Anybody else sick of crappy motherboards?

[function9]

One or more of the original points have to be exaggerations, because it makes absolutely no sense otherwise.

 

[vic20]

Ethernet port, Raid and IDE channel don't work, period. Widely documented, and manufacturer won't issue RMA because a new one won't work either. As soon as they say ‘Chipset limitation”, they seem to be off the hook.

Not all motherboards allow you to set memory speed manually. Some do, others allow you to change it but fix mem speed to FSB.....which is fine if it picks memory correctly, but not if it doesn't. Example, mobo sets 800 memory at 533. You can choose between 2 ratios, but chances are you are either going to over clock the CPU or under clock the memory to less then optimum values. Yes, I knew over clocking was limited, but I assumed it would see the memory correctly. I researched before I bought, purchased SUPPORTED AND QUALIFIED parts to the manufacturers manual, but still got a mobo that didn’t work right. other mobo sees memory as 800? I did RMA that one yesterday.

I've researched the problems I am using for examples. There is no "fix" for any of them. Its product that was put to market without being fully tested. I've built hundreds of computers; these are not driver or bios issues. These are proven hardware incompatibility issues. When you buy a mobo with capability of 12 sata/pata devices and 2 types of on-board Raid, I'm sure not every combination of devices gets checked by every user. I run my stuff for a year and recycle my parts to friends and family. Some time you only find out later that features you didn’t use don’t work. I bought another board yesterday that has no reviews. It’s fine, I’ll test everything and send it back if it doesn’t work right. I found out the IDE channel didn't work in the process of building a file server. I had run all Sata, but now wanted to use up 4 old IDE drives for storage. I guess not without an IDE controller card

I don't want to bring brand into the mix, because all have boards with what seem to be more issues recently than in the past, and my issues are with 3 different brands. My question was of a more global in nature, as in: why do we put up with it? Sure I can RMA and wait 2-3 months for a replacement.....or stab in a NIC, sound card or storage controller card. But I'd rather have boards (premium) like we used to get 3-4 years ago when everything worked. If there is a hardware issue it should be dealt with promptly, as in: advance replacement or substitution vs. 2-3 months IMO.

Sounds like no one else is concerned, guess I'll just have to suck it up.

Sounds like a bad run of luck to me. I started building machines casually when VESA local bus was new and professionally from the socket 370/A era. I now build machines almost daily. It is very rare that I get a bad mobo. I maybe RMA one every 4 months that was bad out of the box. The boards I'm replacing post purchase are generally Socket 478 Intel 845/865 with Prescotts (this combo is now known to often blow south bridges when a USB device is plugged in) These weren't made bad, it was a mistake by Intel. These chipsets were not originally designed for use with Prescott and apparently just updating the BIOS wasn't enough to make them completely compatible.
Other boards I replace regularly are 3+ years old and have bad caps in unusual ratings (or am too lazy that day to recap)

If I was to bitch about the crap being made these days it would start with PSUs and hard drives long before mobos. We replace those almost daily....

 

[apache_lives]

I currently have 4 $250+ motherboards that were or continue to be sold advertising features that don't work. I have ALL of these problems on the high end boards, plus a few on low end boards where I would expect issues.

2 Ethernet ports, only one works
IDE channel that doesn't work
On-board raid that doesn't work
Motherboards that auto-detect memory at the wrong speeds
Motherboards that auto-detect supported processors at the wrong speeds
Motherboard with CPU-Free that does have a CPU multiplier setting in the BIOS, that changes in the BIOS on an unlocked (EE) CPU, but does not actually affect processors speed.
Certain chipset brand that runs so hot it's impossible to run stable without additional fans.
Bios update to fix an issue, updated per manufacturers instructions followed to the letter, rendered mobo dead.

Everything I inquire about is a "chipset limitation"......yet there is no mention of it in revised manuals or advertisements.

The forums are full of angry people with parts that are no good, and online consumer reviews with 20+% DOA or failure within 2 weeks.....

Issues that get addressed with Bios updates are one thing. Issues that never get dealt with are another.

