Hardware (Motherboard) Reliability?

[iseeuu]

Socket 939 Motherboard just failed. Looks like some exploding capacitors ...

Haven't researched motherboards in years. Used to be ASUS and Gigabyte were reliable manufactures, but seems their stuff is just as cheap as FoxConn?

Is there a reliable manufacturer of motherboards (Brand?) and who does the best job?

What would be an economical replacement / upgrade motherboard / cpu / memory?

Say for 1) $50, 2) $100, or 3) $150?

Looking for opinions on good hardware. Have never owned ECS, but have a ASRock. Looked at Biostar, MSI, and PCChips?

 

[UnknownReverent]

Asus and Gigabyte are still reputable. Not sure where you got that information from.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Socket 939 Motherboard just failed. Looks like some exploding capacitors ...

Haven't researched motherboards in years. Used to be ASUS and Gigabyte were reliable manufactures, but seems their stuff is just as cheap as FoxConn?

Is there a reliable manufacturer of motherboards (Brand?) and who does the best job?

What would be an economical replacement / upgrade motherboard / cpu / memory?

Say for 1) $50, 2) $100, or 3) $150?

Looking for opinions on good hardware. Have never owned ECS, but have a ASRock. Looked at Biostar, MSI, and PCChips?

None of them are as reliable as the average refrigerator or pocket knife.

All manufacturers have what they regard as an acceptable rate of failure and DOAs. That rate is probably higher than you would like. They'd rather deal with the failures than spend the money necessary to make the products more reliable. It's a calculated decision designed to maximize profit---as you would expect. Profit margins are small and they don't want to add on $25 to improve the failure rate.

There isn't much you can do about it.

Just roll the dice and hope.

Generally, the more highly regarded brands are Asus, Gigabyte, Intel, and Asrock--in no particular order. You can have a disaster with any of them, as Google will show you within 30 seconds.

The most bang for the buck is probably in the mid-range, say $150 US from a US vendor. Above that, you get into features and doo-dads that don't have a high correlation with failure rates.

Supermicro motherboards arei said to be quite reliable, but they are not cheap and are usually intended for servers. And I hear their support is geared toward businesses and corporate users rather than individual home users.

 

[kbrady1979]

Motherboard manufacturers: Asus, MSI, Gigabyte..........can't go wrong. Everybody makes a dud here and there, EVERYBODY! Pick a board from any of those guys and you'll be ok.

 

[Mark Phelps]

Used ASUS only MBs for years -- and then, they stopped putting out updates for my 939-chipset board very early in its life. So, I switched over to using others, primarily, Gigabyte. Have found them to be every bit as reliable as ASUS. Also have a couple of MSI MBs now, and found them to be the same.

Unless you go for the really high-end, bleeding-edge boards, I think you'll find that all of these three vendors have the same reputations.

 

[iseeuu]

Asus and Gigabyte are still reputable. Not sure where you got that information from.

Had an ASUS A8V-E Deluxe .... just died as soon as out of warranty.

This computer I am typing from is built on a Gigabyte ga-k8n ... has 4 DDR slots but will NOT boot with 4 gigs of memory. My son-in-law bought the components for a pair of these as gaming computers. He gave me this one after he became disillusioned with its performance. With SLI, I can connect 4 monitors (only have three) but with two video cards I can heat the whole house without using the furnace.

In between, I have had two FoxConn manufactured MBs. They also died (exploding capacitors) but lasted longer than the ASUS.

The ASRock board I have is just flakey. Don't really have a use for it now, maybe XP?

So in answer to your question, my information is from first hand use of a variety of MBs.

 

[kbrady1979]

Asus, MSI, Gigabyte........for how many boards they make and sell, they probably still have the fewest problems, per capita.

 

[iseeuu]

Thank you:
UnknownReverent
ignatzatsonic
kbrady1979
Mark Phelps

I appreciate your taking time to voice your opinions. Since I an on a tight budget, I will keep looking for something with two cores in the used market on a ASUS or Gigabyte board.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

So in answer to your question, my information is from first hand use of a variety of MBs.

