ASUS what lies beneath

[dmh1167]

Humm never posted here before so to all I say hello Hope not to offend ASUS fans cant blame you if this does but the topic may deserve a bit of consideration. First Ive been building systems to suit for 8 years now and have used primarily Asus top of the line boards. Setting them up with latest bios rev and drivers ect if I had a problem I would RMA them PDQ . All was well in the world a rare RMA here or there until I got a MAXIMUS II Formula, Poor sound and the marvell nics were shaky the board had a bad bios chip to boot. All this looked like an rma to me, but rather than getting the retailer to rma we had to use ASUS. My complaint to ASUS features that kind of work or have to be disabled to run 2.1 ddr2 ram so much for the power savings big deal bad bios chip ok it has two poor sound and shakey nics poor performance ect. So we rma for new tested board just as bad but it seems to have good bios chips the rest of my advertised goodies no workey or work real poor. So then a requst for a manager to call me back 2 months of requests lost ignored or not responded to when I did get one to contact me they wanted my recipit ok so I sent one and my reasons for not liking the board I was then told that all my complaint would be taken to her supervisor, I dont know how you guys would handle a customer that spends several grand a year with you but this already is looking pretty bad for ASUS. While speaking with her she informs me that all the repeated requests were lost and such due to bad luck and misunderstanding she then tells me that yes my board is a quality one but not the top of the line and some issues are to be expected. So Ive got a weak board and a company that after 8 years the first issue I have with them and a product get the run around from hell Im not the only one that feels this way but some of this is easy to prove go to thair web site to download bios or drivers takes forever to load if at all but go to a product page at asus loads in a blink.Ive got copys of my emails to them and conversations with support staff.Heck Ive got the managers email if you believe in ASUS so much you could ask her why some customers are turned into corporate fodder. Heck if they loose my business who cares there is always the next sucker.

 

[Harvey]

Arrrrrgh!!! MY EYES!!! :shocked:

If you want to rant, try adding some spaces between paragraphs. Regarding reading your post, my mother said if I don't stop it, I'll go blind! :laugh:

 

[dmh1167]

sorry Harvey not a small issue nor is it a small company so no small paragraph today maybe next time k.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: dmh1167

sorry Harvey not a small issue nor is it a small company so no small paragraph today maybe next time k.

I didn't ask for less content. I asked for some spaces between thoughts. That run on blurr of text makes it damned near unreadable. If you don't care enough to help, I won't waste my time trying to find out if you have anything to say that's worth the effort.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Text This guy is knows more about the bios than anyone i've ever seen. All of these things are true. So long and good riddance Asus, you have burned me for the last time. I will never look at your boards as an option again.

I paid well over 250$ for my MIIF and my UD3R with my Q9650 runs circles around it at 114$ Plus the bios is in coherent English.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: Harvey
Arrrrrgh!!! MY EYES!!! :shocked:

If you want to rant, try adding some spaces between paragraphs. Regarding reading your post, my mother said if I don't stop it, I'll go blind! :laugh:

Yeah, sorry dmh1167, your post is just too hard to read. :Q

But anyway, welcome to the forums!

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

FIXED

Humm never posted here before so to all I say hello Hope not to offend ASUS fans cant blame you if this does but the topic may deserve a bit of consideration.

First Ive been building systems to suit for 8 years now and have used primarily Asus top of the line boards. Setting them up with latest bios rev and drivers ect if I had a problem I would RMA them PDQ .

All was well in the world a rare RMA here or there until I got a MAXIMUS II Formula, Poor sound and the marvell nics were shaky the board had a bad bios chip to boot. All this looked like an rma to me, but rather than getting the retailer to rma we had to use ASUS.

My complaint to ASUS features that kind of work or have to be disabled to run 2.1 ddr2 ram so much for the power savings big deal bad bios chip ok it has two poor sound and shakey nics poor performance ect. So we rma for new tested board just as bad but it seems to have good bios chips the rest of my advertised goodies no workey or work real poor.

