MSI Z77 MPOWER LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: This board over clocks my i7 3770k to 4.2ghz with oc genie, im a first time pc builder and it took me 3 hours to put everything together, first boot i was so nervous but when it started i was soo proud of myself that everything is working with no problems. Click bios makes everything easy to set up for even people who are new to pc building

Cons: NONE I LOVE IT ...i was so scared to older from new egg because of all of the negative comments.

Other Thoughts: Everything worked out great and newegg shipping i got my package in less than 2 days :D

my first time build

i7 3770k
CPU cooler h100i
Storm trooper case
Z77 MPOWER from -newegg.com
2x 8gb = 16GB of Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz ram
1x sand disk Extreme 120GB sdd
2 x GTX 660 ti 3GB FTW in sli
2 TB seagate hard drive 7200rpm
HX 850watt pro modular psu 80 plus gold

Pros: Ran Great for 4 months. This is an update to my previous rating. Smoke and Fire. MSI now gets 1 egg for Cheap Warranty

Cons: Board went PSSST, smoke and fire. Being replaced now BUT with a REFURB !!!
Wish they would have made a point of that in the warranty.
Would have never bought it.

Other Thoughts: This is the 5th build that I've used MSI boards. It's the last.
MSI needs to stop being soooo Cheap and replace a NEW board with a new Board.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
We never replace boards with new boards for the past 20 years, see below for our terms and conditions. It's also stated clearly in your RMA email.
http://us.msi.com/service/warranty/#rma

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with our tech support team directly at 626.271.1004 for assistance during regular business hours from M to F, 9am to 6pm Pacific Time.
Or you can email us at usreview@msi.com, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: I first reviewed this board as being perfect....Yet as time has progressed i have notices several issures with it. For example: The phase lights on the board are always flikering, I managed to buy a corsair hx750 i had a riadmax hybrid 630, and a rosewill 500 power supplies. All of which work perectly fine with "other" systems. Not only do they contrinue to light and flicker almost as if there is no power going to the cpu. its 12.49 v as correct. After this i managed to order 8 gb of ram from patriot. When i eneabled the xmp profile for 2133 i get constand bsod's. The computer will fail to boot. it will crash. I managed to tinker with the slots, and put one stick in slot 2 and one in slot 4, and it works.......so i dont understand. I wish to send back to msi, but i dont want my board referbished. I want a brand new one. I spend 200 dollars so i expect 200 dollars worth of a mobo.

Cons: The bad outweighs the good in this case. I contacted msi already to send it back. Tired of talking to some non speaking representative on the phone that i cant understand. I want this solved.

Other Thoughts: Not worth my time.
Its not the shipping its not newegg its msi for sending out boards that dont work. I have read cases where people have sent boards back, and they sent the same one back, and because they couldnt find the issue, they didnt fix it. if this happens to me i will never buy Msi. I currently work for a small computer hardware store, and if this happens to me, we will no longer be stocking our shelves with any msi boards.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
As stated in our terms and conditions, we can only replace your board with a rectified unit.

Please kindly visit the URL below to set up a RMA with the following information.
http://service.msicomputer.com/msi_user/rma_form_new.aspx

1. Full name (first, and last)
2. Telephone #
3. Physical address
4. Email address
5. Serial number (located on the box, or underneath the motherboard, eg 601-xxxx-xxxBxxxxxxxxxx)
6. Symptoms you are having onto the Special Remark section (as detailed as possible)

Once your information and warranty coverage are verified then we can proceed with this RMA for you.
Our turn-around time is typically two weeks and our system will notify you automatically at every stage of your RMA process.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, received the unit back from RMA but are still having issues, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: I'll start with the good.

Great looking board, the grey is nice and the yellow looks good in person. BTW, the yellow matches Seasonic Gold series PSU's if you are color matching.

Feature rich, USB 3.0, bluetooth, WiFi, 4 pin fan headers, etc.

Good audio. Probably not as good as a sound card but it is plenty for 90% of people.

Was very stable.(while it lasted)

To MSI's credit, the RMA went smoothly.

Cons: Very long story short (character limits) at 5 month in, one or more of the VRM's shorted internally causing smoke/sparks and destroying the MOBO/CPU.

I did asked Intel to check out my CPU to see if it was fried when the MOBO blew, they sent my back a NIB CPU so I can only assume that the MOBO killed my i7 but I cannot confirm that.

I requested an RMA for the MOBO and sent it off, 22 days later(4/30) I got a replacement board back and thing seem to running fine, but it has only been three days.

I can understand a MOBO having problems, including "blowing-up", it happens, but the thing that makes me upset is that the replacement board was a refurbished board and not a brand new one. I am now fully aware that this is MSI's policy but I spent my hard earned money for a brand new board, not a refurbished one. If I had wanted an refurbished board I would have bought a refurb/open-box in the first place.

Refurbished boards were sent back for a reason and even though they tested fine at the factory they could have issues when ran 24/7/365, especially when overclocked which is what this board is made/marketed for.

The reason I am am having issues with this is that the refurbished board I received as a replacement had several problems of its own.






There were several bent pins on the back of the board. They aren't bent enough to cause shorts but they should not be bent in the first place.

