Warning about MSI 1070 and their horrible customer service

[derrick.m.thompson]

Hopefully my experience can help someone else not suffer through this... Bought a 1070 MSI armor card in january. Turned my pc on 2 days ago and the card caught on fire. Literally smoking, sparking, I'm sitting there trying to put out a fire with my shirt fire.

Tried to submit an MSI rma and they basically laughed in my face, said sorry no way we're doing anything for you get lost. So I'm out 400 bucks and MSI support was literally useless.

Moral of the story... never buying an MSI product again.

 

[CountMike]

EVGA has phenomenal customer service but I think they all have clause with which they don't honor warranty in case of user caused damage which is a pitiful excuse not to act upon it. Other excuses most make is that part got wet or not installed by qualified service person. Asus tried to screw me up with that last one although I have more than 30 years of experience with assembling and repairing PCs.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

This has been an mainstay of EVGA boards since the 500 series.

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-gtx-1080-1070-evga-cards-dying/

As far as phenomenal customer service, out last experiences was 20 calls, 18 months, 5 RMAs. Yes, they were very polite, but each and every call, the ignored the previous calls and made us do the same tests, every time. They basically ignored us till I borrowed two Asus cards and ran them in SLI w/ 30% OC.

But the worse part of this news is that we have rec'd poor performance from all 4 of the major card vendors. Based upon our experiences, which can by no means be considered statistically valid, I would have to rank the from best to worst Gigabyte > MSI >>> Asus > EVGA.

But I have never experiences anything like you describe from any vendor. Questions / comments:

1. The Armor is kinda akin to EVGAs SC series, basically a reference board with a better cooler. As indicated above, the SC has had VRM and cooling issues since the 500 series. Recommendation ... spring for the better AIB cards with beefed up PCB board components.

2. What was it in your discussion that gave MSI grounds to void the warranty ? Does PSU meet nVidia req'ts ? Was water spilled on it ? Did you pull / insert the card with power on ? Must of been something in that conversation that gave justification. Did you provide the proper power cabling or use some kind of adapter kludge ?

 

[derrick.m.thompson]

Have a rosewill 500w PSU thats by no means top of the line but is quite sufficient for it. They told me the only way a card could catch on fire was if there was a power issue, therefore it was my fault.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

1. The minimum hardware req't per nVidia is a 500 watt PSU andIt calls for an 8 pin cable. In short. with the Armor having the same power cab;le configuration, this tells us that you basically have the reference PCB.

2. Telling me that you have a Rosewill 500 watt PSU is like telling the auto parts guy you need parts for a blue chevy. Some of Rosewill's PSUs are made by Superflower, one of the best OEM's out there ... other are made by Solytech ... one of the scariest ones out there.

3. That is not the only way it could catch on fire as evidenced by the EVGA 1070s link above. The approach I'd take is to look at your PCB and see where the burning is, if it matches the EVGA problem you'll see in that link, Id go w/ that argument....inadequate VRM cooling.

The problem here is that when folks ask "what's the difference betwenn A & B ?" ... many forum users will post an authoritative sounding response and say:

no backplate, might sags
one less heat pipe
Twin Frozr V fans (gaming x has Twin Frozr VI)
100Mhz Lower boost speed
no leds

Let's look at the MSI 1060 Gaming versus Armor

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Gaming_X/4.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Armor/4.html

In addition to the above, we see that on the Gaming X There is a second metal plate w/ thermal pads, which provides cooling for the VRM circuitry and memory chips.

The Armor uses a uP 9511 voltage controller; the Gaming X uses the uP 9509P

So yes, if you can confirm that the VRMs are where the "fire" occured, I'd use the EVGA argument that the Armor is deficient just like the EVGA SC model. EVGA is replacing the cards that went up and smoke and offered a thermal pad fix kit . perhaps you could even get a local PC shop to examine the card and identify with a letter saying that the VRMs failed.

You might even offer "to pay the difference" for a Gaming X model that has the thermal pads and heat plate.

But next time you ask a question about which card to get on a hardware forum and the respondents write "they are all the same, just get the one that's cheaper", remember this lesson.

 

[smorizio]

do this call back ask to speek with customer sanctification rep or eng services. let them know the card failed. take photos of it and have it ready to email and post here. dont yell at them take there name and case number down then ask for someone higher. you may have to post your issue on msi facebook page.