Stuff ASUS : Enough is enough

[Arthalen]

Great thread

I've owned plenty of motherboards, of which only two have failed on me - a DFI and an (unsurprisingly) an Asus.

Mitigating fact for the Asus was ........... yes, you guessed it, Nvidia chipset (610i / 430 MAtx combo).

My Maximus Formula on the other - absolutely rock solid. I've chucked so much at this board I really wouldn't be dissapointed if it died, its done me great service over the past 16 months or so, I've thrown some fairly wild voltages through it and it still muscles my Q6600 into submission.

Its been that good its getting a Thermalright facelift (look up Project AirRAID in Case Central - shameless plug)

 

[james.miller]

If you're sending it with a bomb, please don't send it to the UK office...

I'll email you. make sure you're out for the day

 

[The Running Man]

i dont think ive ever had a really good motherboard vendor.

Abit Kt7a filled with lies about supporting Palominos
Abit FP-IN9 overclock like a DOG
Gigabyte something s939 never worked right.
DFi LanParty 775 worked fine, then set on fire near the PSU connector.

Asus are a brand for the masses, relatively low quality too...

so what motherboard do you buy!?

 

[MameFX]

i dont think ive ever had a really good motherboard vendor.

Abit Kt7a filled with lies about supporting Palominos
Abit FP-IN9 overclock like a DOG
Gigabyte something s939 never worked right.
DFi LanParty 775 worked fine, then set on fire near the PSU connector.

Asus are a brand for the masses, relatively low quality too...

so what motherboard do you buy!?

EVGA?

 

[axer]

Gigabyte boards with Intel chipsets are blooming brilliant, I've easily bought over 50 of the SKT 775 variety eith either G31, G33 or Q* Intel chipsets and not a single one has failed on me!

 

[james.miller]

Asus are a brand for the masses, relatively low quality too...

so what motherboard do you buy!?

i had bad luck with mine but this just isnt really true. they are, price for price, just as well built as anything else. My new M4A89GTD PRO uses solid caps throughout, more than adequate cooling and power sections ect - its just as good if not better than anything else in the price range, especially considering it supports sata6 and usb3

 

[-VK-]

Honestly, you feel the motherboard quality is low from ASUS? As an open question really...how would you define the "quality" of a motherboard?

For me, it is:

The stability it provides under a modest overclock (4 Ghz on a 920 as an example).
The features / differences it brings from others.
The support structure behind it.

The one thing that seems to be a recurring thing in this thread is nForce4 - Whether that's coincidence or not I'm not sure.

 

[james.miller]

remove the '4' from 'nforce4' and i think you'll have your answer lol

 

[Rroff]

Personally I don't think asus are bad, they pushed out the boat on netbooks, I still have my original Eee 701 which has been through hell and back and still working flawlessy, my media PC uses the Asus Terminator chassis that not only looks great, is well designed - undoing 2 screws allows you to unfold each of the main areas at 90 degrees for easy access (a major issue in small cases normally).

I have no experience with the X58 or P55 boards from asus so it would be interesting to see if build quality/durability has improved there.

One thing I still can't stand tho is the motherboard styling, the use of primary colors especially makes me cringe, whoever thought of using red and blue together on the same board should be shot and the heatsinks look like something you'd find in my old lego box :S

 

[vian_siu]

i agree with op, enough is enough.

i had striker ii extreme, supposed to be one of their best board, it died within the 1st day of use...ok rmaed that for £20 and the replacement came back after 6 weeks+(god knows how long it taken!) of waiting and it died after 2 days...i emailed asus after that, they said they will check but i havent had a reply since (and that was weeks ago when i sent the email) so i dont they will be giving me a third board...so now i have a very expensive dead board and wasted £20 on rma...

thanks asus, i will never buy your stuff again

 

[Rroff]

Honestly, you feel the motherboard quality is low from ASUS? As an open question really...how would you define the "quality" of a motherboard?

For me, it is:

The stability it provides under a modest overclock (4 Ghz on a 920 as an example).
The features / differences it brings from others.
The support structure behind it.

The one thing that seems to be a recurring thing in this thread is nForce4 - Whether that's coincidence or not I'm not sure.