You don't have a lot of choices. I'm not sure what you expect to learn from this thread since there are horror stories about all brands.

You can refuse to buy any brand that has given you trouble if you like. I can understand that.

That leaves you with a set of other brands, most of which are likely to be less reliable than those that have already disappointed you.

You can also decide that your particular experience with a brand has no connection at all to the brand's reliability in general.

Or you could decide that you are prone to bad luck and maybe consult a voodoo priestess for some adjustment in your mojo. Add in a black cat bone.

Or just write the names of 5 brands on a sheet of paper, tack it to the wall, and throw a dart.

 

[iseeuu]

So in answer to your question, my information is from first hand use of a variety of MBs.

You don't have a lot of choices. I'm not sure what you expect to learn from this thread since there are horror stories about all brands.

You can refuse to buy any brand that has given you trouble if you like. I can understand that.

That leaves you with a set of other brands, most of which are likely to be less reliable than those that have already disappointed you.

You can also decide that your particular experience with a brand has no connection at all to the brand's reliability in general.

Or you could decide that you are prone to bad luck and maybe consult a voodoo priestess for some adjustment in your mojo. Add in a black cat bone.

Or just write the names of 5 brands on a sheet of paper, tack it to the wall, and throw a dart.

When a new board is released to market, one can only rely on the value of the brand name, or the reputation of the company behind that name. After say three years, you can count the number of dead boards and dissapointed customers (in case the company does not stand behind their product) and reach a conclusion of the performance of the board and brand.

As I do not have the budget for bleeding edge hardware anyway, I hope to learn from satisfied customers what boards and brands have performed well over time.

 

[kbrady1979]

There is no Holy Grail of motherboards out there. Everybody who has made more than 1 has made a bad one. In reality, half of the bad reviews on a site like Newegg are written by people that don't have the sense God gave a donkey and shouldn't be fingering around with sensitive computer components anyway, so it is not logical to discount all brands that have a few bad reviews. Also, if you haven't been researching motherboards and reading reviews(from actual hardware review sites) you need to do some homework first. Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte will sell you a motherboard and if it is messed up through no fault of your own, they will stand behind their warranty and replace it.....that's all you can ask a company to do really.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

After say three years, you can count the number of dead boards and dissapointed customers............I hope to learn from satisfied customers what boards and brands have performed well over time.

How do you make such a count? I've never seen one.

How can you learn anything meaningful about satisfied customers when all you can get is the individual experiences of whoever happens to read your post---which isn't even remotely correlated to all users of a particular brand.

This might help. It's an actual study of component returns to a large Internet retailer---for motherboards, hard drives, RAM, etc:

Components returns rates (6) (page 2: Motherboards) - BeHardware

 

[iseeuu]

There is no Holy Grail of motherboards out there. Everybody who has made more than 1 has made a bad one. In reality, half of the bad reviews on a site like Newegg are written by people that don't have the sense God gave a donkey and shouldn't be fingering around with sensitive computer components anyway, so it is not logical to discount all brands that have a few bad reviews. Also, if you haven't been researching motherboards and reading reviews(from actual hardware review sites) you need to do some homework first. Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte will sell you a motherboard and if it is messed up through no fault of your own, they will stand behind their warranty and replace it.....that's all you can ask a company to do really.

Exactly. If I based my decision on reviews from the NewEgg like sites. I would get mostly product bashing. If I read CNet like reviews when the boards first come out, I get a lot of hype.

It takes a lifetime to earn customer loyalty. It only takes seconds to destroy it. So perhaps the best outcome is to look for who is taking care of their customers today?

 

[iseeuu]

After say three years, you can count the number of dead boards and dissapointed customers............I hope to learn from satisfied customers what boards and brands have performed well over time.

How do you make such a count? I've never seen one.

