Single review: MSI H87-G43 LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX High Performance CF Intel Motherboard

MSI H87-G43 LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX High Performance CF Intel Motherboard

Intel H87
4th-Gen Intel Core i7 / i5/ i3 (LGA1150)
DDR3 1600/1333

disappointed 10/31/2013

This review is from: MSI H87-G43 LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX High Performance CF Intel Motherboard

Pros:

Price
Aesthetics
Cool graphical BIOS

Cons:

No output from onboard DVI connector
Placement of SATA connectors
Updating BIOS using MFLASH did not work

Overall Review:

I installed the H87-G43 motherboard with an i5-4570S CPU and no additional graphics card. I connected my LCD panel to the onboard DVI connector. When I booted for the first time, nothing displayed on the LCD. So I installed an old PCIe graphics card, connected the LCD to it, and was able to get to the BIOS. In the BIOS, I changed the default graphics device from PEG to IGD, saved the changes, moved the LCD back to the onboard DVI connector, and rebooted. Still no display. I found an old VGA cable and used it to connect the LCD to the onboard VGA connector. This worked.

I posted this issue to the MSI forum, but no one there could help me. The only suggestions I got were to clear the BIOS and ensure I was using a single-link DVI-D cable (done and done).

4 out of the 6 SATA connectors are horizontal, making them difficult to connect (too close to hard drives installed in full-sized case).

I tried updating the BIOS using the MFLASH utility. Supposedly, you can copy the ROM to a USB drive and update it from there. Although the BIOS was able to see the ROM on the USB device, it locked up when I initiated the update process. I instead had to make a bootable USB drive using Unetbootin with FreeDOS + MSI's firmware update utility.

Board: MSI H87-G43
Bios: Version 2.5
VGA: Integrated i5-4570S Intel HD 4600
PSU: Antec NeoECO C NEO ECO 520C 520W ATX12V (40A 12V rail)
CPU: Intel Core i5-4570S Socket 1150 2.9 GHz 65W
MEM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL
HDD: Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) + Western Digital WD Green WD10EARX 1TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
COOLER: ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
OC: None
OS: Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
Please kindly inspect the processor socket pins on the motherboard and make sure there are no bent pins because if there's any bent pins then it would cause bad contact between the processor and the motherboard thus results in no video.
However, if there are no bent pins then we can issue you a RMA# to send the board back for a replacement.

If you have any questions, please kindly get in touch with our tech support team directly at 626.271.1004 for assistance during regular business hours from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific Time, or you can email us at usreview@msi.com.
When contacting us, please kindly include your product info, thank you.

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

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Samuel W.
Verified Owner
Owned For: 1 week to 1 month

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