Gigabyte ...is so clever!

[leebcg]

Like many others, I’ve had problems with “Windows Vista”. My system will randomly reboot about 5 or 8 times a week. After many months of searching, I find the MS knowledge base sheet for errors like the one I’m seeing in the Windows log file.

Basically an error code thrown by the CPU encountered from the MB, and in my case (the System Bus).

Where is the this Bus located? Well the MotherBoard of course, but don’t look for help from Gigabyte on this, you are on your own.

After trying to use their web site to report this issue, I found that the form for problem reports will not allow you to get any further than filling the thing out. I could not submit the form using IE, or Firefox.

OK, well I’ll call somebody. I at last find someone on the phone. I tell him the short story and ask for an email address or another form that would take my error report for some tech-head to look at. He would not do this for me, and ask me a couple more questions about the problem. Than he says “Send it to us to look at”. How long will that take “at least a month…MONTH!”
Hummm, so in the weeks my MB is gone I can just buy another Motherboard so I can run my business….Oh wait; Microsoft wont let me do that. I can’t put another MB in the system, it MUST to be the one and only, else Microsoft will say I’m a Pirate.

What to do, what to do? For now I just don’t know. The reason I don’t know is because Gigabyte does not have support. Sending back the MB is not an option. Being able to send a report that you know is caused by the MB is the only (non drastic) valid solution to this issue.

I first ran XP on this system and it worked OK with only a system crash every 1 to 2 weeks. I put Vista Ultimate on the machine, and it runs it with a few more crashes.
So if you are looking for advice on a new MB, and don’t mind being your on support with possible help from forum pals, than Gigabyte is the way to go. It shows how clever Gigabyte is for shielding themselves from the sheep that bought their stuff.

Good luck.

 

[cfvh600]

Sorry to hear about your problems with your Gigabyte board. Does your System Bus have a exclamation mark next to it in device manager?

 

[Zorg]

Do you have any experiences with other mobo manufacturers that were any better? I never expect stellar support from mobo manufacturers, or any others for that matter. Or should I say, I expect crap support. If I can get BIOS and driver updates I'm happy. Vista bites, go back to XP. Have you done testing to rule out other causes like RAM etc? If you are using this board for your business then buy another cheap board and send that one back for repair, after ruling out other possible causes.

Have you started a thread here? If not, what are your specs?

 

[N@n0]

Ok as I've stated in the past on other threads and usualy no one bothers to read, is that gigabyte is total crap, and if you want support buy a asus or intel MB. I know for a fact that their support is brilljant, i had that type of problem with a Intel MB and they did swop it (had to send it to them, but it only took a week... from SA to ireland and back). they did fiddel with the MB that they sent back, but it was brand new MB.

 

[Zorg]

Ok as I've stated in the past on other threads and usualy no one bothers to read, is that gigabyte is total crap, and if you want support buy a asus or intel MB. I know for a fact that their support is brilljant, i had that type of problem with a Intel MB and they did swop it (had to send it to them, but it only took a week... from SA to ireland and back). they did fiddel with the MB that they sent back, but it was brand new MB.

Just exactly why should I listen to you? I've seen your rants and discounted them. Maybe you should look at this thread. Asus P5K-E wifi stable but randomly won't POST I only know about it because it is scrolling now. That thread leads me to believe that the Asus boards are flakier than a nice crumb cake. So you might as well stop your ranting because nobody is paying attention.

 

[cfvh600]

Ok as I've stated in the past on other threads and usualy no one bothers to read, is that gigabyte is total crap, and if you want support buy a asus or intel MB.

I've heard plenty people complain about Asus' support. No answers from the technical dept etc.... So it's not just Gigabyte.My Asus A8N Sli Deluxe died on me earlier this year.

 

[aevm]

Yeah, I heard more horror stories about Asus support than about Gigabyte's. That's why I have a Gigabyte now. The only crashes I got in the past several months were about nv4_disp.dll, i.e. nVidia's fault.

 

[eRazor]

if you want support buy a asus or intel MB.

Intel? You're joking right?

Intel support blows goat chunks. They answer their email a couple of days after your initial contact, and then offer one n00b suggestion per day and no more. Usually, even though you've already told them the history of your configuration, bios revisions, model numbers and specs of all hardware in the machine and specific instructions on how to reliably replicate the problem, their solutions are generally things like "Update to the latest bios" or "Update your drivers" or something else you've already done AND told them you've done.

Intel support is non-existent.

