Please dont ever commit commercial suicide like MSI just did ....

[bhavv]

This was a message that the MSI forum administrator sent out to every MSI forum user by email yesterday, and also posted it on their forums:

"The MSI-forum and MSI-support team are fed-up with explaining you what can be found in the manual.
I mean, come on, how hard is it to read a manual?

They are printed on paper so you see them.

We have been talking to MSI for a couple of years and came up with a solution.
It has been implemented on a few boards for some time and with big success.
It had various names, like CoreCenter (1st gathering tool) upto DrMOS (fully automatic)

Some of you noticed because Windows wanted you to install a driver, but you couldn't find the manufacturer.
On AMD systems this was called the Away-driver.

What you didn't know is this, this driver activates the RTFM-chip. (Re-Turn inFormation to Manufacturer chip)
It means it can detect if you read a manual as well stores the parameters you have set in the BIOS.
As soon as you start Windows we are informed about your settings and manual readings.

As we have been monitoring peoples behavior for some time and combined those with the RMA information from returned boards.
At the same time monitoring questions on the forum and matched the IP's.
We have made a discovery.

A lot of RMA is unneeded and unwanted, many happens due to user mistakes, numbers show that 90% of the RMA is OC people killing boards and
newbies connecting the wrong connectors or insert parts that should not be inserted.
Or simply forget to remove standoffs or CPU-power.
MSI plans on tackles those numbers, and the RTFM-chip will give a readout of what you have done when it did post or attempted to post!

Checking on you isn't new, Homeland-security done this ever you installed XP-SP3 or above, but their info in encrypted so useless to MSI.
So MSI decided to ban people from support, RMA and the forum who has done the damage themselves or didn't read the manual the first of next month.
We know who you are, and we have gathered enough information via our RTFM-chip.

The only question is, should MSI continue to do this? As some information is real bad.
Will this hurt your relation towards MSI products?

Please let us know, as we have to talk to MSI management the first of next month and make them decide what to do with the information.

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=136806.0

The MSI HQ User to User Forum Team."

Regards

Yes it was just a terrible April fools joke, but just reading the first two lines made something like 66% of MSI's forum user base rage and decide never to buy an MSI product ever again.

I much prefer having lots of forum competitions, prize draws, and the nice and easy to follow overclocking guides writen out by Runner, rather than having this message sent out to me by the MSI forum administrator

[absic]

Some people just don't have a sense of humour!!

[bhavv]

Some people just don't have a sense of humour!!

Or some people just dont find it funny

[absic]

to be honest......

I wouldn't be so paranoid...................................  if I wasn't being watched so much!

[bhavv]

to be honest......

I wouldn't be so paranoid...................................  if I wasn't being watched so much!

I'm watching you right now. I can see you from the inside of your monitor.

Even when it is switched off  

[absic]

Arghhhhhh! 

[bhavv]

I provided this explanation as to what is so bad about that email when arguing about this thing on other forums:

No one actually got mad because they thought a chip could tell if you could read the manual, that is the whole point that everyone keeps on missing!

People got mad because the first two lines of the Email were highly insulting and being sent from a support forum for your motherboard brand that is meant to be there to help you, not mock people who dont read manuals. And to top it off it was Emailed to everyone subscribed to the forums, not a great idea seeing that the opening lines literally read 'MSI Support is fed up of providing service to its customers'.

Compare this to the Gigabyte support forum, who instead send you regular emails to participate in prize draws with lots of nice freebies up for grabs (I got myself a free ultra thin 2Gb memory stick, which came packed alongside a great quality glossy A4 Gigabyte leaflet with lots of shiny pictures of their products and technology explanations).

Now which company do you think I would rather be buying from again in the future, considering the types of things each one has sent out to me? Clue, its definately not MSI.

Its called 'Public Relations', and the MSI user to user forum has just completely destroyed MSI's PR and customer satisfaction towards their company by sending out this silly prank. And yes, MSI actually have legal rights to protect them from nonsense like this, and could sue Bas for having done this, if they should choose to do so since he actually pretended to write out a demeaning message from the 'MSI Support Team'.

Which I believe is correct.

[thx1138]

I don't think it was all that bad... I mean, some say 'no publicity is bad publicity'. I don't think that always holds true and there's certainly better publicity than this to be had, but at least it got their name out. In fact, my last two boards were MSI and I have found the help on their forums to be great over the past few years. I only selected a Gigabyte board this time around because I felt it could offer better value in fulfilling my needs. I'm afraid that this forum is a little more sparsely populated so help is quite a bit slower in my still limited experience.

[runn3R]

Hi All

It's really interesting discussion. Pity I'm joining it so late.

BTW I like this part:

Quote:
"(...) What you didn't know is this, this driver activates the RTFM-chip. (Re-Turn inFormation to Manufacturer chip)" 

[Wonderwrench]

I would venture a guess Ass I mean Bas has something to do with this. Bas is such an ass I got myself banned from that forum in short order. I have never been banned from any forum besides MSIHQ ever and I belong to dozens, some dating back over 10 years. The guy insisted he could never be wrong. Which is not bad in it self. The trouble was he was wrong half of the time. On top of that he was as abrasive as 40 grit sand paper.

Bill

[bytheway_r]

Erm, I don't see what's so bad about that prank. More than that, I don't see where it's insulting.

Frankly, I think it's rather stupid to not read the manual at all. It's understandable that you may miss something that's written in there but you should at least try.

Myself, I like this part :

"So MSI decided to ban people from support, RMA and the forum who has done the damage themselves or didn't read the manual the first of next month.
We know who you are, and we have gathered enough information via our RTFM-chip."

[Dark Mantis]

Actually I thought it was well thought out and funny but you do have to remember that this is a company forum and as such should be conducted in a business like manner. That doesn't mean you can't have a laugh and joke but there are limits. The trouble is that not everyone has the same type of sense of humour.