MSI G31TM-P21 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Comment:
Affordable board that works well. Does almost everything as advertised One particular SATA cable. It has a parallel port connetor, but no way to make it usable. The parallel port connector is on the system board, but there is no way to hook it up. Inquiries to MSI went un-answered.

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No frills, fast booting board for your replacement needs. Needed to replace the MB for the kid's computer when the old ASUS died and this one fit the bill. Took me a while to realize that ACHI wasn't an option but it makes no difference for this older machine anyway.

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I had an old ASRock "4Core Dual Vista" which ran very well for many years, despite it being quite cheap. Unfortunately one of the SATA drives attached to it started dying. A replacement drive these days will be SATA III, which ordinarily wouldn't be a problem except for the rare VIA controller on the ASRock board which doesn't support SATA II or SATA III.Enter this board. The SATA II controller supports SATA III (at SATA II speeds, of course). I moved my Core 2 Duo E6600 and my 2 GB of DDR2-667 RAM, connected all cables and it worked perfectly with my new SATA III SSD replacement, no hiccups at all.There's no overclocking on this board, look for another one if you want overclocking. The documentation is translated very poorly - even the back of the box has nonsensical phrasing.But it's a good, cheap board that allows me to continue using my older 775 processor and my DDR2 memory. There aren't too many of these boards left these days, fortunately this one covers the bill for a basic computer build.

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Got this to replace an old motherboard that had died, would have prefered an ATX board but you don't have much choice now days for LGA775 processors.

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great all around board for all 775

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Excellent Tiny board I purchased 5 of these and I have not had one particular difficulty but. Wonderful for a primary stream workstation pc. Havent noticed something yet. I applied to hate msi due to the fact they ****** me more than on a high end p4 mobo back in the day saying it was shipping harm which it wasnt simply because i wrapped the heck out of it, but it seams they are making there items a lot much better these days and I have not had to call MSI for help.

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Extremlt fast bo--- "Welcome, pleaseEnter your password."Haha, but seriously. I pitted this factor against my workhorse msi x58 platinum a quad core at 3ghz and 6gb of ddr3. A lot of features. My ram was timed correct.This small mb booted prior to the other pc was halfway by way of posting. I would like to see much more sata ports. I have a case with esata on the front panel that's 1. Cd drive that's two. And harddrive that's three. If I get a second harddrive that's all 4 spaces. Best spending budget board around.

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Used this board to replace a friends broken board on an acer computer, works great with no problems, He is on a budget and this one was cheap, and works great no complaints.

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Bought to replace a failed motherboard in HP A6500F. Board fit into current case perfectly. Had all connections except for firewire. Did not have to modify power, front audio output, front USB outputs. Installed Window 7 Residence Premium with no problem.Great option for a dead factory motherboard in a desktop that is only 16 months old. Reused E2220 Intel processor, 4 GB ram, SATA DVD(RW)-Combo drive, and 500GB SATA difficult drive. RMA'ed the first board due to no rear speaker output - second board was the identical. Board was not the issue; and not positive regardless of whether to blame MSI or Realtek, but when you plug in rear audio; the system will autodetect that you have plugged speakers in rear green port. From the pop up menu, Pick "Headphones" - this choice delivers superior sound. Alternatively if you have chosen "Rear Speaker Out"; DO NOT also pick "Stereo" inside the Realtek HD Audio Manager. Please pick "Quadraphonic" to save oneself considerably frustration. Otherwise, you will go down the exact same path as I did suspecting a new faulty motherboard for No Rear Speaker output. Newegg's Service was 5 eggs as usual!

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the live update thing is nice. for the motherboards bios Died after 3 months, sucks. by no means buying msi once more.

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Wonderful Price tagEvery single component ran hassle no cost in Linux Mint, Ubuntu w/ a single exception (see beneath).The board is tiny but does not really feel as crowded as some other mATX boards. USB is recognized but runs at USB 1.1 speeds, have not figured out how to repair this but. Not a big deal for me tho.Have utilized this on 3 builds, one failed to POST will get an RMA. No onboard DVI, but I was preparing on pairing it w/ a ฤ GPU w/ DVI/HDMI anyway.

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Inexpensive replacement for other LGA775 board. Worked outta da box. PCI-E slot w/a 9600GT card covers 1 of the 2 PCI slots. BeWare. Replaced a 946GZ board w/a fried PCI-e slot. Windows booted up, loaded the Intel INF file on CD (suggest copying to HD just in case), rebooted once again and finished LAN/Audo install, and great to go. Note the CD takes a minute+ to load as I 'think' it searches for required drivers...you'll see the Driver Menu links 'highlight' when located.Will attempt OC...operating a 4300 1.8 w/the 1066 mod @ two.4Ghz for now.

