DON'T BUY MSI THEY MIS-SOLD TOP SPEC GT SERIES LAPTOPS with MXM Graphics

[MiSJAH]

What a sad state of affairs.

Situations like this put people off a company for life, plus most will choose to dissuade others from buying from that manufacture because of the poor service resolution.
Conversely, if it is handled well people can't stop telling people about how valued they feel and how much they respect the efforts of the company.

It's particularly galling that your complaints have fallen on deaf ears! A lot of people won't complain for whatever reason, but you would have thought that any company would go all out to make a complaining customer happy because the reality is they are the tip of the iceberg! Fixing it for them causes a domino effect of good word of mouth for the company.

I can't see a good resolution to this from what you have posted so far. Perhaps time to sell and buy something from a (hopefully!) better manufacture.
You could try to contact them one last time, offer a compromise you are willing to accept (if you can stomach a halfway deal) letting them know if they are unwilling to make good they will have lost a customer and your good word of mouth about them and their products.

Eventually it's all you can do, vote with your wallet and buy elsewhere sadly

Thanks for your post.

MSI UK are currently talking about a further solution with their head office.

Once we give you our final decision, it's entirely up to you to accept or reject this.

The least I am willing to accept is an upgrade to a GTX1080 (new machine or MXM card) at a cost along similar lines to what MSI USA offered their customers ($1,000) less something for the value of my existing 980m.

So best case they offer me a new MXM card at $1,000 that plugs and plays in my existing GT72.

or

A GT73VR with GTX1080 at the same cost less $700 for my 980m (that's what they are going for on ebay.co.uk right now).

Worst case they offer me a GT73VR (like they did with the USA) at $1,000 less a proportion for my 980m ($3-600) and they give me a gesture of goodwill (Dragon fever bundle, backpack, mouse, keyring, stuffed toy).

we have the answer back this week.

So, I'll update this thread after I have heard back.

 

[MiSJAH]

Thanks man.

So EVGA's 1070's and 1080's had an issue: The problem appears to be that the ACX cooler found on the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 does not adequately cool the card’s voltage regulation modules (VRMs).

So EVGA works with the community to resolve this at zero cost to the customer in an orderly time.

Optional EVGA Thermal Pad Mod Request

The test used in the referenced review from Toms Hardware (Germany) is running under Furmark, an extreme usage case, as most overclockers know. We believe this is a good approach to have some idea about the graphics card limit, and the thermal performance under the worst case scenario. EVGA has performed a similar qualification test during the design process, at a higher ambient temperature (30C in chamber) with a thermal coupler probe directly contacting the key components and after the Toms Hardware (Germany) review, we have retested this again. The results in both tests show the temperature of PWM and memory is within the spec tolerance under the same stress test, and is working as originally designed with no issues.

With this being said, EVGA understands that lower temperatures are preferred by reviewers and customers.

During our recent testing, we have applied additional thermal pads between the backplate and the PCB and between the baseplate and the heatsink fins, with the results shown below. We will offer these optional thermal pads free of charge to EVGA owners who want to have a lower temperature. These thermal pads will be ready soon; and customers can request them starting Monday, October 24th, 2016. Also, we will work with Toms Hardware to do a retest.

And they display the relevant information directly on their own website: http://www.evga.com/thermalmod/

MSI, this isn't rocket science. Dealing with screw ups is a corporate responsibility, dealing with it well ensures continuation of custom.

What do you think doing it this badly achieves?

Update:

So MSI has emailed those involved in the states:



So originally MSI advertised their upgrade scheme, you pay for the MXM GPU that you want (1060, 1070, 1080), you make the payment and send your machine to them, they install the new card of your choosing. (And you still have your old card, MSI wouldn't need that to install your new card).

Now if you have a GT series notebook with a 970m, and you want a 1080 machine they expect you to pay $2,300 for a $1,000 card (MSI's pricing based on only upgrading the GPU).

Absolutely barking!

Edit: And why does the GT80 with a single GTX980M or a single GTX980 get to upgrade for $1,000 when the GT72 with 980M does not?

Edit2: If it 'Each upgrade cost is the same as if you were only to upgrade the GPU' why are the 2 in the red box different costs?

And if point three is correct *** then the upgrade cost from sli 970m to sli 1070 should be $2,600 as it is a 2 tier jump in GPU. 970m > 1060 > 1070 - 2 x $600 + 2 x $700 = $2,600

Is MSI run by kindergarten kids that have zero understanding of basic math?

 

[MiSJAH]

So that's twice MSI told me that they would contact me with an offer last week.

Anyone want to guess if they contacted me?

 

[MiSJAH]

From the customers point of view it appears they just don't care, we were told on this thread there should be a plan weeks ago, but it appears unless your American you can wait and suck it!

