Discussion MSI m/b arrived with soldering mess - common?

[gremble]

I've just received a new MSI Bazooka V2 in the post. A quick scan of the motherboard reveal a few dry joints where the solder was seemingly absent, and a bit on the PCI X16 slot where there's a spherical bubble of solder. This just seems like really poor manufacturing. I'm returning the board without testing, for fear of breaking it further, or the components I add to it. Has anyone else experienced this or know what to do about it in terms of informing the manufacturers. I'm already sending the board back, but tell MSI too perhaps?

Does anyone have suggestions for board manufacturers who provide well soldered boards? I've always had a degree of trust for MSI until now. Worst I've ever seen.

 

[gremble]

Here's the strange sphere, left middle of this picture, doesn't appear to be correctly contacting the board:

Here's some of the dry joints:

 

[Groveling_Wyrm]

This is typical of MSI. They often can be hit or miss. Gigabyte is in the same class for most of their products as well. All in the interest of saving money....

 

[gremble]

Who would you suggest instead?

 

[drea.drechsler]

Who would you suggest instead?

I can't say Asus is any better either if SATA connectors almost falling off as it's slipped from the ESD bag is any indicator. But probably Tyan is a good choice as they make high-cost server boards for a market extremely concerned with high reliability... just don't expect to find any overclocking controls exposed in their BIOS.

Seriously, you're talking consumer-grade products that even the 'top end' are actually 'low end' from a cost/quality perspective. The market is incredibly dynamic too....they all have to rush a production run through to get the boards into market before interest dries up.

You're best bet is to buy from a source with a decent return window and give it exactly the kind of inspection you did here. In the end, you are the final inspector because you are the OEM.