The PCB have a significant bend in the back corner where the PS2 port is attached the the PCB. The bow is heavy enough that it is visible from the out side of the case even when mounted to the MOBO trey due to the ports being misaligned, they are still useable but they should line up.

The CPU socket has some sort of glue/corrosion on the mounting bracket that had to have been from the previous owner. Most wiped off, some didn't.

There are finger prints all over this board. They are on the heaksinks, components, on the board, and on the board where the pins are soldered. I cleaned off the ones on the heatsinks but I really cannot do anything about the ones on sensitive parts due to static. These print have to be from the the previous owner/MSI techs, either way they show poor handling of the board.

Now everytime I look into my case at my used board I'll get to look at all of the greasy finger prints that I cannot remove and then I'll get to think about all the back of board that I cannot do anything about.






I feel cheated by MSI, I had a motherboard that I payed full retail price for that had a obvious defect that was clearly a manufactures quality issue. After sending it back, on my dime, it was replaced with a board that works(for now)but shows clear signs of abuse/neglect. Pins and PCB's don't bend themselves and finger prints on sensitive components don't appear by themselves.

I guess there isn't much that can be done now but it still makes me mad.

Other Thoughts: I have had good luck with MSI's in the past and wanted to use them in my new build but I didn't know that MSI's policy was to replace obviously defective parts with used ones.

Had I known that before I bought this board I probably would have gone with a different brand.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
All manufacturers use refurbished boards as replacement boards.
However, if you are not happy with your replacement, we will be more than happy to replace it for you and cover 2-way shipping. Just email us at usreview@msi.com and we will take care of you.

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with our tech support team directly at 626.271.1004 for assistance during regular business hours from M to F, 9am to 6pm Pacific Time.
Or you can email us at usreview@msi.com, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: * Looks great
* Tons of bells and whistles (integrated bluetooth and wifi, aw yis)
* Mil spec components, burn in test before shipping it out the door.

Cons: * Not really a con, but the blue phase LEDs throw off any scheme you have going with your rig (if it isn't blue). Can be disabled in the BIOS

Other Thoughts: Fantastic motherboard.

Pros: Built in wifi and bluetooth are nice along with the OC Genie.

Cons: Wifi module is defective after only 7 months. One of the Sata 3 (6gbp/s) port is also defective.

Other Thoughts: This motherboard worked perfectly until the sata port went out 3 months in and the wifi quit working today. I will not use another MSI motherboard until I am sure they fix their issues with quality.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
What were the issues you had? Can you let us know at usreview@msi.com?

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with our tech support team directly at 626.271.1004 for assistance during regular business hours from M to F, 9am to 6pm Pacific Time.
Or you can email us at usreview@msi.com, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Love the OC genie. It was a good start for someone who hasnt played much with overclocking the cpu. It over clocked my ram with a simple push of a button. I also really love the boot to bios button as with a SSD it can be a very short boot screen so you can miss the boot options.

Cons: None

Pros: Easy motherboard to work with, OC, and have fun with. Nice placement of ports.

Cons: Wish they had 2more SATA 6 ports. Nothing else at this time.

Other Thoughts: Newegg has reaffirmed my belief, that they are the only place I go for computer related items. RMA turn around was awesomely quick, under 48 hours.

Pros: As a computer tech, I have seen my fair share of motherboards. I have always been a fan of MSi and all my personal gaming builds I have used MSi mainboards. They have went above and beyond on this series of boards. Solid state caps, well built piping and heat sinks. dual bios, post checker on board. The bio's U.I. is nice to look at and sure easy to use.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: I paired this board with a i7 and a Arctic Cooler i30, dude to the size of the heat sinks on this board it will only mount one way...

Pros: When I was trying to an mid-end motherboard for my i7 3770k, Msi z77 Mpower showed the great potential of value/actual price. Plus, very good design all around.

Cons: DoA

Other Thoughts: Arrival with a bent pin in the cpu socket. My thought was that this is how cpu socket supposes to be like.
Wasting 3 hours to setup everything, I only found myself got into an infinite restart loop with a code 55.
Then I wasted another 2 hours to figure out the problem, dissembler the entire rig.
Yep that is the problem with the motherboard with a bad socket pin.
I had to spend around another 20 bucks to RMA this MB to newegg.
I wondered why I should save just 20 bucks, and did not get an asus motherboard yesterday.
Well, since I am in this situation, I will give msi another try.
Hopefully this "hand tested" motherboard can actually boot up first.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
There's no way that the socket can be damaged from the factory, a bent pin is always caused from misuse/improper installation.
Please note the out of warranty replacement fee is $45.

Please kindly visit the URL below to set up a RMA with the following information.
http://service.msicomputer.com/msi_user/rma_form_new.aspx

1. Full name (first, and last)
2. Telephone #
3. Physical address
4. Email address
5. Serial number (located on the box, or underneath the motherboard, eg 601-xxxx-xxxBxxxxxxxxxx)
6. Symptoms you are having onto the Special Remark section (as detailed as possible)

Once your information and warranty coverage are verified then we can proceed with this RMA for you.
Our turn-around time is typically two weeks and our system will notify you automatically at every stage of your RMA process.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, received the unit back from RMA but are still having issues, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com