MSI to stop including manuals and other paper materials with its motherboards

[wiyosaya]

But online version can be updated.

True. That will only happen, though, if someone catches the error and decides to update the manual.

 

[mgwerner]

Good move, printed manuals can contain errors and problem causing really anyway

Online manuals, in my experience, have many more mistakes, mostly due to being produced/edited by people for whom American-Standard English is not their first or second language. While they may be readily updatable, without the resource of a native language speaker, those errors are never seen. Work in a country where English is an official language (anywhere in the middle east) and you will see what I mean. Chinglish and Hindlish are actual things that impair clear understanding by North Americans, as well as the Brits, Aussie and Kiwis, who are the target markets for these devices.

 

[hahahanoobs]

As long as they have a quick setup guide showing things like what slots RAM go in for DC and enabling XMP/DOCP, I don't see a problem. QR code to get the full manual or quick setup guide would be cool. I'd still miss reading the hard copy though.

 

[p51d007]

Single sheet of paper, with the pinout connectors, and a website link if you really need the manuals.
PDF's are easier than tossing away a bunch of paper manuals that most don't even look at.

 

[Sausagemeat]

So, you are a first-time PC builder, with no computer and where are you supposed to get the manual?

Yeah, I read the article. Maybe my scenario is unlikely in this day and age, but I bet that some people will skip MSI as a motherboard choice because of this.

All this in an effort to go green. I have to wonder, though, how green this option really is since a significant number of users will have to consume power, and thus, carbon to view the manual.

Generally paperless online solutions use a lot less carbon than printing and distributing paper books. It’s the shipping more than anything as most paper is responsibly sourced these days.

I don’t think people will care that much. Not like when they stopped shipping paper manuals with computer games as then we had nothing to read on the toilet. But that was years ago before we had smartphones. Now we have smartphones we can take pictures of all the old manuals and read them whilst on any toilet.

 

[captaincranky]

But online version can be updated.

Yes they can. But that doesn't necessarily indicate that they will be.
This move by MSI is simply cost saving. It's like credit card companies trying to force "paper free statements", on you. And we all, (or should), know, they're trying to primarily save the postage, while forcing mandatory internet.n consumers.

As far as my personal experience and superstitions go, MSI is crap as compared to Gigabyte, (for mobos), and EVGA, (for video cards). Mercifully, the don't market PSUs or memory..

As far as online documentation goes, Gigabyte for their boards, and Intel Ark, (obviously for CPUs), never fail..

 

[Phaetos]

But imagine if every company does this.

Thus increasing the power necessary for more online storage and pwer requirements for the servers and hardware needed, therefore needing more traditional forms of power production. Either way it's not a solution.

 

[timljh]

The pins and jumpers thing is the only thing people use in a box. You want to talk about volume, get rid if the other 100 pages of garbage but keep the pin outs. Looking it up on your phone is a pain, the PDFs are never phone friendly and as someone who builds enough computers to have to use my phone, you have to make sure you have the right model number or else you can brick it.

You want to talk about 70 million million motherboards? Dont put the other 100 pages in and reduce it by 6.9 billion pages. Or, like I said, print it on the inside of the box.

Most motherboard already have the pin outs labeled on the motherboard itself already, you don't need those and they will not brick your motherboard for sure.

 

[yRaz]

Most motherboard already have the pin outs labeled on the motherboard itself already, you don't need those and they will not brick your motherboard for sure.

That diagram is so small it's almost useless. I'm not talking about just the power switch pins on the header. But I have yet to have someone tell me why IT COULDNT BE PRINTED ON THE INSIDE OF THE BOX.

 

[hwertz]

Sounds good. In theory, I feel like there "should" be a manual fro documenting at least if there are reset jumpers or buttons on the board, if there's any headers on there not fully labelled, etc. In practice, I have not put together a system in years but don't recall EVER consulting the manual for it anyway. (This being the 21st century and all, I'd be 100% satisfied pulling up a PDF on my phone.)

What happens if MSI takes them off the site? If they're just plain PDFs, there'll be mirrors of them all over the place. Besides the actual tech sites, there's loads of sites that seem to specialize in nothing but keeping copies of manuals for everything that has a PDF-format manual available for it (and some that appear to have been scanned from paper.)