So then a requst for a manager to call me back 2 months of requests lost ignored or not responded to when I did get one to contact me they wanted my recipit ok so I sent one and my reasons for not liking the board I was then told that all my complaint would be taken to her supervisor, I dont know how you guys would handle a customer that spends several grand a year with you but this already is looking pretty bad for ASUS.

While speaking with her she informs me that all the repeated requests were lost and such due to bad luck and misunderstanding she then tells me that yes my board is a quality one but not the top of the line and some issues are to be expected.

So Ive got a weak board and a company that after 8 years the first issue I have with them and a product get the run around from hell Im not the only one that feels this way but some of this is easy to prove go to thair web site to download bios or drivers takes forever to load if at all but go to a product page at asus loads in a blink.Ive got copys of my emails to them and conversations with support staff.

Heck Ive got the managers email if you believe in ASUS so much you could ask her why some customers are turned into corporate fodder. Heck if they loose my business who cares there is always the next sucker.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
This

 

[tcsenter]

Meh, nothing has changed. ASUS' reputation was more of a mirage built-up by enthusiast-oriented review sites who think 2% advantage in 5 / 7 benchmarks (using non-production BIOS) is worthy of platitudes like "Clear Performance Leader", instead of recognition that it truly merits such as "ASUS did lead in the majority benchmarks by the slightest of margins, but we're not sure 2% higher performance, which only benchmarks could measure, justifies 20% higher cost. Additionally, we are using non-production BIOS supplied only to us, so the production BIOS that you get might erase this 2% or even more."

But concluding all reviews or articles by stating "Bottom line: nothing we found here really applies to the real world" is not the best way to increase your ad revenue.

The only thing that ASUS could credibly claim as superior to any other mainboard company was a very savvy media outreach and marketing department. Their channel program and distribution network is also part of their success, by making it more profitable to promote and sell ASUS products. The industry's highest average selling price of any mainboard company was not going into the pockets of ASUS executives. ASUS was using some of it to "grease" all the right channels more than anyone else.

ASUS does sexy products with great retail presentations (accessories and extras), but so does Monster Cable.

 

[nenforcer]

One thing I've noticed is that most ASUS boards up until recently tend to use higher quality components compared to even other first tier motherboard vendors like Gigabyte and MSI.

For instance, ASUS motherboards are the only ones I know of that use Analog Devices sound codecs and Marvell ethernet PHY's instead of the cheaper Realtek counterparts. Intel motherboards use the Sigmatel sound codec and they are the only manufacture that I know of who does.

I think most vendors have switched to 100% solid state Japanese capacitors so this is no longer a selling point.

This has been my only hesitation from buying any other brand of motherboard.

 

[tcsenter]

ECS is big on IDT SigmaTel codecs now. Asus has problems providing stable full-featured drivers and software for ADI Blackhawk-enabled codecs. ADI does not release drivers to the public, so you are stuck relying on the IHV/OEMs for them, who generally have a piss-poor track record of long-term driver support. e.g. one year max.

Realtek does release drivers to the public, even released Vista drivers for its entire line of AC97 codecs (unlike ADI). Comparative tests tend to favor Realtek's premium codecs over ADI, if just slightly. The only advantage ADI has really ever garnered was in more accurate positional/environmental audio in gaming (where there are more advantages to using a discrete audio controller or sound card, anyway).

I doubt there is any advantage to Marvell PHY, since the actual LAN controller (MAC) is chipset-integrated when PHY chips are used. I haven't seen complaints about Realtek LAN controllers in a long time. Both Marvell and Realtek release drivers to the public for their LAN chips, though.

 

[dmh1167]

Thank you for fixing my hard on the eyes paragraph Waiting For Nehalem. Sorry for being hard on your guys eyes, I will be more careful from now on.

Sorry to be a bit harsh Harvey your concern was a resonable one thank you for trying to read my post.

Flipped Gazelle thanks for the welcome, Im new here and hope to be a help to people and take advantage all the collective smarts people share here.


nenforcer: some components are better quality on ASUS boards but Ive noticed that the solid caps on ASUS boards have been called out by Gigabyte and other reviews for being made in TIWAN not japan. Ive noticed with ASUS boards there is a trend, performance is hit the more features they add the more sluggish it behaves.

