MSI 970 GAMING motherboard broken?

[Hrlyrdr22]

My friend has a MSI 970 gaming mobo for AM3+ CPUs. His sound didn't work so he brought it to the repair shop and they said that they will "repair" the motherboard for $20.

Now I'm not a genius in computers but I'm pretty sure you can't just replace a part like the sound card. Cause they have to have the exact one because if they didn't, the drivers wouldn't work for it.
Am I wrong here, or is the repair guys lying and getting $20 for something that's software related?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The MoBo in question has a Realtek ALC1150 "on board" sound chip. They are certainly not going to repair or replace the chip. What they may do is:

a) Put in a really really cheap sound card ... a card equivalent to the 1150 would be more than half as expensive as the whole MoBo.

b) Reinstall the drivers.

c) Configure the settings correctly

The MoBo is I imagine still under warranty. Call MSI and have them troubleshoot it over the phone. If it is in fact broken, they will send you a new one. The MoBo has a 3 year warranty.

 

[Tradesman1]

The MoBo in question has a Realtek ALC1150 "on board" sound chip. They are certainly not going to repair or replace the chip. What they may do is:

a) Put in a really really cheap sound card ... a card equivalent to the 1150 would be more than half as expensive as the whole MoBo.

b) Reinstall the drivers.

c) Configure the settings correctly

The MoBo is I imagine still under warranty. Call MSI and have them troubleshoot it over the phone. If it is in fact broken, they will send you a new one. The MoBo has a 3 year warranty.

___________________

+1 Chances are good the drivers for the audio are out of date, or it needs a BIOS update, mostt people when building a rig simply install the drivers that come with mobo on a CD and often those are out of date before you ever get the mobo

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I always install the drivers that came with the MoBo as a means of establishing a proven "outta the box" condition. More than once have been told by TS to uninstall a new drivers for one "presumably" invented reason or another. "Did it work with the old driver ?" .... "I don't know" ..... "call us back when you do".

But is is also a good idea as often, you get optical drive software, audio software and diagnostic software which have authorization codes hard coded on the CD which are not on the downloaded versions. When reinstalling the OS, I have had to dig out the old CDs from the Rampage / Formula / Blue Ray equipped builds to get all the little extras working again.

If you buy a MoBo, the on board sound certainly should.... no must ... work outta the box. Updated drivers can always be installed later (and should be) but for troubleshooting purposes, best to establish a "out of box" working condition before calling TS. Only after doing all the Windows updates do I install current drivers.

It's also tough if it's your only computer, as is likely the case here, to download the new LAN driver before you install the one off the CD.

Finally, and this has only ever hit me with audio software .... letting Windows Update install audio drivers has bitten me or one of my users more times than I can count. More than a few times installing the new driver failed and I had to wipe and start afresh.

The only thing I have ever found that I needed to do starting with a new driver and not using the CD was when a new BIOS update is required to support CPU / Memory speeds that weren't supported in early BIOSs

 

[Hrlyrdr22]

The MoBo in question has a Realtek ALC1150 "on board" sound chip. They are certainly not going to repair or replace the chip. What they may do is:

a) Put in a really really cheap sound card ... a card equivalent to the 1150 would be more than half as expensive as the whole MoBo.

b) Reinstall the drivers.

c) Configure the settings correctly

The MoBo is I imagine still under warranty. Call MSI and have them troubleshoot it over the phone. If it is in fact broken, they will send you a new one. The MoBo has a 3 year warranty.

___________________

+1 Chances are good the drivers for the audio are out of date, or it needs a BIOS update, mostt people when building a rig simply install the drivers that come with mobo on a CD and often those are out of date before you ever get the mobo

Motherboard just bought last week. I just told him a few hours ago to go to MSI's website and download the latest drivers for the audio and it still didn't recognize his mic.

But yeah, he already paid the $20 but I honestly think that his repair guys are scamming him.

 

[Tradesman1]

Make sure they demonstrate it's 'fixed' before paying

 

[JackNaylorPE]

And find out exactly what they did....they certainly did not do a physical repair.

 

[Hrlyrdr22]

And find out exactly what they did....they certainly did not do a physical repair.

My friend told me since he goes to them everytime he has a problem, they will buy the motherboard (125$ cad) but my friend only has to pay $20 which i call bull.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Did they build it ? If so, why is he paying $20 for a warranty repair ?

 

[Hrlyrdr22]

Did they build it ? If so, why is he paying $20 for a warranty repair ?

All his parts were bought off amazon. the repair guys are just some people in a shop. Nothing big.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Oh that makes sense.