Experience with MSI laptops and RMA's?

penclick6 · 3 Mar 2016 at 15:39

Just wanted to vent, I suppose; also see your guys opinion on how MSI handles RMA's (specifically laptop ones, because i've seen a lot of horror stories.)
Anyways, troubles begun from day one. The screen wouldn't work at the advertised 75hz and there was no G-SYNC to be found. After searching around, I found that a BIOS update could fix this, and it did. So I was happy.
Until noticing a dead pixel, really? A £2100 laptop and there isn't even a dead pixel check? Annoyed, but aware that there was nothing I could do, I didn't have much choice but to suck it up. Then admittedly my fault, the audio port snapped and so did the ethernet port. (Though i'm also going to blame the fairly bad build quality of these ports, specifically the audio ones.)
Again, I sucked it up and continued using the laptop as normal. And then one day in a fairly important class, the laptop just wouldn't charge. (Keep in mind that I NEED this notebook for school.) Got home, tried other things to no avail.

So of course now even more regretful of this purchase, I contact MSI for an RMA. This part was okay, as they handed me over to the place that repairs their notebooks. They came and picked it up and I heard nothing for about a week, until I was then told that the LCD and the motherboard and audio board would need replacing. (Free of charge due to being within warranty, which is A-OK with me.) Nearly two months later, the only reply i've gotten is that they are still waiting for parts from MSI, and I really need the notebook back because it has a a considerable amount of my school work on it and i'm nearing finals.

Anyone had a similar experience?

Laptop is a GT72S-6QE

Loki · 3 Mar 2016 at 19:25

penclick6 said:
Just wanted to vent, I suppose; also see your guys opinion on how MSI handles RMA's (specifically laptop ones, because i've seen a lot of horror stories.)
Anyways, troubles begun from day one. The screen wouldn't work at the advertised 75hz and there was no G-SYNC to be found. After searching around, I found that a BIOS update could fix this, and it did. So I was happy.
Until noticing a dead pixel, really? A £2100 laptop and there isn't even a dead pixel check? Annoyed, but aware that there was nothing I could do, I didn't have much choice but to suck it up. Then admittedly my fault, the audio port snapped and so did the ethernet port. (Though i'm also going to blame the fairly bad build quality of these ports, specifically the audio ones.)
Again, I sucked it up and continued using the laptop as normal. And then one day in a fairly important class, the laptop just wouldn't charge. (Keep in mind that I NEED this notebook for school.) Got home, tried other things to no avail.

So of course now even more regretful of this purchase, I contact MSI for an RMA. This part was okay, as they handed me over to the place that repairs their notebooks. They came and picked it up and I heard nothing for about a week, until I was then told that the LCD and the motherboard and audio board would need replacing. (Free of charge due to being within warranty, which is A-OK with me.) Nearly two months later, the only reply i've gotten is that they are still waiting for parts from MSI, and I really need the notebook back because it has a a considerable amount of my school work on it and i'm nearing finals.

Anyone had a similar experience?

Laptop is a GT72S-6QE

Hi Penlick, please contact me at neilreid (at) msi dot com with your RMA number and I will chase this up for you and get this escalated. I am sure there will be a reason for the delay but if this is not being communicated, then this is not good enough

Regards

penclick6 · 3 Mar 2016 at 20:04

Loki said:
Hi Penlick, please contact me at neilreid (at) msi dot com with your RMA number and I will chase this up for you and get this escalated. I am sure there will be a reason for the delay but if this is not being communicated, then this is not good enough

Regards

Sent, thank you.

Though to be honest, i'm afraid of issues arising again. I'd prefer to get a different, lighter notebook instead if I had the chance (gt72s is one heavy beast..)