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Didn't explode. Trash. Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L is a lot superior, it gets all the way to the first boot screen before hanging. Two mobo RMAs coming your way Newegg! Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued MSI Customer,We would like to apologize for the problem you have experienced with this distinct mb. Please e mail me directly through usersupport2@msicomputer.com your mb's serial number and your total speak to info, subject heading "EAHG31TM". I would like to aid you get this resolved.Very best Regards,User AssistanceMSI Product Assistance

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I purchased this motherboard for my initially build , and it camewith good instructions suitable out the box. i did not have any troubles installing the hardware , or software. also came with sata , and IDE cable. None yet.

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Really modest but nicely laid out. Lots of possibilities for such a budget mobo which includes VGA out. Compatible with lots of various Intel CPUs and peripherals. I only had to get new memory ontop of the mobo, used all my old SATA HDDs and PATA DVD drives. BIOS has a fair amount of overclocking choices for a motherboard so low-cost. Dual channel DDR2. Runs extremely solid at stock speeds. For the cost, 5 eggs. No internal speaker! Can't diagnose beep codes with no it, have to provide your own speaker. Instead of 2 PCI slots (ontop of the PCIEx16), wish it had 1 PCI and 1 PCIEx1. The following isn't truly a con, but just a note, the motherboard only supports the Intel HD audio front panel header, my laptop or computer case only has the AC97 front panel plugs so I did not successfully get my front panel audio jacks working :( The only gripe I had with this board is when I tried installing my old 533MHz DDR2 in it, it gave NO SIGN at all of why it wouldn't boot. No video, no beeps (why no beeps described in Cons section), and no LEDs blinking. Granted, 533MHz DDR2 isn't supported in the specs, I would have liked some visual or audio confirmation that the memory was in fact the issue and not one thing else. Aside from that, soon after I got some 800MHz DDR2, anything went swimmingly. Popped my old Core2Duo E6300 into it, added a Radeon HD4550, and off I went! I had a cruddy ECS mobo with a Through chipset before and though it worked ok, it gave really shoddy efficiency compared to this 1 especially in the RAM and USB deparment... that's why I decided to upgrade. Was a quite low-cost was to squeeze out some added performance that will help my pc final one more two years or so, this mobo plus 2GB DDR2 800MHZ, for less than ๪.

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Affordable, "plug and play", decent amount of BIOS selections, stable and cool even overclocked. No firewire. Usual digs about weak onboard video & no DVI or HDMI, but for the $$...meh. Also some people may possibly not like that they can't directly control Vcore A friend's HP a6300F went south with a poor motherboard. I rescued their information and in exchange got to preserve the dead HP. Picked up the G31TM-P21 and a MSI N8400GS-D512H GeForce 8400 GS 512MB given that I knew the video was weak and I require dual monitors. Popped in everything else stock from the HP with the exception of the firewire port and it just worked: E2220 Dual Core at 2.4GHz which I ultimately O/C'd to 2857GHz stable on air (low 30Cs @ idle, mid to high 50Cs @ 100% CPU), 4GB of some cheapo HP OEM DDR2, original 500GB SATA and I also dropped in a 120GB spare laptop SATA.I dual boot Ubuntu 10.ten 64bit and Vista 32 bit, but spend 99% of my time on Ubuntu. The board has been solid. If I push the CPU past 2900 things get twitchy with random lockups, but I don't blame the MB for that.Superior all about board. Nice bang for the buck.

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Affordable, and that's about it. Missing pin on FP headers (without this you won't figure out how to connect them utilizing the map given in the manual see "cons" below). Setup a new method with E5700 and DDR2 667 鹀MB x 2), fans spin, but no beeps, no POST, no power on USB's, no LED blinks, no absolutely nothing! RMA'd and got an additional brand. Quite confusing FP headers - there are two of them, but not clear why. User manual has a "misdirected" map of FP headers. Looks like this is a poorly manufactured board by MSI. DO NOT obtain this. Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued MSI Consumer,We would like to apologize for the concern you have skilled with this certain mb. Please e mail me directly via usersupport2@msicomputer.com your mb's serial quantity and your complete get in touch with info, subject heading "EAHG31TM-P21". I would like to aid you get this resolved.Finest Regards,User SupportMSI Product Support