Even those in the US are in a similar position: After the offer MSI USA made they were insulted also (see posts above) and they are now waiting on MSI USA to consider the feedback from the community and make a further offer.

@MSI, you make great gear, why do you not have the customer service to back it up? You need to accept you messed up and the fix is going to cost you because if you don't, the customers you expect to cover the cost of your mess will abandon you whilst telling as many others as possible.

This thread near 7,000 views, NBR thread nearly 150,000 views. How many of those viewers are potential customers? Look at the responses here where people (some members here for 10 years+) have posted they will no longer consider MSI.





"And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

 

[MiSJAH]

I wonder how long the statement from HQ will take, after all we know how MSI likes to set time limits upon us, their customers.

 

[MiSJAH]

STILL Waiting? WOW This has been going on for over 2 months now.

Ah.. the "We are waiting on an official statement from HQ about this" line... Where are they? Another dimension? Up a mountain in Tibet that has no comms, no internet and is only accessible by a mountain pass that is only traversable able for a small window each year?

We are living in a world of great technology where it doesn't take more than a couple of days to get an answer to pretty much anything, it DOES NOT TAKE 2 months to get an official statement from anywhere on the planet.

It's even worse when the company involved makes high end tech.

 

[MiSJAH]

MSI make this right so I can go back to eulogising about your products.

 

[MiSJAH]

I would avoid the msi tbh. try the new gigabyte aorus out it looks good.

That doesn't help with MSI GT laptops that we cannot upgrade

I agree, in this day and age a business decision like this should not take more than a couple of days a week max NOT 2 1/2 months and STILL no answer.

MSI emailed me on the 17th October advising that "We will contact HQ and find out how they wish to handle this. I will let you know their decision."

25 days!! and still no update.

This is ridiculous.

Edit:

My latest email from MSI UK:

Dear Andy

Apologies for the delay in updating you recently. The solution is still being worked and we would hope to offer a solution in the very near future. We fully appreciate that you want a resolution to this situation. Being perfectly honest, we will give an update once we are in a position to do so. At the moment there is no update to offer so anything we would say would be of little to no value to your specific situation.

Having spoke to ** and HQ this morning, our HQ will be issuing a global press release in the near future which will detail our offer to the community.


Kind Regards


/me still has longer to wait

 

[MiSJAH]

A month and still no update.

I wonder how MSI would feel if they were treated with such disregard?

 

[MiSJAH]

 

[MiSJAH]

I've ordered an MSI laptop - don't hate me.

If I had an interest in ever upgrading in the parts I would be furious (like you) but since I don't - I'm excited!

Hahaha, no worries mate. MSI make great laptops, just awful customer care.

What's interesting is that MSI has lead us to believe the other new hardware (other than Pascal) has a value worth charging us for on the upgrade.

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9771654/fs/7098474

That's my GT72 2QE vs a new GT72 with a 6700HQ and DDR4, both have the GTX980M. Mine wins.

So to be clear the newer hardware make absolutely no stuffing difference when gaming!!

 

[MiSJAH]

You are carry a lot of anger inside you.

Just let it go dude.....life isn't worth getting this wound up over! I agree they have being massive bumholes by advertising MXM before realising they couldn't do it, which is the reason a few people bought their laptops.....but let it go!

I'm not wound up. I'm waiting for MSI to fulfil an obligation, whilst keeping the community abreast of MSI's customer care.

 

[MiSJAH]

And from the people who actually have a vested interest in where this goes thank you.

Thanks man.

With the offers MSI gave me, cross referenced with the new laptop prices, the math clearly states that MSI is valuing my OG GT72 w/ GTX 980M at exactly $1,299, regardless of which offer I take.

MSI GT72VR DOMINATOR-033 is $1,599 - $1,299 = $300 offer
MSI GT72VR DOMINATOR PRO-015 is $1,999 - $1,299 = $700 offer
MSI GT73VR TITAN-017 is $2,199 - $1299 = $900 offer
MSI GT73VR TITAN PRO-003 is $2,799 - $1,299 = $1,500 offer

MSI GT73VR 6RF "Titan" 034UK 17.3-Inch Gaming Notebook (Black) - (Intel i7 6820HK, 32 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD Plus 1 TB HDD, Display GTX 1070 Graphics Card, Windows 10) - £2,294.92
MSI GT73VR 6RE "Titan SLI" 064UK 17.3-Inch Gaming Notebook (Black) - (Intel i7 6820HK, 32 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD Plus 1 TB HDD, 2 x GeForce GTX 1070 Graphics Card, Windows 10) - £2,807.92

The difference being £513 ~US$640 so this is MSI's price for the GTX 1070 MXM card.

MSI USA claim they are basing the trade on the cost of upgrading the GPU and taking the value of the existing GPU into consideration. Kevin's example above demonstrates that this is not true. They are valuing our notebooks and disregarding the cost of the Pascal GPU's in favour of what is most profitable.