What has made me think of Asus motherboards as low quality (other than the DRAM sockets stopping working after awhile) in almost every case where I've had stability issues just physically applying gentle pressure on the NB cooler can be enough to cause BSODs or system freezing. In the 2 cases where I've "dissected" asus boards the NB and SB chips were very loosely connected to the motherboard and once the heatsinks on them were removed just a gentle tap was enough to dislodge them from the board. IMO this problem was exacerbated by the use of 3rd party CPU coolers, especially heavy tower coolers causing the boards to flex slightly, degrading the already poor connectivity.


http://aten-hosted.com/images/DSC00555.JPG mad props to who can spot whats wrong with this asus GPU

 

[setter]

I dont think asus boards are bad now, yes, back in nforce 4 days they had issues, definitely not now, i described my p5q deluxe as being boringly reliable, switch the system on and off you go, overclocking on it was that simple, i was able to do it. My current p6t deluxe v2 is the same, bios is nice and easy to navigate for overclocking, and it's well layed out pcie wise for multiple gpu's, the gigabyte x58 boards are well renowned as well, but the pcie slot spacing on them is abysmal to say the least. Im not a fanboy of any particular manufacturer, but if i buy a board and it does what i need without issue, im happy enough.

 

[Simon42]

I've had both Gigabyte and Asus boards and for me the Asus have been just a little more reliable but with such a small difference I keep an open mind for future purchases.

One thing I wonder though is how the reliability compares when comparing budget, standard and premium boards. Is it that the quality mobos are pretty good no matter what manufacturer and it's only the cheaper ones where the differences show?

 

[FatRakoon]

I've had both Gigabyte and Asus boards and for me the Asus have been just a little more reliable but with such a small difference I keep an open mind for future purchases.

One thing I wonder though is how the reliability compares when comparing budget, standard and premium boards. Is it that the quality mobos are pretty good no matter what manufacturer and it's only the cheaper ones where the differences show?

I buy partially both.

My own main PCs, I try whenever I can, both afford and justify a certain priced component to my PCs, but for the LAN PCs I mostly just get "Whatevva!"

The thing is, that the P5N32 and the P5NE are both far from being expensive, they are certainly NOT the cheapest boards either. and for them both to die on the same ( or very similar failures ) and I also have a mate who has the 32 too, and his did the very same as mine.

I have had some nasty cheap boards that have lasted me for yonks

I have been looking through my old bits and another maker that has been a low scorer in the reliability stakes is ECS.

 

[gurusan]

blame nvidia!!!!

 

[el Kuarlos]

Asus are reliable. Sorry you had bad luck. Simple.

 

[AMG]

I see were you went wrong and it was not asus, they are all Nvidia chipsets, for LGA775 they was very problematic not just asus ethoir, there is a reason why gigabyte didn't do them (the 7xx onces at least) if they was any point, when a manufacture like gigabyte don't make mobos with those types of chipset it is a cause for concern for me.

this is way intel got Nv to let them put SLI on their P55/X58 chipsets.


some people have been very lucky with the Nv 7xx chipset through

I know many people who had asus SLI boards and had a lot of problems/bugs with them in one way or another or just DoAs, they ethoir put up with it, with a brave grin or upgraded to I7/i5

I mean look at me I got a asus board, its been flawless I ved owned quite a few asus boards high end or mainstream and they have performed well and died of my stupidity( my P45 ROG mobo) or to natural causes, and I m not the only one, but difference is these asus boards were intel chipsets

is it me or was it only the intel based Nv chipset that played up like hell, going by the AMD based AM2/3 one which seems flawless...how odd

 

[gurusan]

ASUS hardware has always performed beyond my expectations tbh

 

[setter]

ASUS hardware has always performed beyond my expectations tbh

Totally agree, the only boards i ever had go wrong were nfarce boards, s939 and 680i, my p5q deluxe was the best motherboard i ever owned, 3.8ghz from a q6600, chip wouldnt do anything over 3ghz on an evga 680i. q9550 at 3.8ghz, 1.216 vcore on that board as well, cpu would have went higher but i sold it to fund an i7 rig, once again with an asus board, p6t deluxe v2, again a very god board, i like Asus components that much, i bought a xonar dx pcie soundcard, fantastic.

 

[bhavv]

My Asus boards that failed were 2x Asus A8N SLI as well.

Im sure the ones based on Intels chipsets are far far better.