 

[rodney_ws]

I'm going to disagree with eRazor based on a personal experience I had with Intel's support team... way back (2000) they sold me a board... a top-notch board (an i820 if I remember correctly) and there was a pretty severe problem with the board that warranted a recall/replacement. Part of the problem with this particular board involved SDRAM so they sent me the same board, but the new one supported RDRAM (crazy expensive at the time) So they sent me a new i820 motherboard that wouldn't work with my existing memory... if the story ended there I'd be PISSED... but Intel also sent along with that board the same amount of RDRAM memory that I was giving up... so I got a new board, new/faster memory and I'm pretty sure they even paid for the return shipping. I was a happy camper.

Besides that one incident... I've never had a need to deal with Intel support... so I take that as a good sign.

 

[M3d]

Since OP are telling their MB stories here is mine.
My MSI 939 board died and sent it back to them. They kept it for about a month and finally told me they were going to send me a new one. Well, when I finally received it and opened the package I noticed it was the same EXACT board because of a slight arctic silver mark on the side of the cpu socket. Needless to say the board still did not work.

I really don't bother with the whole process any more. When my DFI board died I didn't even bother returning it, I just bought a new one.

 

[cfvh600]

They kept it for about a month and finally told me they were going to send me a new one. Well, when I finally received it and opened the package I noticed it was the same EXACT board because of a slight arctic silver mark on the side of the cpu socket. Needless to say the board still did not work.

That sucks!

 

[suzukii]

Well, I don't usually post I just read, but this one deserves a reply...& nothing positive to be said here.
None of you guys aren't wrong when recanting your own experiences.
I've been building my own PC's for a bit over 15yrs, PPID (pre-public-internet days).
I can tell you that my experiences have varied with all of these motherboard conglomerates & have seen them grow from nothing. I've returned products to all of them & have had many bad experiences with them & very few positive experiences with them. I've noticed a few things, maybe trends, maybe the nature of the beast.
For example: I've returned mobos to Intel, the last one was an 865GBF (P4 Mobo) & they sent me a brand new one within 7 business days. It's still kicking live. Other times their support has told me the same thing via e-mail someone here mentioned previously which was: "Get the latest BIOS update & update your drivers" when my original e-mail said; "dead motherboard less than 30 days old &, won't power up". You could imagine my obscenities flying.
I've had similar issues with Gigabyte, ABIT, ASUS, DFI, FOXTRONN & MSI.
I can tell you that they all suck & they hope that all you will do is buy their products & when something goes bad they're hoping you'll just give up & go out & buy another board. They don't really care if you buy from them again, because if they did, they would've done the right thing from the get go!!!!
But, I can regurgitate the following; I've had the least problems with support & returns from Intel for the past 15yrs. The ironic thing is that I can't stand Intel only because when they don't have an AMD to kick them where they deserve it they screw all of us without missing a beat.
I will only buy their mobos, (Intel's), when selling a system to someone else, because of stability & not for performance, but I will have for my personal use Gigabyte mobo's over ASUS because I dislike Gigabyte less over ASUS and the others.

PS: I don't like AMD, but I hope they don't give up the Fight!!!
.
.
.

 

[leebcg]

Thanks to all of you for your input. I’m glad to read this feedback because it confirms a post I read about a month ago where the guy said, “In my experience all companies are in such a rush to one upman the next guy, that they have no time to test ‘in-house’ what the public will do for them after they sell their junk to them”.
I must agree with this.
When you buy a board, IT IS YOURS!
If it does not work, pull it out, throw it away, and start over. Just don’t bother us with your petty problems. Such is the message the manufactures are telling us with the lack of (Quality, Support, or Concern).

 

[frozenlead]

“In my experience all companies are in such a rush to one upman the next guy, that they have no time to test ‘in-house’ what the public will do for them after they sell their junk to them”.

I've noticed that a lot too.
What's up with all the operating system incompatibilities at launch?
Bad drivers at launch?
Wait for patches for better things for games?

I've also noticed a lot more software crashes than I have before - especially on new stuff.

Companies are just getting lazier. and lazier. These things should be inexcusable.
Come out with products that work - the first time.

 

[Shadow703793]

@Every one:

The OP doesn't know a thing. I have yet have to have a Gigabyte and ASUS board die on me.( May be the OP has the worst luck)

If Gigabyte is bad Why did Toms Hardware rate the DQ6 as a good buy in their Holiday Buyer's Guide?
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/01/holiday_buyers_guide_2007/page4.html

 

[imrul]

are dead motherboards really that common?