What responsibility do these manufacturers have to actually deliver what we pay for? There are motherboards out there selling for over $300 that have known issues. Are people suing? Are people working with manufactures to get replacement parts? Are people sending these boards back on RMA? I have not had any luck sending back parts on known issues because a replacement part will have the same issue. I am just expected to take it as it is. How do they write a manual and not actually check to make sure everything works? We wouldn't accept a car if a door didn't work, a transmission didn't shift or a start when we turned the key, why do we take it when its a motherboard?

Newegg has the best return policy I’ve ever come across, but even they are tired of getting motherboards back because they don’t work. They have changed their motherboard policy from 1 year to 30 days because it’s costing them so much money.

I have a failed part in for RMA right now. I called yesterday and was told at least 6 more weeks, fin addition to the 4 weeks I’ve been waiting, or I can substitute a part of 1/3 value today. I think I-we deserve better. Am I just expecting too much?

ROFLMAO one word bro - NOOB. Some people should just stay away from computers
If your buying ASUS or Gigabyte, with Intel chipsets for Intel based systems you should have no issues or no wide spread issues, if you buy rubbish like ECS, Elitegroup, PCChips, MSI etc then expect things like that.

Iv sold and build thousands of computers based on the cheapest motherboard i can get my hand on - ASUS P5GC-MX/1333 - only had one come back, cause some idiot tried to work on it and chipped the motherboard - i dont use anti-static protection (hello, everything is earthed in the place anyhow), and this is Brisbane, Australia where its raining and dry and hot and cold, the weather kills things quick usually.

 

[MadHacker]

ROFLMAO one word bro - NOOB. Some people should just stay away from computers
If your buying ASUS or Gigabyte, with Intel chipsets for Intel based systems you should have no issues or no wide spread issues, if you buy rubbish like ECS, Elitegroup, PCChips, MSI etc then expect things like that.

Iv sold and build thousands of computers based on the cheapest motherboard i can get my hand on - ASUS P5GC-MX/1333 - only had one come back, cause some idiot tried to work on it and chipped the motherboard - i dont use anti-static protection (hello, everything is earthed in the place anyhow), and this is Brisbane, Australia where its raining and dry and hot and cold, the weather kills things quick usually.

that isn't by far the cheapest...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186129
Foxconn 661GX7MJ-H LGA 775 SiS 661GX Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $32.99

your asus board you are using... costs almost 2wice as much...
so you are using nice boards.. not cheep ones...

there are certain boards I will not buy due to all the problems I have heard...(680i) perhaps they have fixed them now with bios revisions.... duno havn't looked further
very skeptical about the new 780i boards coming out...

 

[doubled]

Would not this come under a lack of research on your behalf before buying the product? If people online have stated the issues with the particular brands, types and then the manufacturer says there is a problem they are aware of would you simply not shy away from that particular product?

Buying blindly is almost as bad as installing blindly.

Hmm. When is the last time you called tech support at any mobo manufacturer and asked them for what bugs they planned to release in their motherboards? Which bugs would be fixed with bios updates and which were going to be discovered to be "chipset limitations?"

Does Toyota, Ford, and Mercedes plan recalls? Occasionally things just don't work like they are supposed to, even when you purchase from a reputable source. Cheap or expensive; all kinds of products have issues. I sincerely hope your know it all smart azz gets a dose real soon 😉

 

[doubled]

I buy a board often based on what I have used before.
Then based on the features of the board.
The time in market (how long has this board been out and selling).
People in forum discussions, and site reviews.
The CPU I want it to support.
Price.


Everyone here buys a motherboard based on it's features.
Never has anyone ever just walked into a computer parts store and said sell me a $200 motherboard.

If I get a motherboard thats having problems from the first day, it goes right back to the seller, if I can't get any help from the boards maker.

Of all the motherboards I have owned I like Tyan and Asus the most, to bad Tyan has gone to the server market.

Yep, If they would just make the Asus P4C800E Deluxe for core 2 processors, with PCIe and 1600FSB i'd be ahppy camper.

You are correct, I don't buy on price, I buy on features, reviews, reputation and lastly price.

 

[MadHacker]

well sometimes you want a board with certain features...
but once you go down through the list... the options get limited...
myself i have a choice of 1 board that I know of that would meet my specs exactly... but that is rambleings for another thread...