MSI UK didn't even say they were basing the trade on the value of the GPU upgrade, they just plucked figures from their ass.

 

[MiSJAH]

Thanks for the support guys.

I've have been waiting a week now for MSI to finalise details of the UK upgrade program.

FFS.

MSI Insists on Perfection of User Experience
UK Pascal Trade-Upgrade Program
MSI always strives to achieve the most innovative designs and the best user experience with its gaming notebooks, especially on the flagship level products, the GT series. We strive for reliability, stability and durability in all of our products and in all of our users’ experiences.
We use our MXM removable graphics card design to prevent heat transfer to the motherboard, to make repairs or replacements to the card more easily, and to give our users the opportunity to upgrade from GeForce® GTX 8 series to GeForce® GTX 9 series, thanks to both GPUs being of Maxwell Core design with the same signal and output interface.
The MXM graphics card layout of the GeForce GTX 10 series was a completely new core design called “Pascal,” which has significant changes in terms of signal design, interface design and power consumption. In addition, we observed problems with software compatibility and found that beta drivers are the only option. Based on our design of the GT72 4xx series and 6xx series and the GT80 series, implementing an MXM upgrade to the GTX 10 series would require, among other things, a new MXM module, cooling module, and display panel, and likely result in unsatisfactory display (either flickering or no display at all).
The most cost effective way to upgrade to our GTX 10 series and achieve performance gain, stability and reliability is to participate in our trade-upgrade program, through which users of the GT72 and GT80 with GeForces® GTX 8 and 9 series can upgrade to a brand new current generation GeForce® GTX 10 series laptop by trading in their existing qualifying* product. This upgrade will allow users to enjoy the latest MSI features, such as Cooler Boost and Dragon Center, and is available at costs comparable to previous MXM upgrades.
*This trade-upgrade program is available only for users in the UK and is subject to certain limitations. For more information regarding the UK trade-upgrade program, please contact: [email protected]. For users in other countries, please contact your local MSI branch.
Please note - if you have already contacted us - your request is being looked into and you will receive a reply before the 21st of December with details of what you can upgrade too. If you have NOT already contacted us, then please email [email protected].
This will be the only trade in program available for your 9xx GPU to 10 series GPU. It's imperative that you register your interest before the 31st of December.
No other solution will be offered at this time.
The MSI UK NOTEBOOK Team.

Vague as always.

No mention of 10th to 11th gen upgrade that they advertised (MSI USA has already said they will provide this upgrade).

available at costs comparable to previous MXM upgrades

I wonder which previous MXM card they will base this on? I'm so glad we have the costs of the old cards available to us, so MSI UK can't lie and say "the GTX 880M MXM card was £900".

Awaits email...

 

[MiSJAH]

That's an interesting read. My Dragon edition has gone back under RMA again, twoish weeks after I got it back. This time for a completely different physical issue. *sigh*

I find it ironic that the MSI dragon toy is called Lucky.

I'm still waiting for my email to understand the specifics of the program and will update this thread as soon as they are available.

 

[MiSJAH]

Thanks Vince.

I asked Loki (MSI vendor rep) on this forum for the details of the trade-upgrade program to share with the community, was told not to worry about it. In effect refusing to provide any further details that would give the community peace of mind. I'm sure there are people that read these threads that don't own a GT72/GT80 but may buy other MSI products that will make future purchasing decisions after considering the outcome of this ridiculous episode.

It would be great if MSI UK had the integrity to inform us all publicly what they are offering in the program.

 

[MiSJAH]

In effect refusing any further details

If you are not doing that, please post below the specifics of the program.

Simple really.

Also clarify for me.

Will the program be weighted in any way to the value of my notebook or will it be as per the released statement "at costs comparable to previous MXM upgrades"?

 

[MiSJAH]