 

[louiea]

I'm not sure if this will help but, I have a P35 DQ6 board with vista. At first I was having crashing issues and prime95 would cause a reboot quickly. I found out it could be not enough memory voltage. So I increased it a little bit and that allowed prime95 to run without a problem for over 24hrs. I then had a couple of more random reboots and I updated the chipset driver. This caused Vista issues but I only had to call MSFT and get a new code. Ever since then I have not had a problem. It has been at least 2 months.

Good luck.

 

[amnotanoobie]

Now if you were only running on a distro of Linux, you could change all the parts you want without licensing problems.




Of course I don't know the software that you actually use so this could be of no point at all.

 

[amnotanoobie]

@Every one:

The OP doesn't know a thing. I have yet have to have a Gigabyte and ASUS board die on me.( May be the OP has the worst luck)

If Gigabyte is bad Why did Toms Hardware rate the DQ6 as a good buy in their Holiday Buyer's Guide?
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/01/holiday_buyers_guide_2007/page4.html

The problem with reviews is that they could only rate the performance for the initial 3 days or so that they have the item. The review rated it by price/performance. I haven't seen a review that rates by the durability of the part or customer service. Though it'd be a different story if a DOA board is shipped to a reviewer.

 

[croc]

OK, well I’ll call somebody. I at last find someone on the phone. I tell him the short story and ask for an email address or another form that would take my error report for some tech-head to look at. He would not do this for me, and ask me a couple more questions about the problem. Than he says “Send it to us to look at”. How long will that take “at least a month…MONTH!”
Hummm, so in the weeks my MB is gone I can just buy another Motherboard so I can run my business….Oh wait; Microsoft wont let me do that. I can’t put another MB in the system, it MUST to be the one and only, else Microsoft will say I’m a Pirate.

For mission critical applications, get a PC from HP, Sun, etc, along with the appropriate service contract. HP will be on-site next day, problem will be solved. Warranties and service contracts are expensive, but what is your business going to lose in a month's down-time?

Keep a second pc around for whatever you don't do to run your business....

Just my 2p....

 

[lp231]

Instead of this stupid motherboard bashing most of the time these simple fixes are a update to
your motherboard's bios and install the latest chipset driver for your motherboard.

You do not have to go to Gigabyte to download your chipset drivers.
Intel chipset then go to intel.com
VIA: Viaarena.com
nForce: nvidia.com
Sis: sis.com.tw

 

[ZOldDude]

Since OP are telling their MB stories here is mine.
My MSI 939 board died and sent it back to them. They kept it for about a month and finally told me they were going to send me a new one. Well, when I finally received it and opened the package I noticed it was the same EXACT board because of a slight arctic silver mark on the side of the cpu socket. Needless to say the board still did not work.

I really don't bother with the whole process any more. When my DFI board died I didn't even bother returning it, I just bought a new one.

DFI out of California has a 72 hour turn around on RMA's.
Call them on the phone rather than an email and they have the best RMA support I have ever known.
*The only problem with DFI I ever had was a sound unit and I did not even have to ship the old one to them...and as it turned out the old unit was good,my Cambridge 5.1 system was mis connected.

Ausus (owns Gigabyte now) in California takes 1-2 weeks if you keep pestering them after you see that UPS has dropped off your MB to them.
*Never had a Asus MB live more than 3 years and I have used alot of them over the past 10 years!

 

[amnotanoobie]

Instead of this stupid motherboard bashing most of the time these simple fixes are a update to
your motherboard's bios and install the latest chipset driver for your motherboard.

You do not have to go to Gigabyte to download your chipset drivers.
Intel chipset then go to intel.com
VIA: Viaarena.com
nForce: nvidia.com
Sis: sis.com.tw

I think the OP's point is rather about the quality of customer service rather than the product itself. If a product has a physical design defect then no amount BIOS update would fix that board. So what do you do then? You contact them to try to know how the problem could be fixed. While a lot of problems could be solved by Bios updates, there will always come a time and an instance where you'd need further support.

 

[amnotanoobie]

Ausus (owns Gigabyte now)....

When did that happen? Could someone enlighten me...

 

[aevm]

The problem with reviews is that they could only rate the performance for the initial 3 days or so that they have the item. The review rated it by price/performance. I haven't seen a review that rates by the durability of the part or customer service. Though it'd be a different story if a DOA board is shipped to a reviewer.

I read a blog entry recently, somewhere at anandtech (which is my favourite tech site for reviews, btw). The guy said that their editors cut out the whining because it's unprofessional. Complaining about DOA parts or parts that get fried soon after installation was considered "whining". For example they got an 8800GT, it worked for a few minutes, it died, then they spent days driving around or surfing the Web until they could get another to review it. You usually don't see that part in reviews... Too bad, they'd be more fun to read and it's useful info sometimes.