Something wrong with MSI quality or warranty service?

[tpeter3]

Hi

Earlier this year, I have purchased an MSI R9 280X from a guy on the internet. It was used, but it was cheap and it had warranty on it, so I thought if anything goes wrong, I can return it. Bought it in February, it failed in April. I returned it to the store, they sent it back to MSI, but they told me that the one I had was a refurbished one received in December, 3 months before I bought it. After waiting a month, MSI sent me another refurbished one, which then failed in 2 months. It was probably a memory failure once again. I went back to the store, returned it, and at the moment, I am waiting for the third card in 6 months. I am only gaming, and with my old Gigabyte 650 ti, everything works fine. However the MSI 280Xs die on me every other month for no apparent reason(No overheating, no overclocking, plenty of power from PSU). I wonder if there is something wrong with MSI quality, or if it's just bad luck. Do you have any good or bad experiences with MSI warranty service? 

[RedSphyxis]

@tpeter3 No bad experiences since most of the hardware I bought from them would last its typical lifespan of 3 years or so. But whenever I had a problem they always kept their word.(IN my country at least)

 

Most of my bad experiences come from AsRock. You probably just got bad luck getting a refurbished 280x. AFAIK you got scammed if you weren't aware that the unit you bought was refurbished. If you indeed didn't know you can probably sue them but I'm getting way to ahead.

[don_svetlio]

AFAIK the Twin Frozer IV was actually a pretty bad cooler which didn't even cool the memory or VRMs resulting in unnoticeable overheating (not all cards have memory and vrm sensors - most don't have them actually). The newer cooler seems to be fine but I wouldn't rule out the memory overheating like a boss with that cooler. First bios had the card working @ 90*C on the core and 120*C on the VRMs.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Which version of the 280x did you have?

[tpeter3]

+Pohernori

TwinFrozr IV OC edition, 3GB with the newest BIOS for the first time. Pic

For the second time the refurbished one received from MSI was pretty weird. It had the PCB layout of the 6GB version with the inverted power plugs and the finned heatsink at the end of the PCB, but it had 3GB of VRAM, and no backplate. Pic

 

+RedSphyxis

When I bought it, I knew it was not new, wasn't cheated by the seller.

 

+don_svetlio

As far as I know the TwinFrozr is one of the better coolers for the 280X. It had some metal plate on the memory modules, the same as XFX, Sapphire(I think).

It was not as good as Gigabyte's memory chips touching the main heatsink, but still better than the ASUS one which had no cooling on the memory at all. And I think memory shouldn't die in 2 months no matter which version I get.

[don_svetlio]

+Pohernori

TwinFrozr IV OC edition, 3GB with the newest BIOS for the first time. Pic

For the second time the refurbished one received from MSI was pretty weird. It had the PCB layout of the 6GB version with the inverted power plugs and the finned heatsink at the end of the PCB, but it had 3GB of VRAM, and no backplate. Pic

 

+RedSphyxis

When I bought it, I knew it was not new, wasn't cheated by the seller.

 

+don_svetlio

As far as I know the TwinFrozr is one of the better coolers for the 280X. It had some metal plate on the memory modules, the same as XFX, Sapphire(I think).

It was not as good as Gigabyte's memory chips touching the main heatsink, but still better than the ASUS one which had no cooling on the memory at all. And I think memory shouldn't die in 2 months no matter which version I get.

XFX and MSI coolers were the worst out of all for the R9 200 series as the MSI cooler missed 2 of the memory modules with the memory plate, thus leaving them without any form of cooling and both suffered from overheating VRMs. MSI fixed that with a BIOS whereas XFX released 4 revisions until they finally got the VRM temps under control. Even without memory cooling, my card and a friend's 280X, also by Asus, have no memory-related issues and my VRM temps stay around 72*C max so I'd say don't judge a book by it's covers and do some goolging.

EDIT: Notice how 2 of the memory modules are not being cooler at all and the lack of a VRM heatsink?

[Nena Trinity]

Sapphire makes best R9 cards...

[don_svetlio]

Asus cooler for reference

[don_svetlio]

Sapphire

[don_svetlio]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-280x-third-party-round-up,3655-4.html

[tpeter3]

With the lack of temp sensors in the memory modules, I only guessed that MSI and XFX has better memory cooling, and searching Youtube for "R9 280X artifacts", most of the results were Asus ones (or Sapphire Toxic). I know artifacting can be caused by a number of things, and the Toxic one had really high core clock, but I thought the Asus ones were suffering because of the lack of heatsink on the factory-overclocked memory. Also I haven't heard of a whole lot of people complaining about their MSI cards, rather more complaining about Asus and Sapphire Toxic variants.