 

[doubled]

ROFLMAO one word bro - NOOB. Some people should just stay away from computers
If your buying ASUS or Gigabyte, with Intel chipsets for Intel based systems you should have no issues or no wide spread issues, if you buy rubbish like ECS, Elitegroup, PCChips, MSI etc then expect things like that.

Iv sold and build thousands of computers based on the cheapest motherboard i can get my hand on - ASUS P5GC-MX/1333 - only had one come back, cause some idiot tried to work on it and chipped the motherboard - i dont use anti-static protection (hello, everything is earthed in the place anyhow), and this is Brisbane, Australia where its raining and dry and hot and cold, the weather kills things quick usually.

Ahh, but you are the NOOB, and clueless. Check out ASUS (your first mention) forums for any current feature rich motherboard, especially the ones with Nvidia chipsets. No wide spread problems ehh? You don't have a clue what you are talking about.

The forums for your board show that people are having issues with V-Core too high and non adjustable which results in "overclocking failed" messages on boot.

Couple thousand computers using a mobo that's been out only a few months? You are so full of crap I can smell you from the good old US of A! Thanks for the laugh!

You build the same computer over and over with a motherboard that probably is a retail version of an OEM board for HP, Gateway or E Machines. They don't stand for crappy product. They would sue. You do the same thing over and over and it always works, with the same part. Good for you. That's not what this post is about.

Fortunately, I'm not limited to purchasing my parts on a food stamp budget. If I wanted a POS computer like you build I’d just order a Dell.

 

[MadHacker]

just thinking of it since you brought it up...
are there any OEM manufactures that use 680i chipset? sorry for going off topic

 

[weilin]

A friend of mine got a a-bit 680i board.... BAD idea. that thing has been nothing but trouble, bios revisions get worse and worse. They simply cause more problems. Performance is barely acceptable. finally get this, you know something's wrong when in their software they mis-spell their own brand name. It is now a-bti.

 

[nukemaster]

ROFLMAO one word bro - NOOB. Some people should just stay away from computers
If your buying ASUS or Gigabyte, with Intel chipsets for Intel based systems you should have no issues or no wide spread issues, if you buy rubbish like ECS, Elitegroup, PCChips, MSI etc then expect things like that.

ECS is Elitegroup and PCchip is OWNED by Elitegroup. Also my ECS K7S5A was seriously the BEST board i ever bought.....Worked with any ram i tried it with ran any pci card i placed it in. It was also extremely stable...

Years later i got my Asus K8V SE.... certain PCI cards did not work. and the audio randomly skipped. Turned out that a bios update to fix one problem made several others.... a roll back did fix it...

My P5W DH did not overclock well....early revision.....What i did like was that all fans could be controlled. It was quiet. Dual lan a fair amount of sata ports and driverless raid(a silicon image chip handled this)

Gigabyte P35 DS3r. Has exactly the features i want and was a good price....

So in the end you DO get what you pay for(even if its features you never use)....

The ram issue is not a board problem, but a problem of with the way SPD timings are written on the chip. To avoid problems most manufacturers set lower timings since most new ram needs more voltage to get its spec'd timings. This allows you to manually set it. Tight timings caused many problems in the past where the board would say....ohh 800 @ 4,4,4,12 then not post because it was only giving the 1.8 volts from the JEDIC specs as opposed to the 2.1 the ram wants.

For the IDE thing. Some boards have IDE controllers that only support ATA and not ATAPI(Jmicron ones should see CD/DVD's fine....so it its one of those not working...RMA it). That would stop a CD drive from working. Solution, use SATA

To make raid work you have to set it in the bios, then enter the raid setup on the next boot(CTRL + I). If it does not work like that, RMA

 

[doubled]

a word: if they are selling you a $300 mobo, they saw you coming a mile away.
they call it the bleeding edge for a reason.

I agree 100%, I couldn't have said it better myself.
I cant remember the last time I had a mobo I wasnt happy with, honestly. I have never paid more than $125 for a mobo. Im still using an old S3 P965 Rev. 1 that I bought 17months ago for $100. It still does everything I need, overclocks very well, and is upgradeable to quad core. I never buy a mobo that just came out either.

Thank you for your opinion.

If you have had that board for 17 months, it was a new release.

