Manufacturers to avoid ?

[BiggityB]

I am getting into building PC's and was wondering if there was a consensus on mobo's to avoid - not problems with overclocking etc just problems in general -any poor manufacturers
or perhaps tell me you favorites


edit -socket A boards

 

[alexruiz]

PC Chips.....

 

[Thor86]

Low-end MSI's.

Had a couple of bad apples in a bunch, and only 1 year, the caps leaked.

Nothing against MSI, they make great boards.

 

[Warlord721]

Originally posted by: alexruiz
PC Chips.....

 

[jjyiz28]

sh1t, do you want a flame war?? i mean im gonna respond with "pc chips, ecs, biostar", then some low end manufacterer incognito is gonna say im a lamer who can't install mobos.

 

[Buz2b]

BiggityB,
As was mentioned (sort of), that is one heck of a loaded question that will garner you a myriad of answers; some better than others. A better way to do this would be to ask about a specific MB or small group (2-4) of MB's. Then you will get more specific comments on the board(s) itself.
Otherwise, you are just going to get opinions from folks that have had either good or (most likely) bad experiences with various board companies. As an example, I tend to like ASUS boards and hate Abit. However, Abit make some damned nice boards that people love. And even though ASUS has an excellent rep, they have had some "turkeys" in their time.

 

[Challenger]

Originally posted by: alexruiz
PC Chips.....

 

[Gravity]

I had a couple of gigabyte GA-7vac's go bad this year. Still trying to find an invoice for RMA but it seems like I got them from newegg.

 

[pspada]

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
sh1t, do you want a flame war?? i mean im gonna respond with "pc chips, ecs, biostar", then some low end manufacterer incognito is gonna say im a lamer who can't install mobos.

Gosh, what a lamer who can't install mobos....

But seriously, avoid ASUS like the plague. Their tech support is non-existant and the warranty is worthless.

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: pspada

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
sh1t, do you want a flame war?? i mean im gonna respond with "pc chips, ecs, biostar", then some low end manufacterer incognito is gonna say im a lamer who can't install mobos.

Gosh, what a lamer who can't install mobos....

But seriously, avoid ASUS like the plague. Their tech support is non-existant and the warranty is worthless.

if you buy from newegg, llike most of us does, what does it matter?? is it cuz newegg RMA refund is only for 1 month?

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: jjyiz28

Originally posted by: pspada

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
sh1t, do you want a flame war?? i mean im gonna respond with "pc chips, ecs, biostar", then some low end manufacterer incognito is gonna say im a lamer who can't install mobos.

Gosh, what a lamer who can't install mobos....

But seriously, avoid ASUS like the plague. Their tech support is non-existant and the warranty is worthless.

if you buy from newegg, llike most of us does, what does it matter?? is it cuz newegg RMA refund is only for 1 month?

you want the 3 year warrenty, not the 1 month

anyway, i dont like pc chips, generally try to avoid low end MSI, biostar, low end ECS

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: pspada

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
sh1t, do you want a flame war?? i mean im gonna respond with "pc chips, ecs, biostar", then some low end manufacterer incognito is gonna say im a lamer who can't install mobos.

Gosh, what a lamer who can't install mobos....

But seriously, avoid ASUS like the plague. Their tech support is non-existant and the warranty is worthless.

Yeah their tech support sucks majorly. First you have to make a report on their crappy website, then there's two different numbers (toll calls to CA at that) for tech support and RMA authorization. It's a friggin nightmare.

EDIT: When the boards work (more often than not), they're great though.

 

[Buz2b]

Originally posted by: pspada

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
sh1t, do you want a flame war?? i mean im gonna respond with "pc chips, ecs, biostar", then some low end manufacterer incognito is gonna say im a lamer who can't install mobos.

Gosh, what a lamer who can't install mobos....

But seriously, avoid ASUS like the plague. Their tech support is non-existant and the warranty is worthless.

You see! The perfect illustration of my point earlier. I knew good old pspada would come through for me!