Built 5 ,P5KE wifi ap boards and they were nice, all of them dual boot and smoothe one I built for my parents they can mess up turning on a lamp but havent crashed the system I built for 18 months, my MAXIMUS II different story hard to sort out if I was battling bad drivers, poorly made hardware or issues between the drivers and the OS.

I can say after dumping the audio and marvell nics my performance has improved the download and upload speeds are consistant the audio sounds great ect. My gripe with ASUS here is why jack me for the cash if the goodies I bought barely work or work poorly . The more junk I dump turn off or abandon on this thing the better it gets.

 

[wwswimming]

i recommended an Asus motherboard to a customer in 1993, for a 486 DX2-66.
he was a network tech, i showed him how to assemble a computer & i got PAID
for it.

been using Asus ever since.

sometimes i wonder if "Ay, 'Sus !" is what Canadians call Jesus when they get drunk.

 

[JASTECH]

I use to only use Tyan boards for years then tried an ASUS and didn't like it so tried Gigabyte and stayed with it as the main mfg. I also tried Supermicro and have problems with it (wife's computer). I am now thinking of trying out EVGA boards. Maybe the "Classified" for my main system.

dmh1167, Welcome to the forum!

Thanks, JASTECH

 

[sgrinavi]

In recent history I have had significant issues with Asus, Gigabyte and Abit boards. LOL.. they all suck equally ...

It's the nature of the beast, rush to market, push the limit and throw away the govenor - it all leads to compatabiliy and stability issues that manifest themselves as we start combinng varios components.

If you have a beef with Asus and or one of their managers then move on, but I don't think that makes them a bad company nor does it mean that they produce shitty boards. It just means you got a lemon and some sub-par service. It happens every day with every major manufacturer of.. well.. probably anything.

 

[cactusdog]

Ye i dont think you can single out any company. I RMA'd a Gigabyte board that took 2 months. All of them seem to have a slow rma process and i think they do it on purpose. I mean, if you have a minor issue with your board but you know you will have to wait 2 months, most people will live with. If people could exchange their boards over the counter, RMA's would go thru the roof.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

279$ for MIIF that doesn't consistently do 500fsb with a quad (stable) - very few do

114$ UD3R for a board that runs a quad at 500fsb all day long

thats not a rush to the market nor the beast, no offense but that is greed - can we say AIG?

this

this guy is writing bios updates/variations for Asus and their MIIF board - i didn't ask him but i don't think he's on their payroll -

 

[JASTECH]

sgrinavi, That is true indeed! My wife is upset because she purchased XXL Condoms and they are too tight, Wal-Fart won't take them back I think so there is poor use of their description and what you get.

cactusdog, I think that also depends on who you buy from. As a personal user I met and purchased from a company from Taiwan. Well later I started my business and still buy from them. I get very fast RMA's before I even ship the MB back I have a new one on my table and no VISA ect needed. Yes, so I got lucky maybe?

Thanks, JASTECH

 

[Absolution75]

Originally posted by: sgrinavi
In recent history I have had significant issues with Asus, Gigabyte and Abit boards. LOL.. they all suck equally ...

It's the nature of the beast, rush to market, push the limit and throw away the govenor - it all leads to compatabiliy and stability issues that manifest themselves as we start combinng varios components.

If you have a beef with Asus and or one of their managers then move on, but I don't think that makes them a bad company nor does it mean that they produce shitty boards. It just means you got a lemon and some sub-par service. It happens every day with every major manufacturer of.. well.. probably anything.

EVGA is a great company but really lacks what I would call necessary engineering skills. All their bios's seem like they are stock from the original board manuf. and all their boards seem like they are built directly off a reference spec.

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
279$ for MIIF that doesn't consistently do 500fsb with a quad (stable) - very few do

114$ UD3R for a board that runs a quad at 500fsb all day long

thats not a rush to the market nor the beast, no offense but that is greed - can we say AIG?

this

this guy is writing bios updates/variations for Asus and their MIIF board - i didn't ask him but i don't think he's on their payroll -

That is a very specific case. I have never been able to hit a stable 500 FSB on any board that I have had. Could be my lack of ability or patience or the boards.