I didn't know about the issues with the MSI and XFX variants you mentioned though, I thought the BIOS-updated MSI was fine, and didn't notice the uncovered memory modules, but after the second failed card in such a short time I guess you are right, TwinFrozr is probably pretty bad when it comes to cooling. However not all TwinFrozr cards fail after a few months, so I think there is something else to it other than the cooler design, maybe a mistake in the repair department. I hope this time I will get a card that works for more than the previous ones.

Anyways the whole point of my question was whether MSI was a bad brand that I should avoid, it's just this product, or bad luck. I guess there is nothing wrong with MSI in general, but next time I will double-check the specific product to be aware of any design flaws.

Thank you all for your answers.

[don_svetlio]

With the lack of temp sensors in the memory modules, I only guessed that MSI and XFX has better memory cooling, and searching Youtube for "R9 280X artifacts", most of the results were Asus ones (or Sapphire Toxic). I know artifacting can be caused by a number of things, and the Toxic one had really high core clock, but I thought the Asus ones were suffering because of the lack of heatsink on the factory-overclocked memory. Also I haven't heard of a whole lot of people complaining about their MSI cards, rather more complaining about Asus and Sapphire Toxic variants.

I didn't know about the issues with the MSI and XFX variants you mentioned though, I thought the BIOS-updated MSI was fine, and didn't notice the uncovered memory modules, but after the second failed card in such a short time I guess you are right, TwinFrozr is probably pretty bad when it comes to cooling. However not all TwinFrozr cards fail after a few months, so I think there is something else to it other than the cooler design, maybe a mistake in the repair department. I hope this time I will get a card that works for more than the previous ones.

Anyways the whole point of my question was whether MSI was a bad brand that I should avoid, it's just this product, or bad luck. I guess there is nothing wrong with MSI in general, but next time I will double-check the specific product to be aware of any design flaws.

Thank you all for your answers.

The Asus/Sapprire artifacts are caused by the memory being 6400 - 400 over what SK hynix specified - highest clocked of all. Some were fine, others not. Silicone lottery.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

XFX and MSI coolers were the worst out of all for the R9 200 series as the MSI cooler missed 2 of the memory modules with the memory plate, thus leaving them without any form of cooling and both suffered from overheating VRMs. MSI fixed that with a BIOS whereas XFX released 4 revisions until they finally got the VRM temps under control. Even without memory cooling, my card and a friend's 280X, also by Asus, have no memory-related issues and my VRM temps stay around 72*C max so I'd say don't judge a book by it's covers and do some goolging.

EDIT: Notice how 2 of the memory modules are not being cooler at all and the lack of a VRM heatsink?

 

Ver 2 is different tho (the one op has currently) and the vrm cooling on that is superb 

 

With the lack of temp sensors in the memory modules, I only guessed that MSI and XFX has better memory cooling, and searching Youtube for "R9 280X artifacts", most of the results were Asus ones (or Sapphire Toxic). I know artifacting can be caused by a number of things, and the Toxic one had really high core clock, but I thought the Asus ones were suffering because of the lack of heatsink on the factory-overclocked memory. Also I haven't heard of a whole lot of people complaining about their MSI cards, rather more complaining about Asus and Sapphire Toxic variants.

I didn't know about the issues with the MSI and XFX variants you mentioned though, I thought the BIOS-updated MSI was fine, and didn't notice the uncovered memory modules, but after the second failed card in such a short time I guess you are right, TwinFrozr is probably pretty bad when it comes to cooling. However not all TwinFrozr cards fail after a few months, so I think there is something else to it other than the cooler design, maybe a mistake in the repair department. I hope this time I will get a card that works for more than the previous ones.

Anyways the whole point of my question was whether MSI was a bad brand that I should avoid, it's just this product, or bad luck. I guess there is nothing wrong with MSI in general, but next time I will double-check the specific product to be aware of any design flaws.

Thank you all for your answers.

 

There is definitely something wonky going on with your card since I have the exact same.  Mines been running overclocked for a year now and still going strong. Definitely no design flaw in that.