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Excellent Overclocker for a budget board!!! I have OC'd 4 diverse chips with this board. 1st CPU--I took a Pent DC E5300 from its stock two.6 to three.five with this board stable. 2nd CPU--Pent D 925 from its stock 3. to 3.9!! It would boot into Win 7 and I could perform typical tasks (surfing, installing, formatting and so on) at that speed but I could not play games at that setting. It is rock solid at 3.7 although. 3rd CPU--C2D 6400 from stock 2.13 to 2.93 rock solid stable!!! Final CPU-- Celeron 346 Stock three.06 to three.8. I achieved all of this employing a 9 dollar CMaster cooler!!Setup:This board3 Diff CPU'sCMaster CoolerOC* DDR2 800 GoldOld utilised case300W no name power supply Can\'t transform VCore or other voltages but you can adjust RAM timings and FSB/DRAM Ratio. 775 CPU's are obsolete I picked this up at a local retailer since of a holiday gift card I received but I would have certainly purchased from the Egg had that not been the case. I also have an ASU* P5KPL-AM board that I bought from the Egg a few years ago and this board crushes it in terms of OC ability. I could only get my C2Q 9300 from 2.5 to 3.1 making use of that board but with this board and OCZ Gold DDR2 800 I maxed out the same CPU to 3.4

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booted proper up.. no difficulties.. windows 7 smooth as can be.... simple board style.. light on the overclocking features.. but acceptable for light overclocking.. power sw and hdd not shown in manual.. hopefully you have the fast start off guide. perfectly fine for the price tag.. incredibly stable so far.. overclocked my e6600 from 2.4 to three. with out issues..onboard video?? who knows.. i dont use it.. but im positive it will be ok for every little thing but new games

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If you need a basic motherboard, this is a good choice.

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mobo works, did not have any issue installing it or its drivers motherboard worked until i tried to put my video card in. i prior to installation of video card had two harddrives, 1 pci wifi card and one esata hooked up. when I installed the video card i lost the hot swapabilty of the esata, not thinking about it i increased the clock speed of the pcie1. slot and lost both harddrives. I will need to play with this but I think I am just going to get a various mobo after a return of this 1. as soon as i dropped the clock speed it came correct back, but the hot swap was still not working. there seems to be a bandwidth issue with the bus that has the satas and the pcie. just know that it has that limit, he mobo functions great other then that bandwidth concern. Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued MSI Client,We would like to apologize for the concern you have skilled with this specific mb. Please email me directly by way of usersupport2@msicomputer.com your mb's serial number and your total get in touch with data, subject heading "EAHG31TM". I would like to assist you get this resolved.Greatest Regards,User AssistanceMSI Product Support

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Really quite cost successful and incredibly good performance for the small price. are you severe? a con? I applied this board to replace the P5LD2 in my step daughters Computer after a malicious program wiped her BIOS, typical myspace scenario. I installed this board and located out it is rather choosy towards ram. Muskin and OCZ wouldn't post so I installed Kingston Hyperx and vuala its finding on with the show. I will use this board for all my spending budget construct that are selling like hot cakes due to the economic depression we are in thanks to the Federal Reserve and the criminals on Wall Street. I own a Computer repair shop and this board is a blessing in disguise due to the fact of it cost verses efficiency ratio. I construct hundreds of Pc annually and unemployment at 22.8% and 45 million men and women on food stamps now this board has kept me competitive in a price conscience industry. I give it 5 eggs mainly because it is that good. If dollars are an issue then this board will be your blessing in disguise.

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The pro's it worked for 37 days. I am not giving it a 5 star since it performed properly. I am giving five stars for MSI's RMA system. I will write one more review once the mobo's been operating for a substained period of time. It burned out a month and 7 days after I got it. I don't blame new egg for that. It may have been a fluke. There is no way to know. My board burned 7 days immediately after the newegg warranty expired. I RMA'ed it to MSI this month. It took about a week or two for MSI to approve the RMA and send me back a new MOBO. I am fairly familiar with RMA procedures from several firms. (I utilised to work in the IT field.)The MSI RMA system is simple, and quick. I am giving five stars for their client service correct now. Ill put the new board in, test it and see how it runs and see if doesn't burn out, and then Ill be back and develop a new evaluation based on that.

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Cheap but it works very well. The only con is that it is a red PCB when it is a intel board. Everything works as it is should.

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Great small board for the cost, worked properly for my needs. Not going to overwhelm any person but like I mentioned, met my requires for my system. restricted slots but that's not a hidden feature, also unlabeled pins. Had to replace what need to've been a nicer board that was blue screening every single time and this little board is operating out wonderful!