Hey folks,
I decided to post this more as a warning to people contemplating buying this motherboard or from MSi in general as at this stage it's more than just a coincidence.
I've purchased a total of 5 MSi boards over the past 3 years and every last one of them has died, one of which had died within 2 weeks! And that was only an Athlon 64 board. However I gave it some time and having spotted a good offer I snapped up an MSI 970A-G45 in an impulsive purchase as I needed an AM3 board quickly.
Now being an IT Support Spec. I did my homework and did some research before the purchase, but not enough it seems, as I didn't anticipate that the Sapphire Radeon HD 6970's cooler is -wider- than the usual stock cooler and completely envelopes 2 of the SATA ports. Now, that problem I could get by and it was my fault if I'm honest.
However, upong running the system (MSI 970A-G45, AMD Phenom II x6 1055T, 16GB Corsair XMX3 1333, HD 6970, Quattro 850W) for as little as ONE month, with the CPU overclocked to a small amount, literally only up to 3GHz with no voltage increase, I go downstairs with two EVE Online clients running and make a cup of coffee. I go back upstairs and my system is off! So I'm thinking, hmm, thats odd, perhaps Automatic Updates? No.. they're off. So I power back up and get a nice *snap* noise. Not good. After a full 3 hours of trying to power it back on and getting 0.5second power ups, I'm left baffled. The system will power on WITHOUT the 8pin CPU power cable connected, but once that is connected, the 0.5second power on happens. So I pop in a Phenom II x2 to see if it's my CPU (which is only a month old as well) and the same thing happens, I try a different PSU, same thing happens, different RAM, same thing. Unable to get beep codes due to no actual boot.
Then I closely inspect the board, and ALMOST miss the -tiny- bit of bubbling on one of the chips. It looks like a tiny bit of PVA glue got on it, not literally, but that's the visual.
So I go and Google this to see what it is, and it's apparently the CPU Power Phase control chip. So basically, it burned out, with very little overclocking, no over-volting, excellent air cooling. Considering this board is plastered with advertisements of OC Genie and it's overclocking and core unlocking potential, this is simply shocking. If you look closely at the picture, you'll notice the plastic CPU outter socket actually partially covers the chip preventing any air from accessing it also.
Has anybody ever had this happen to them? I personally, in all my years, have never had a phase change chip (which doesn't even require a heatsink usually) burn out within a month with MODERATE usage.
Unhappy man
I decided to post this more as a warning to people contemplating buying this motherboard or from MSi in general as at this stage it's more than just a coincidence.
I've purchased a total of 5 MSi boards over the past 3 years and every last one of them has died, one of which had died within 2 weeks! And that was only an Athlon 64 board. However I gave it some time and having spotted a good offer I snapped up an MSI 970A-G45 in an impulsive purchase as I needed an AM3 board quickly.
Now being an IT Support Spec. I did my homework and did some research before the purchase, but not enough it seems, as I didn't anticipate that the Sapphire Radeon HD 6970's cooler is -wider- than the usual stock cooler and completely envelopes 2 of the SATA ports. Now, that problem I could get by and it was my fault if I'm honest.
However, upong running the system (MSI 970A-G45, AMD Phenom II x6 1055T, 16GB Corsair XMX3 1333, HD 6970, Quattro 850W) for as little as ONE month, with the CPU overclocked to a small amount, literally only up to 3GHz with no voltage increase, I go downstairs with two EVE Online clients running and make a cup of coffee. I go back upstairs and my system is off! So I'm thinking, hmm, thats odd, perhaps Automatic Updates? No.. they're off. So I power back up and get a nice *snap* noise. Not good. After a full 3 hours of trying to power it back on and getting 0.5second power ups, I'm left baffled. The system will power on WITHOUT the 8pin CPU power cable connected, but once that is connected, the 0.5second power on happens. So I pop in a Phenom II x2 to see if it's my CPU (which is only a month old as well) and the same thing happens, I try a different PSU, same thing happens, different RAM, same thing. Unable to get beep codes due to no actual boot.
Then I closely inspect the board, and ALMOST miss the -tiny- bit of bubbling on one of the chips. It looks like a tiny bit of PVA glue got on it, not literally, but that's the visual.
So I go and Google this to see what it is, and it's apparently the CPU Power Phase control chip. So basically, it burned out, with very little overclocking, no over-volting, excellent air cooling. Considering this board is plastered with advertisements of OC Genie and it's overclocking and core unlocking potential, this is simply shocking. If you look closely at the picture, you'll notice the plastic CPU outter socket actually partially covers the chip preventing any air from accessing it also.
Has anybody ever had this happen to them? I personally, in all my years, have never had a phase change chip (which doesn't even require a heatsink usually) burn out within a month with MODERATE usage.
Unhappy man