MSI Insists on Perfection of User Experience
UK Pascal Trade-Upgrade Program
MSI always strives to achieve the most innovative designs and the best user experience with its gaming notebooks, especially on the flagship level products, the GT series. We strive for reliability, stability and durability in all of our products and in all of our users’ experiences.
We use our MXM removable graphics card design to prevent heat transfer to the motherboard, to make repairs or replacements to the card more easily, and to give our users the opportunity to upgrade from GeForce® GTX 8 series to GeForce® GTX 9 series, thanks to both GPUs being of Maxwell Core design with the same signal and output interface.
The MXM graphics card layout of the GeForce GTX 10 series was a completely new core design called “Pascal,” which has significant changes in terms of signal design, interface design and power consumption. In addition, we observed problems with software compatibility and found that beta drivers are the only option. Based on our design of the GT72 4xx series and 6xx series and the GT80 series, implementing an MXM upgrade to the GTX 10 series would require, among other things, a new MXM module, cooling module, and display panel, and likely result in unsatisfactory display (either flickering or no display at all).
The most cost effective way to upgrade to our GTX 10 series and achieve performance gain, stability and reliability is to participate in our trade-upgrade program, through which users of the GT72 and GT80 with GeForces® GTX 8 and 9 series can upgrade to a brand new current generation GeForce® GTX 10 series laptop by trading in their existing qualifying* product. This upgrade will allow users to enjoy the latest MSI features, such as Cooler Boost and Dragon Center, and is available at costs comparable to previous MXM upgrades.
*This trade-upgrade program is available only for users in the UK and is subject to certain limitations. For more information regarding the UK trade-upgrade program, please contact: [email protected]. For users in other countries, please contact your local MSI branch.
Please note - if you have already contacted us - your request is being looked into and you will receive a reply before the 21st of December with details of what you can upgrade too. If you have NOT already contacted us, then please email [email protected].
This will be the only trade in program available for your 9xx GPU to 10 series GPU. It's imperative that you register your interest before the 31st of December.
No other solution will be offered at this time.
The MSI UK NOTEBOOK Team.

MSI Insists on Perfection of User Experience

No other solution will be offered at this time.

Because that's how you achieve Perfection of User Experience?


Does anyone else think that it's odd that Loki can respond in an hour when he is attempting (wrongly) to criticise my post, but unable to respond in 8 hours when asked direct questions?

I'll be succinct, Loki/MSI please answer the following questions:

Emailed the following questions to MSI UK, if they can be bothered to answer I will post their response.

1, Will the program be weighted in any way to the value of my notebook or will it be as per the released statement "at costs comparable to previous MXM upgrades"?
2, Which specific "previous MXM upgrades" will the program be based upon?
3, What is MSI UK Notebook offering in regards to the next generation of GPU upgrade? (MSI USA have advised North American customers that they can either keep their existing notebooks and trade for the next generation or trade now to Pascal and then trade that notebook to the next generation of GPU).
4, Please provide a cost breakdown of upgrading to GT73VR with GTX1070, GT73VR with GTX1080, GT73VR with GTX1070 SLI, GT83VR with GTX1070 SLI and GT83VR with GTX1080 SLI.
With all major components matched like for like, CPU, memory, GPU, HDD, SSD, GPU and screen etc which is most similar in features to the GT72 2QE, the GT72VR or the GT73VR?
5, If MSI Insists on Perfection of User Experience, how do you explain ending the announcement with "No other solution will be offered at this time." If this offered solution is not best providing Perfection of User Experience, why no other solution will be offered?

Regards,

Andy

So I rehashed the above questions and sent to Loki: Got another reply refusing to provide the information until the offers are made.

Yet when we were asked by MSI for information before any details of the trade-upgrade program were announced, we provided that information willingly.

What a shame MSI can't treat it's customers with the respect we foolish give to them.

 

[MiSJAH]

SO Loke/Neil at MSI has sent a pedantic reply stating he has not refused to provide the information requested, guess what?

 

[MiSJAH]

I've been following thread for a while now, I've sent/received over 30 emails and a few phone calls since probably sometime in October after I noticed the USA had a trade in.

This is getting ridiculous, how long will this take to resolve? It's almost like MSI have all been told not to speak to us, first Nat then Aj is no longer dealing with this issue...

I've been passed from pillar to post, I would advise not to buy an MSI product again.

Go for Asus they are 2% below them in the notebook market, lets close this gap so MSI can't make this claim, might be 2% in sales, but -100% in customer service.

I'm questioning do I even want to give MSI another penny of my money? Should I sell my laptop put some cash and get a Asus or other brand?

Unless the price is the same as a new gfx card (minus the cost I could sell my old card) I am unwilling to budge and will be taking this further alongside anyone else that wants to join me. I am NOT paying for CPU/RAM/SCREEN etc upgrades that I didn't want, you said GPU upgrade, I want the GPU upgrade but only to pay for that as that was THE DEAL.

I've been told I'm getting an offer next week, but I've been told that every week pretty much...

I even rang MSI once and got hold of this dopy kid that didn't seem to know a thing about MSI or it's products and basically said he couldn't help me...

never had an issue like this with any company I've purchased off....

I am trying to establish facts about the trade-upgrade program and keep running into a brick wall.

If (and that's a really forking big IF) I take the trade upgrade it is likely to be the last MSI product I ever own. Such a complete lack of understanding from a multinational business is unacceptable.

MSI has been given the information by their customers how to resolve this. As the quoted post above states, at the cost of the new GPU less the value of the existing card. That's not rocket science.

@tropical, I hear you. I am possibly the most vocal person about this situation in the UK, I sincerely hope MSI fix this for us all.