I tried MSI. K9A2 Platinum Support issues.

Question

Do not buy MSI.... Buyer beware.
I have the MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard. Now the board runs fine. However I find it very hard to take this company seriously anymore.
6 months ago I tried Flashing the Bios for a CPU upgrade I wanted. MSI's website boasts its mother boards that have 64 bit capabilities. However if you use a 64bit OS. Namely Windows XP or Windows Vista. You are in big trouble. The Live updater doesn't work with it. Not at all. Install it and it gives you errors that it will not launch.
Now any one that has flashed a bios before will say. "Okay I will do it manually." (Or if you don't know what your doing don't touch the Bios) So you download the Image file you need. Launch your boot disk from the A: Drive and well you can't access the Image file you have placed on your C: drive because hey it doesn't recognize Sata. So pray you have an old IDE laying around or you will have to load it to a cd.  Oh but, hey again you have sata still doesn't see it. So usually you load it onto the disk. No big deal right? Well now on their readme it warns against Flashing from a floppy or CD (If you don't understand what I meant I am saying they warn against having the flash file on the boot disk Floppy or CD). So because of this I called MSI and had them walk me through the process because I wanted to be sure I am doing this right. I have done it many times before but for some reason it's a fricking process now. So we made a CD booted and ran it like you would off the A: drive everything went smoothly and then it froze. at 60% into the flash it froze so the guy tells me just reboot. I warn him that if I reboot the Motherboard is junk. He insists it should be fine. I reboot and as expected nothing happens because it was a bad flash.
So they say just send it back they give me an RMA number I remove the board package it and take pictures of its condition. I say again I took pictures. (The reason I did this is if you look at the reviews of this board on Tiger Direct there is complaints of them getting the board and claiming it is damaged. They email you a picture and claim it something you did. they then send it back to you.)
So I send it out. Wouldn't you guess they say it's Damaged they send me some nice pics in an email. So I send my pics of the board in the condition I sent it. There is no damage on the board they can see. They now claim it's the shippers fault. Shipper insists package arrived in great condition. MSI still refuses to help even though they know I sent them the board in great condition.So MSI is very poor in taking care of it's customers through RMA
So I send it back to Cyberpower. I explain to them what happened and they replaced the board free of charge and flashed it to current specs at the time. Bios Version 1.4. Now I work with computers. Part of my work is seeing the ease of how user friendly things are like Bios updates. How new processors perform. So now I was stuck in a dilemma 6 months after the first Now I need Bios version 1.6 installed. Well this time I took it to geek squad. They said it shouldn't take long and I waited in the store 3 hours and watched this person pull their hair out. All the normal ways of flashing the Bios don't work yet again. He goes to use the Live Updater and again 64 bit systems not supported. So he is baffled because why would a company that supports a 64 bit Processor not support the OS. Good question. Now I see more of the geek squad coming over all them ask it's not MSI is it. They get their answer and sigh. Now what they thought was a 15 minute procedure turns into me having to leave the system for a night.
The next day It is completed. What did they have to do? They installed a IDE drive booted from a floppy and loaded off the drive with the Flash file. Having to take the PC apart taking out Cd roms and running the ide via my CD rom IDE. Now I know a lot of you are going to say they didn't know what they where doing and I am telling you They did everything I did which is what MSI walked me through and hit the same road blocks. during the Reboot one of the guys wanted to try MSI live updater 3 and some how it worked..
So I called MSI today and asked them if they now support 64 bit OS with their instant updater. The answer was no. They stated they still do not support that. I checked my  Bios version and some how it did worked. Who knows maybe they did it when they had all the other stuff out and apart and I just didn't notice. But MSI is Claiming the contrary. So I am happy that I have the update. However knowing that I am going to need to update again I now have come to the conclusion that MSI is not a user friendly board in fact it took 4 people at geek squad some of whom I know and see do flashes all the time and they had trouble. I do flashes all the time and I have trouble.
The bottom line here is MSI needs to hop on board with what they offer. Everyone is going to the 64 bit OS mainly because of RAM. They want to run Crysis, Farcry 2, Mass effect, and have the fastest processors available. They want the best video cards Available. But if your manufacturer Builds 64 bit based motherboards that are suppose to support the AM2 Platform then you would think that they would at least have an updater capapable of working with those systems. Now it's not impossible to make something like this work, Nor is it hard. There are other manufacturers who do have easier ways to flash than MSI.
Playstation 3 does firmware update all the time over the net. What is a firmware update? to put it simply it is a Bios flash to update how the machine works with newer software or to take advantage of existing technoligy in the PS3. Which is put simply just a computer. If a company that makes these systems can't even get a live updater to work or does not have the ability to walk you over how to do the flash the flash over the phone correctly why waste your time and money with a lazy company. I have an Asus machine that flashes.
Take this however you want. It could be taken as venting or a warning. Hopefully the MSI forum admin will forward these concerns to MSI before he bans me. 

Answer 1

I am not here to argue but, the fact that you as an administrator can sit here and say there is no money in 64 bit obviously are speaking from a point of view of Bias.
Walk into any Bestbuy, call any Dell call center,  Call CyberpowerPC.com, or call Microsoft. These are the systems that are in demand.
Best buy states that there 64 Bit OS based computers are flying off the shelves. and that 90 percent of the computers they now carry are 64 bit installed with Vista.  In approxomatly 11 months windows will only be making Vista and the New windows 7 in 64 bit. It doesn't matter what you think it does. It matters what the market is demanding. There is tons of money in this and if MSI doesn't get on board soon they are gonna lose to competitors that do.
Where would we be if we stuck with 8 bit? What would have happended to the gaming industry if Sega never came out with their 16 bit platform?
Mention MSI to any geek squad guy and they just laugh and say go Asus. Sure you may not value their opinion. But the public who take it to them cause they don't understand computers does.They even say They(Geek squad) are easier to maintain with processor updates with some one who has experience that means something too. Sure I know to use the Utilities now because of these forums which I am thankful for. However: I represent those who are not capable and computer literate and the idea here that we should let them fend for themselves is preposterous.
Plus the fact that you don't use 32 bit software does not speak for those of us that do. There is 64 bit software out there. If your going to sit here and represent MSI. First you need some suggestions and you don't have to take em.
First off answer questions with out the criticism to the 64 bit OS. Just try and help the people regardless of your opinion.
Secondly you need to lose this idea that there is no market for 64bit software. There is. Trust me I report to people who want to see what is in demand. 64 bit is in great demand (Mainly because of ram and yes people don't realize that there really never going to use it. However; The market is pushing this so when it does come out and they do start using it there won't be a mad rush to update everything again.)
Last... Maybe you should get on this company as well. This may be a user forum but, to be honest I am here criticizing them as on many other sites so they can hopefully get word that there are many people aside from me who are complaining about there support and they can improve it. MSI has some great innovations but they need to make sure they support all the new hardware and software that goes along with being in this type of business. Criticism helps drive us as Human, as companies to do better.
However I do value you and your opinion and will even be submitting a report of this forum and how helpful it is to those who are not so good with the computer or just starting out doing it on their own. You can lock this if ya like. Please don't take offense either as I think you have some knowledge that is really worth sharing to many others. I have seen some of your other posts after your replies and you definitely have some great input. Thanks for letting me debate with you.