I am right in thinking that retailers are not supposed to be selling these boards anymore ?
Basically, the answer is yes. Look here:
http://msi.eu/intel-6-series-chipset-issue/
Products in the market
As of the 31st of January MSI informed all our distributors, retails and reseller to stop directly the sales of Intel 6 series based products of MSI and to hold any products pending shipments to customers.
Also important:
1. Product swap
If you are confident and willing to wait we can swap your current Intel 6 series based product in a brand new MSI product which is based on the new B3 stepping of the Intel 6 series which solves the current SATA2 port issues. If you have an MSI 6 series mainboard you can ? for the short term - connect your storage devices to the safe white SATA3 ports on your mainboard, for more detailed instructions please click here.
This MSI product you get swapped will have similar or better specs. These new MSI products will become available in April and this way you will miss your product only for a very short period of time. You can identify the new products by a clear sticker on the color box. We will release details about this procedure before the end of February.
2. Product return
If you are not confident about your current MSI based 6 series product MSI offers you the possibility to return the product to your point of purchase which will credit you. Please make sure to back-up your personal data.
In the light of the "product return" paragraph, you should be able to simply return the product to the retailer and get your money back. As this procedure does not really require your serial number to be "valid" in the French MSI Support database, returning the product should be no problem for you as everything beyond that would be the problem of the retailer and must not concern your anymore.
If the retailer refuses to take the board back and return the money to you, then you could basically sue him for that.
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As for MSI Germany (I am from Germany): MSI Germany has currently not released any specific details about the way the product exchanges are going to be handled. However, I am almost sure, that the exchange is going to be handled on the distributor or retailer level. In that case, you would still be stuck with a "proof of purchase" pointing to a French retailer which is going to be complicated as well.
In any case, if you should decide to contact MSI Germany regarding this issue, you can contact me, if you want. I can translate whatever you wish to say into German.
Jack