Do you want to talk about the Gigabyte boards overvolting RAM by .3v? cost me 4 MB of, what was at the time, very expensive RAM. Every manufacturer has a bug or two in their releases.

 

[n7]

Sorry, but you getting some bad luck with a motherboard, & that's a shock to you?

All the manufacturers of motherboards out there are pumping out crappy, buggy, overpriced, problematic boards.

This isn't news; it's reality.

I've yet to find a company who gives a crap about actually making a good quality product without some compromise somewhere, nevermind decent support.

Maybe it's time to open your eyes a little...it's an ugly world out there...& it's not just Asus.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: sgrinavi

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
279$ for MIIF that doesn't consistently do 500fsb with a quad (stable) - very few do

114$ UD3R for a board that runs a quad at 500fsb all day long

thats not a rush to the market nor the beast, no offense but that is greed - can we say AIG?

this

this guy is writing bios updates/variations for Asus and their MIIF board - i didn't ask him but i don't think he's on their payroll -

That is a very specific case. I have never been able to hit a stable 500 FSB on any board that I have had. Could be my lack of ability or patience or the boards.

Do you want to talk about the Gigabyte boards overvolting RAM by .3v? cost me 4 MB of, what was at the time, very expensive RAM. Every manufacturer has a bug or two in their releases.

Safely saying that 90% of the UD3R & P boards can do 500fsb with a quad is being lenient against the others. For me and my perspective, i'd like to run 500fsb with my quad and I was just very disappointed that my 279$ board couldn't do this when in my sig, my UD3R can; at 114$

reports with hardware monitor say my VDimm volts droop to 2.08 in OS / and bios is set at 2.10

 

[dmh1167]

My bad luck with an ASUS board is not a suprise it was the complete inability of ASUS to properly answer my request to speak with a manager,Second concern was that most of the features on this board work poorly.

I know its expecting alot out of a board to live up to half its advertising why should ASUS be suprised that Ive decided to call them on it, I could have bought faster boards for less money that have features that ummm work.

After showing ASUS staff a mountain of recipits with their name on them and proving beyond doubt that I've been a long term customer using hi end boards from them I was met with more BS and lost requests. When I finally got a manager she wanted evrything short of a DNA sample to get things moving.

So gave her what she asked for and then she tried to get me going with an RMA, I told her if that was what I wanted I wouldnt need her help, I reflected to her that there were many features that didnt work or worked poorly and wanted a different model. She then wanted me to write an explanation pick a board and wait for her to talk to her supervisor.

I figured after 2 months of trying to get a call back from her that more bs was too much to take, I told her the time I had wasted just to get in contact with her could have paid for several new boards and that I was no longer interested in giving ASUS my business.

Newegg has many of their boards open box ,bad reviews are stacking up like cord wood on their products and other products sold in greater volume have greater customer satisfaction than ASUS products told the woman all this and suggested she take a look, then let her know I was joining the ranks of ASUS haters due to how I was treated.

I told her she had all my info everything board and all, if retaining my business was important she could persue the case and find a good solution then get in touch with me in the meantime I would plan a new i7 setup and dump ASUS on my next build.

 

[piasabird]

I do not overclock and my last motherboard was purchased for a quality integrated system.

So on my last build I decided to purchase an Intel Motherboard (Intel BOXDG35EC). I picked this motherboard because it had the newest integrated video Intel had at the time. However, I researched the motherboard and knew some people had some issues with the motherboard. All of the people who had problems with the motherboard were using IDE/PATA (NON-SATA) drives or were trying to use incompatible DDR2. This is why you have to research before you buy. I also know Intel tends to design their motherboards (Not Build) for the newest and best technology. The motherboard has worked flawlessly for me for over a year.

I think overclocking is over-rated, and a giant waste of time. This is my opinion.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: piasabird
I think overclocking is over-rated, and a giant waste of time. This is my opinion.

yes, giant waste of time, huge, humongous, wasteful, wasteful