MSI April Fools joke launches early and angers users.

By Boeing 787
in Back Page News

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Veteran

Boeing 787

Posted
Posted
The MSI-forum and MSI-support team are fed-up with explaining you what can be found in the manual.

I mean, come on, how hard is it to read a manual?

They are printed on paper so you see them.

We have been talking to MSI for a couple of years and came up with a solution.

It has been implemented on a few boards for some time and with big success.

It had various names, like CoreCenter (1st gathering tool) upto DrMOS (fully automatic)

Some of you noticed because Windows wanted you to install a driver, but you couldn't find the manufacturer.

On AMD systems this was called the Away-driver.

What you didn't know is this, this driver activates the RTFM-chip. (Re-Turn inFormation to Manufacturer chip)

It means it can detect if you read a manual as well stores the parameters you have set in the BIOS.

As soon as you start Windows we are informed about your settings and manual readings.

As we have been monitoring peoples behavior for some time and combined those with the RMA information from returned boards.

At the same time monitoring questions on the forum and matched the IP's.

We have made a discovery.

A lot of RMA is unneeded and unwanted, many happens due to user mistakes, numbers show that 90% of the RMA is OC people killing boards and

newbies connecting the wrong connectors or insert parts that should not be inserted.

Or simply forget to remove standoffs or CPU-power.

MSI plans on tackles those numbers, and the RTFM-chip will give a readout of what you have done when it did post or attempted to post!

Checking on you isn't new, Homeland-security done this ever you installed XP-SP3 or above, but their info in encrypted so useless to MSI.

So MSI decided to ban people from support, RMA and the forum who has done the damage themselves or didn't read the manual the first of next month.

We know who you are, and we have gathered enough information via our RTFM-chip.

The only question is, should MSI continue to do this? As some information is real bad.

Will this hurt your relation towards MSI products?

Please let us know, as we have to talk to MSI management the first of next month and make them decide what to do with the information.

Second email:

Hi there,

We are sorry people took this for prank for serious.

Nobody seem to have wondered what RTFM really means.

If you put the term in Google, you will find it is telling you to read the manual.

Just think, how would a chip check if you read manuals?

We thought of this prank after answering the many posts where people ask the obvious that is already in the manual.

But we learned a valuable lesson, no more April-fools jokes from the forum, a 10 year old thing just died.

Sorry that you took it for real and got mad.

PS: RTFM = Read The F***ing Manual

Grand Master

techbeck

Posted
Posted
Late last week, global hardware manufacturer MSI informed the 97,000+ people registered with its support forums that its reps were "fed up" with repeating information easily found in user manuals. The company even went so far as to say that it had installed an "RTFM" chip on its hardware boards to determine whether users had read their manuals and that anyone who hadn't read them would be banned from support.

For the uninitiated, RTFM is a widely recognized acronym for "Read The ****ing Manual".

"The MSI-forum and MSI-support team are fed-up with explaining you what can be found in the manual," read an email message from the support team, which apparently went to every person registered for the company's support forums, including customers, vendors, and press. "I mean, come on, how hard is it to read a manual? They are printed on paper so you see them."

The so-called RTFM chip, the email went on to say, had been monitoring the behavior of users for "some time".

"So MSI decided to ban people from support, RMA, and the forum who has done the damage themselves or didn't read the manual the first of next month," it said. "We know who you are, and we have gathered enough information via our RTFM-chip."

The email went out on March 25, and the company's support team now says it was an April Fools' joke. "We are sorry people took this for prank for serious [sic]," reads a forum post and email message from the company's support team head. "We thought of this prank after answering the many posts where people ask the obvious that is already in the manual.

"But we learned a valuable lesson, no more April-fools jokes from the forum...Sorry that you took it for real and got mad."

What's more, some people didn't take it for real and got mad. "The 'joke' might have been funny if you'd maybe not been quite so abrasive about it," says one poster. "And as pointed out by others, you're WELL off the mark for an April Fools joke. There's a pretty limited window for April Fools gags and you lot now just look like idiots."

For the uninitiated, April Fools' jokes typically occur on April 1 - not March 25.

You can argue whether the email was a joke or a rogue message from some embittered support rep who finally went over the edge or somewhere in between. But one thing's for certain: Idiot is not too strong a word. ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/28/msi_support_forum_email/

Guh, I really hate not being able to edit the title.

Grand Master

Sulphy

Posted
Posted

super LOL!!!! laugh.gif

too true..... people should read manuals...!!! if they dont have the manual..... then there is an amazing tool - GOOGLE...

thats what i tell users in my domain that come up with stupid things!!!! :)

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