How can you learn anything meaningful about satisfied customers when all you can get is the individual experiences of whoever happens to read your post---which isn't even remotely correlated to all users of a particular brand.

This might help. It's an actual study of component returns to a large Internet retailer---for motherboards, hard drives, RAM, etc:

Components returns rates (6) (page 2: Motherboards) - BeHardware

Well ... somebody was counting returns ... and you posted a link to said count...

 

[ignatzatsonic]

So perhaps the best outcome is to look for who is taking care of their customers today?

How would you measure that?

Ten minutes on Google will have you wading in stories about pathetic customer service, particularly about RMA procedures--for all brands.

And people may post in this thread about how brand X treated them right. Who would dare draw any conclusions based on that, when Google is full of stories about brand X being a disaster???

 

[kbrady1979]

There is no Holy Grail of motherboards out there. Everybody who has made more than 1 has made a bad one. In reality, half of the bad reviews on a site like Newegg are written by people that don't have the sense God gave a donkey and shouldn't be fingering around with sensitive computer components anyway, so it is not logical to discount all brands that have a few bad reviews. Also, if you haven't been researching motherboards and reading reviews(from actual hardware review sites) you need to do some homework first. Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte will sell you a motherboard and if it is messed up through no fault of your own, they will stand behind their warranty and replace it.....that's all you can ask a company to do really.

Exactly. If I based my decision on reviews from the NewEgg like sites. I would get mostly product bashing. If I read CNet like reviews when the boards first come out, I get a lot of hype.

It takes a lifetime to earn customer loyalty. It only takes seconds to destroy it. So perhaps the best outcome is to look for who is taking care of their customers today?

...............Asus, MSI, Gigabyte

And also, you can't be so harsh as to say, it only takes seconds to destroy it or you will never be satisfied with anything. Every company makes a bad part, and it's usually not because they didn't use high end components, or have good quality testing or used a bad design. It is usually damaged in packaging, or damaged in shipping, or made on a Monday, or Friday......shit happens. Go with the guys that provide a good warranty and have been in the business long enough to know how to deal with upset customers.

 

[JDobbsy1987]

Just thought i would throw my 2 pennies in...

I am currently using an Asus mobo but have also used MSI and Gigabyte in the past without issue (i only changed them when upgrading)

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Well ... somebody was counting returns ... and you posted a link to said count...

Yeah, it's something. Better than nothing.

But we don't know what brands and models that retailer doesn't sell, what percentage of the returns were actually defective, or how statistically significant those results are.

And it says nothing about manufacturer customer service---the stats are from a vendor, not a manufacturer.

 

[Layback Bear]

Intel and Asus. I did have a bad Asus board but they took care of it. I would use both brands again. I really don't care what Ding Dong posted on NewEgg.

 

[UnknownReverent]

Asus and Gigabyte are still reputable. Not sure where you got that information from.

Had an ASUS A8V-E Deluxe .... just died as soon as out of warranty.

This computer I am typing from is built on a Gigabyte ga-k8n ... has 4 DDR slots but will NOT boot with 4 gigs of memory. My son-in-law bought the components for a pair of these as gaming computers. He gave me this one after he became disillusioned with its performance. With SLI, I can connect 4 monitors (only have three) but with two video cards I can heat the whole house without using the furnace.

In between, I have had two FoxConn manufactured MBs. They also died (exploding capacitors) but lasted longer than the ASUS.

The ASRock board I have is just flakey. Don't really have a use for it now, maybe XP?

So in answer to your question, my information is from first hand use of a variety of MBs.

Every brand has their mistakes and bad boards. Personally, I've had a bad ASRock. I got to RMA it, and then once the warranty went out on the one I received... it died. So two boards went back. I have an old MSI that is still kicking. I had an Intel that lasted for quite a while. The Asus I currently have is kicking butt at the moment. Just go through and find what you like on features and price, look at reviews, and purchase it. I personally just like Asus and I've never had a problem with them. MSI isn't too bad as well as Gigabyte. Just depends on your personal preference really.