $29.99 after savings and $10 mail-in rebates, which makes it the lowest-priced Z77 motherboard option regardless of form-factor) - just don't expect miracles is what I'm saying.
 
As posted in another thread just got one for family member and it was great..maybe we were lucky
 
Okay so I was all set to get one of these but after reading the mixed reviews around I'm not so sure. I was looking at it for a CADD system and some minor gaming, but given that I may not be able to run multi-gpu very easily I'm a bit concerned. I could care less about overclocking really, and the case I have has more than enough cooling to handle just about anything, it's an old AeroRacer with the 400mm intake case fan (Hey, it was free). I'd like to be able to do my 3D modelling without waiting for two or more minutes for my rig to figure out what I'm trying to do. That being said I'm on an extreme budget because I'm currently paying for college classes. So, I want the 32GB DDR3, LGA 1155, and multi-gpu capability. But is there maybe a better board with these capabilities for a similar price that doesn't have these issues?
 
The review says this motherboard only supports dual cards for multigpu, but that's actually incorrect? So you can run SLI on it with a bridge?
 
The review says this motherboard only supports dual cards for multigpu, but that's actually incorrect? So you can run SLI on it with a bridge?

It does support CrossfireX. It says so on the board PCB. The manufacturer's website specifications at that time did list SLI support. Whether or not that's accurate, I don't recall.
 
I am trying to get SLI to function on this board with two PNY 770 GTX, so far it crashes very frequently and SLI option doesn't show in 331.65 driver. Do I need to remove my SLI linking board to enable asymmetrical SLI?

My setup
CPU E3 1220L
G skill ripsaw 1600mhz DDr3 8GB
Intel 640GB SSD
2 PNY 770 GTX
1 MSI SLI Linking board purchased separately
1100 W PSU
Window 8 pro x64
Nvidia 331.64 Driver
 
Wish I read this before purchasing the board.

I basically get no display with any video card installed. Without a video card my integrated graphics produces a display fine. Install a card and integrated graphics no longer displays.

I tried both PCI-E slots with same result. Computer is booting fine with it installed, just no display. BIOS is set to PEG - only two options IDG or PEG.

Another mention, after using enthusiast boards for years the simple addition of led's on the mainboard is something I have just taken for granted. Zero led's now feels wrong so I've learned it will be a deciding factor in my future purchases.
 
To further clarify. It is apparently not compatible with my video card. I tried a different card and it was fine. I tried the offending card in another system and it was also fine.

This board just doesn't play nice with some cards it seems.
 
Just to counter the massive dislike for this motherboard...I received mine from the egg last week. Cost me $74 with free shipping plus there is an additional $10 rebate. The price was too good to pass up and I wanted to try a Z77 motherboard. Installed a core i5 2400...it boot right up and had the latest bios installed (2.4) as well. I hardly had any lag with my wireless mouse in the UEFI bios. Overclocking was easy using OC Genie II software and it allowed me to use the 4 extra multiplier bins to oc from 34x to 38x (3.80ghz). It also allows micro adjustments to the blck as I upped it to 103.1mhx for an extra 100mhz to 3.90ghz. The only drawbacks may be the limited voltage adjustments for the cpu and memory, but if you really want to do major oc'ing why purchase this board anyways? Works perfectly fine and stable for me, but oh well your mileage may vary.

Same here but.... I have never overclocked. So I guess once I start tinkering the light may shine on that bag of hair :rolleyes:
 
I know it is an old thread but I have the same issue mentioned in the review
This MSI Z77A-G41 had several issues right out of the box. First off it seemed to have issues with certain video cards and being able to POST once you have saved out of the BIOS. To let you know the depth of my testing, here is a list of cards that were used to try and pinpoint what turns out to be a two-pronged issue: GTX 570-No POST, GTX 470-No POST, Radeon 5670-No POST , Radeon 7970-POST OK, Radeon X1950-POST OK, Radeon 2900XT-POST OK, GTX 680-POST OK. Moving a card back and forth between PCIe slots would allow it to POST though between reboots. I worked on what seemed to surely be a video card compatibility issue for a long while. In the end, and after a lot of granular testing, it ended up being that having Hot Swap SATA AHCI enabled was causing my No-POST problems. Turn off Hot Swap SATA in the BIOS and all the POSTing issues went away. I talked to MSI about this and it could confirm no issues with motherboards that it had in house. Hot Swap did however work fine inside the OS when it was enabled and you could trick the board into POSTing.

Where is "hot swap SATA" option in the bios? Is it the hot plug setting in the sata section for each harddrive?
 
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