I like Gigabyte boards too. I have used a number of them in budget builds. But that one doesn’t quite have all the features I am looking for. A couple things I do know about that particular board is that for some people, it too suffers from defaulting to the wrong memory speed. It too uses FSB to Memory speed multipliers, and does not appear to allow you to adjust memory timings…..unless I missed something. I wouldn’t call that a good over clocking motherboard. There also seems to be a large number of people reporting that they cannot get the Ethernet and/or sound to work. Roughly 20% of the new egg reviews are not good on this motherboard. I’m not saying that’s representative or proof of anything, but to me, it shows that it’s possible that it also has some quality issues.

 

[nukemaster]

For most gigabyte boards the overclocking and ram timings are hidden.....

Press CTRL+F1 then go look under MIT, there should be lots of extra options now...

 

[doubled]

ROFLMAO one word bro - NOOB. Some people should just stay away from computers
If your buying ASUS or Gigabyte, with Intel chipsets for Intel based systems you should have no issues or no wide spread issues, if you buy rubbish like ECS, Elitegroup, PCChips, MSI etc then expect things like that.

ECS is Elitegroup and PCchip is OWNED by Elitegroup. Also my ECS K7S5A was seriously the BEST board i ever bought.....Worked with any ram i tried it with ran any pci card i placed it in. It was also extremely stable...

Years later i got my Asus K8V SE.... certain PCI cards did not work. and the audio randomly skipped. Turned out that a bios update to fix one problem made several others.... a roll back did fix it...

My P5W DH did not overclock well....early revision.....What i did like was that all fans could be controlled. It was quiet. Dual lan a fair amount of sata ports and driverless raid(a silicon image chip handled this)

Gigabyte P35 DS3r. Has exactly the features i want and was a good price....

So in the end you DO get what you pay for(even if its features you never use)....

The ram issue is not a board problem, but a problem of with the way SPD timings are written on the chip. To avoid problems most manufacturers set lower timings since most new ram needs more voltage to get its spec'd timings. This allows you to manually set it. Tight timings caused many problems in the past where the board would say....ohh 800 @ 4,4,4,12 then not post because it was only giving the 1.8 volts from the JEDIC specs as opposed to the 2.1 the ram wants.

For the IDE thing. Some boards have IDE controllers that only support ATA and not ATAPI(Jmicron ones should see CD/DVD's fine....so it its one of those not working...RMA it). That would stop a CD drive from working. Solution, use SATA

To make raid work you have to set it in the bios, then enter the raid setup on the next boot(CTRL + I). If it does not work like that, RMA

The RAM Speed is a board problem per gigabyte's tech support, and timings can't be manually set on that Gigabyte board, so 800 modules run at 533.

You are correct about the IDE controller not working with optical drives. I'm trying to use old IDE hard drives in a file server. Asus tech support admits it doesn't work.

Raid: Asus tech support admits it doesn't work. No bios setting or version, driver, F or Control key can make it work. It's not compatible with the Nvidia chipset.

 

[doubled]

For most gigabyte boards the overclocking and ram timings are hidden.....

Press CTRL+F1 then go look under MIT, there should be lots of extra options now...

Yeah, I know. But not on the one I returned. Not sure about that 965 board, I've never had one of those. I do know it's not in the manual.

 

[nukemaster]

Raid: Asus tech support admits it doesn't work. No bios setting or version, driver, F or Control key can make it work. It's not compatible with the Nvidia chipset.

well thats sucks......

 

[Crashman]

Motherboards that auto-detect memory at the wrong speeds
Motherboards that auto-detect supported processors at the wrong speeds
Motherboard with CPU-Free that does have a CPU multiplier setting in the BIOS, that changes in the BIOS on an unlocked (EE) CPU, but does not actually affect processors speed.
Certain chipset brand that runs so hot it's impossible to run stable without additional fans.
Bios update to fix an issue, updated per manufacturers instructions followed to the letter, rendered mobo dead.

I didn't have time to ready every response, but I really have to say, eh, DUH?

Motherboards detect memory at the right speed: It's the memory itself that's programed for the wrong speed. This is a workaround for memory that might not boot at default voltage, it's a workaround the memory company, not the motherboard manfacturer, puts in place.