Meaker · 3 Mar 2016 at 21:52

Note that dead pixels can develop during shipping and in the first few days of use that were not there at build time.

pat5zero · 6 Mar 2016 at 23:43

penclick6 I bought the same model here in Australia on 5 February. YES I pulled my hair out first off setting up the notebook, two Bios updates in the first two weeks one for the ODD and one for general fixes. A few blue screens and reboots when trying to update the intelchip drivers.
The first thing I noticed with shock was the '95% - plugged in - not charging" previous experience of laptops means a dead battery, but that was not the case. The new circuit in these on board batteries has to discharge a certain amount to keep the integrity of the battery charge.
In the download page for your model the is a program called 'battery calibration' you should use it 3 times a year.... if you keep the notebook... I drains the battery to zero and recharges it back to normal.
penclick6 I have had a lot of laptops and other own built rigs but the GT72S 6QE is a very nice professional notebook and I can't find another notebook that has its specs.
Seeing a MSI rep is in this thread, I hope they might explain the uses and what we can expect from the Thunderbolt3/USB-C combination.
Here is a hint at what the USB-C port can do on the GT72S 6QE
http://www.caldigit.com/USB-C/

Mercutio · 7 Mar 2016 at 00:07

I had some fairly mixed experience with MSI but I guess on the whole, can't really complain. Had a laptop go in for a dead hard drive, came back with a different power supply that didn't fit so well, ended up causing issue with the charge socket (the plug was arcing, eventually fused with the port) and it took a lot of pushing to get the socket sorted.

Drive died a second time and once it all came back I think it was a miss-matched pair of drives (one WD one was something else). All sorted eventually and it got vastly better when they hired someone to do UK RMA's rather than it being a "ship to the Netherlands" type effort so I guess I can't REALLY grumble.

I'd like more info on where they're going with the external thunderbolt graphics too. We'll likely find out at the next trade fair

penclick6 · 7 Mar 2016 at 02:55

I've been offered a replacement unit now, (Thanks Loki.) going to take it and see how it gets on.

pat5zero · 7 Mar 2016 at 03:35

A replacement is good. This model is a truely top end laptop and there is nothing in a bull's roar that competes the same.
Just remember to hit delete first off and see what bios update it is. mine is version E1782IMS.113
you will find the information about the right BIOS version on the first page of the BIOS.
Its actually not entirely MSI's fault. These new Skylake cpu's have had some minor problems that are being addressed.
I had a Microsoft techician fix some software problem the other day and I asked them about Thunderbolt and other driver issues and they said we are waiting for vendors to write the correct drivers to add them to the trusted driver scheme windows 10 employ's.
However if you have like me the i7/6820HK chip then you can go to the bios and under the 'OC' section where it says '36' or '37' in my case, you can change that to '40' and now you have a very fast overclocked notebook.
If you go over that be prepared for odd things happening and the system crashing if you don't know how to adjust the settings don't go over '40' = 4.0Ghz.
Keep an eye on this download page if its the same model....

https://www.msi.com/product/notebook/support/GT72S-6QE-DOMINATOR-PRO-G.html#down-utility&null

I found out very quickly to use the specific drivers and utilities MSI offer and not other updates. They will crash your notebook.

penclick6 · 7 Mar 2016 at 04:04

pat5zero said:
A replacement is good. This model is a truely top end laptop and there is nothing in a bull's roar that competes the same.
Just remember to hit delete first off and see what bios update it is. mine is version E1782IMS.113
you will find the information about the right BIOS version on the first page of the BIOS.
Its actually not entirely MSI's fault. These new Skylake cpu's have had some minor problems that are being addressed.
I had a Microsoft techician fix some software problem the other day and I asked them about Thunderbolt and other driver issues and they said we are waiting for vendors to write the correct drivers to add them to the trusted driver scheme windows 10 employ's.
However if you have like me the i7/6820HK chip then you can go to the bios and under the 'OC' section where it says '36' or '37' in my case, you can change that to '40' and now you have a very fast overclocked notebook.
If you go over that be prepared for odd things happening and the system crashing if you don't know how to adjust the settings don't go over '40' = 4.0Ghz.
Keep an eye on this download page if its the same model....

https://www.msi.com/product/notebook/support/GT72S-6QE-DOMINATOR-PRO-G.html#down-utility&null

I found out very quickly to use the specific drivers and utilities MSI offer and not other updates. They will crash your notebook.

Yep, figured most of those out on day one. Still annoying that you have to go through so many issues to just have a correctly functioning notebook.