I had been looking for a place that had a definitive run down on the issues of this board, and finally found it the day after I hosed my bios.
Shortly after the release of the MSI K7T Pro2, Anandtech gave it an Editor’s Choice Award and said that he could only expect the Pro2a to live up to it as it’s the same board plus ATA100.
So I go to the local store, and wonder of wonders they have one in stock. Since I had just killed my A7V and Duron 700 (@1050) in a peltier accident), I picked it up. Everything worked on the first try, except the overclocking of another Duron 700. Oh well, maybe my Duron is just one of the runts of the litter and can’t overclock.
A couple weeks later I heard something about how the Pro2a changes the voltage from default to whatever is specified after the multi and fsb speeds and before boot, so pencil in the L7 bridges. Did this, not one damn bit of good. I’m basically resigned to the fact that this pig WILL NOT overclock.
Suddenly, after a month of running this setup no problem, I decide to run Sandra. To my suprise I’m getting HORRIBLE mem marks, like 150 points less per column then on my former (beloved) A7V.
So I figure I’ll flash the BIOS, no big deal. I download the package, extract it to a folder on my desktop. I want to rename the autoexec.bat so it doesn’t just automatically run the flash. I wanted to check out my hard drives firmware revision in hope of upgrading it to ATA100 (its a WD expert 20gig 7200rpm). I somehow managed to double left click the autoexec.bat . oh damn….
I see a DOS window popup with the familiar layout of the flash program. Immediately a fatal exception occurs. after I click ok a time or two the flash program is gone, everything seems to be running fine. I rename the autoexec to flash.bat and shutdown and restart. 1 long beep, 4 short beeps, a 1 second pause, and continuous short beeps. This is at 10:30pm Pacific time last night.
I jump on my other comp (dual cel366@561 on BP6) and hit the MSI page, no technical support email address is listed but a relatively local phone number is. Went to work today and called them. Explained my situation, without any suggestion on my part the tech says “I’ll take your info and we’ll ship you out a new bios chip which will arrive by the end of next week.”
To say I was pleased is a minor understatement, overjoyed would better describe it. While I am still not overly happy with the performance of my board and its inability to overclock, that level of service has to be commended. I don’t think I have every been serviced by a factory tech that quickly or with that good of a result. I had to spend an hour on the Intel RMA line to get my boxed proc replaced and they are supposed to be one of the better ones.
Just thought I would let you know in case you see anyone posting that they have hosed their bios on an MSI you can give them a heads up.
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