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MSI Wind - upgrading memory voids warranty
Author: Richard SwinburnePublished: 24th July 2008
Want to break the seal and upgrade your Wind? Well if you live outside the UK say goodbye to your warranty.
For those who don't know, even though MSI has left a slot free for memory upgrades, the problem MSI faces is that it doesn't include a specific flap for the memory like every other laptop - you literally have to take the whole thing apart to get to the free memory slot (or hard drive if you want to do that too). The level of complexity in getting it back together correctly is far beyond "pop a lid off", yet leaving the slot free MSI must have realised that people will want to upgrade their machines? Major surgery like this naturally voids the warranty.
We asked MSI UK about this and was told that owners would just need to register the product before going ahead with the upgrade - all will remain good. However after much poking MSI for answers it seems that the "register with MSI" option is exclusive to UK customers. For once it seems those of us in Blighty have a better deal! Excuse me while I promptly fall off my chair.
Clarifying the Wind's warranty, MSI told bit-tech that while it was preparing an official statement for early August, it can tell us that if you are good and don't open it up, then you get a two year local warranty and a one year global warranty. In comparison buying a cheaper OEM clone like the Advent will only get you a one year local warranty only.
In MSI's own words:
The end user will need to contact MSI UK first, and we will approve case by case. Customer will have option to contact their reseller for upgrade, contact MSI for upgrade (fee applies) or upgrade themselves. If end user chooses to upgrade themselves, we will provide them with an instructional guide and list of approved components to use, plus a new modified warranty sticker. If they follow this procedure, then warranty will remain valid, however, they will loose the global travel warranty. This will be clearly explained to them.
However, remember:
If the customer damages unit in any way during upgrade, then warranty will be void.
However while UK users may get the benefits of the awesome MSI UK support, it is not the case for other regions. If you live in the US, anywhere else in Europe or elsewhere in the world opening up your Wind notebook will void your warranty - there is no other way to upgrade the memory.
This is no doubt reminiscent of the first Asus Eee PCs that had warranty stickers over the memory compartments - that didn't go down too well at the time, yet Asus did backtrack and eventually state that universally it will not void the warranty, offering sticker replacements, but it did emphasise that any upgrades were at the users own risk.
Have you bought a Wind notebook and wanted to upgrade it? How do you feel about this new warranty information? Let us know your thoughts, in the forums.
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Comments (9)
Stats: 0.111 seconds
what about EEE, i'd assume that doesn't void the warranty
The hair dryer trick works but not most of the time.
Not really. But it is terribly expensive.
Injection moulds cost tens of thousands of dollars to develop and machine.
very true
it would require a redesign of the entire bottom panel, as well as re-tooling the production line and creating a new panel cover and associated tooling.
for something with such slim margins its out of the question, and I think it was left out to save money in the first place.