Motherboards detecting the wrong FSB is usually due to a BIOS that was released before the new bus speed was. I have several P965 motherboards that detect FSB-1333 even though the chipset was only meant to support 800 and 1066, and to get the new speed to be automatically detected you need a BIOS update. Same goes for FSB-1600 on P35 and most X38 motherboards.

As for changing speed in windows via an overclocking program, anyone who's willing to pay $300 for a board should also be able to figure out how to overclock in BIOS. These parts are meant for wealthy enthusists, the overclocking programs never get finished before a new chipset deverts the manufacturer's attention away from the board you already own.

Most boards are designed to operate without adding a fan...by using the CPU fan. This assumes your CPU fan blows downward. Your fan doesn't? Then you probably bought an enthusiast-level cooler, and as an enthusiast you should be able to figure out a workaround.

The only real problem I see in the section I quoted is the BIOS update issue: Manufacturers really need to warn users that Windows utilities for BIOS are dangerous.

The parts I didn't copy could be due to a damaged board.

 

[TSIMonster]

Most consider ECS boards bottom of the barrel. I love them. They are the best boards for budget builds. The only one I have ever had to fail (after 1 year) was replace under warranty very quickly. I cannot complain about ECS boards. They are built for a certain crowd and serve that crowd well. If you want a super overclocking board with tons of features, look elsewhere.

Basically, research the motherboard you are buying. Some of you guys have endless problems. I build at least 3 computers per month and rarely encounter any issues.

 

[Crashman]

I've replaced dozens of ECS or PC-Chips boards with blown capacitors. It seems the warranty is always a few days too short.

 

[nukemaster]

maybe i was lucky....or maybe allot of budget systems have crappy ventilation and psu's leading to this....

I do have an A-Open board will all kinds of leaking caps....everything works but USB(but with a duron 1000 in it...well there is not much it can do anyway...)....

 

[Crashman]

Nah, these were bad caps from one of the earliest known fake brands, and they continued to use them for quite a while after these supposedly dissapeared from the market.

Lots of companies had bad caps, but most quit using them when the supply supposedly ran out. A couple companies seemed to have continued to source the bad parts for years after these were "no longer available", including ECS/PC-Chips and Aopen.

Abit got hammered on the worst, but they were among the first to respond to reports of a market flood of bad caps. MSI continued to use bad caps for some time after initial reports surfaced, but only on OEM Gateway, IBM, and Dell boards. It seems the companies buying these boards were only offering 1-year warranties and didn't care about the bad caps so long as the boards were cheap enough! Dell relented.

Notice I'm only speaking of the worst of the "bad caps". Several "better" disreputable brands are found in Asus and Soyo boards, for example.

 

[Crashman]

Ah, MrsBytch, I just looked into the AB9-Pro for someone: Officially it supported only 800 and 1066 FSB, but 1333 was added in a later BIOS revision. That's FSB1333 detection, "automatically overclocking" the chipset. The board was good for around 500MHz (FSB-2000) and can be found for under $100. If you instal a 65nm Core 2 Duo with FSB1333 on the old BIOS, it will detect at a slower FSB until you update the BIOS, so at least it's still bootable/updatable using the "wrong" FSB processor.

 

[KyleSTL]

maybe i was lucky....or maybe allot of budget systems have crappy ventilation and psu's leading to this....

I do have an A-Open board will all kinds of leaking caps....everything works but USB(but with a duron 1000 in it...well there is not much it can do anyway...)....

Go to Digikey.com and order some caps. As long as you have a soldering iron and a hand steadier than a Vietnam vet, you'll no longer need to worry about your computer's slow death.

I fixed a Shuttle FV25 MB (the original S370 XPC computer) a year and a half ago with $8 in parts from digikey and it's still running strong as a backup with a 1.4 P3 Celeron (OC'd to 1.62Ghz - now that's power )

 

[Crashman]

I even know a way to do the repair with no added solder and no special tools, just a $3 iron. One leg at a time. Leave the solder pool in the hole. Heat the solder pool to insert the new cap one leg at a time.

Over 50% of my repairs were possible with no added solder using this method. OK, so maybe you should buy a small spool of solder just in case 😛

 

[nukemaster]

I have all that stuff anyway.
If i get board some day...instead of overclocking stuff maybe i will fix that board....then overclock it