 

[CraigRT]

I try to avoid:

MAXTOR!!: (I think at my company the fail ratio is around 25%)
Aopen (mainly optical drives, the boards are OK)
PC CHIPS
ECS
EPoX
Geil memory (TERRIBLE)

can't think of any more right now

 

[Regalk]

I am yet to kill an Asus Board even with heavy overclocking - just to show my Asus PL297 still works even though I rarely use it now. I have a P4PE, P4S333, P4P800 and A7N8X dlx all working great.
I have had 2 or 3 Abit boards die but that was due to my fault entirely - I would still buy ABIT and currently also hav e the NF7-S in my kid's box. Had a lot of MSIs (and still do KT3 Ultra) as well and only had one die which was replaced by MSI (MSI K7Turbo-R given away now).
My Epox 8KHA+ died after 2 years and I had 2 ECS K75SA which died without much effort. PCChips - so so but a low end board is just that. Gigabyte - 2 died on me so far so I would avoid them. And there you have it nothing scientific there - looks like ASUS and MSI will always be in my boxes for years to come with an odd ABIT here and there for playing around with.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: CraigRT
I try to avoid:

MAXTOR!!: (I think at my company the fail ratio is around 25%)
Aopen (mainly optical drives, the boards are OK)
PC CHIPS
ECS
EPoX
Geil memory (TERRIBLE)

can't think of any more right now

Geils higher end stuff (the platinum) is EXCELLENT
Epox is also a great mobo manufacturer

 

[Mem]

try to avoid:

MAXTOR!!: (I think at my company the fail ratio is around 25%)
Aopen (mainly optical drives, the boards are OK)
PC CHIPS
ECS
EPoX
Geil memory (TERRIBLE)

can't think of any more right now

I`ve had great luck with Maxtor ,however I`ve had great luck with all my HD brands pass and present(WD,IBM,Fujitsu,Quantum).
PC Chips never tried their boards but would avoid them.
Epox (my current Epox 8KHA+ which is over 3 years old is an awesome board on stability even with 11 leaking caps,can`t blame them since virtually all brands were effected with bad caps a few years ago).
Geil memory well no comment on that due to no experience.

Now should I bother even recommending brands etc?I just meantion brands I really like and leave it at that,Epox,Soltek,Soyo,MSI.


Too be honest only brands I would avoid would be PC Chips and Biostar,not too keen on ECS but have one as a cheap backup replacement and it has been solid so far on stability.

Now you know there`s no perfect board for everyone,just good and bad boards depending on whom you ask.


The wise person will make a budget with specs he needs and make a short list of different brands/models that meets his criteria, then gather some info(like from forums) find some reviews(I always like to get a least 5 reviews on each board if possible) from the net on all the boards in question then finally pick one for himself.

 

[pspada]

You should look at the other side of the coin: what motherboard should you use. I mostly go with FIC, they have great tech support the once or twice I had to use it. But mostly their boards just plain work, and seem to work forever. I still have several working VA-503+'s that you can't kill with a hammer. With FIC my main objective is to avoid future service calls and the hassle of having a client's system down. And while ECS is a budget mobo, I've used them several times and they seem to work fine. Tho getting USB2 loaded properly is a bitch, however - I'm never much liked the sis chipsets.

 

[buckmasterson]

Soyo gave me fits on 2 boards. They won't have a chance at a 3rd...

Geil low end memory is garbage. Wouldn't run in any of the 4 machines in my house.

PC Chips boards were garbage in the socket 7 days, they are flooding the market again with some questionable socket A's. Beware...

I'm getting a bad feeling about that MAXTOR hard drive I bought a month ago too. It clicks, and their support people say "oh, that happens on some of them".

Your best bet is to peek at newegg, and read the reviews before you purchase anything.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: shady06

Originally posted by: CraigRT
Epox is also a great mobo manufacturer

maybe in your experience.
i won't own that junk ever again.

 

[alexruiz]

Biostar makes decent mobos, same as ECS (happpy owner of a K7S5A that gave me ZERO problems).... however, those PC chips are the lowest of ECS

 

[wicktron]

ECS, just say no.
Extremely Crappy Sh*t & Extremely Cheap Sh*t

 

[Buz2b]

Ok, let?s take stock of this ?opinion poll? instigated by BiggityB:

So far, in the esteemed opinion of the AT users we have identified the following MB?s and mfr's as ones to avoid:

ABIT
ASUS
BIOSTAR
ECS
Epox
Geil
Gigabyte
Maxtor
MSI
PC chips
Soyo

I think that covers just about all of them (and I may have missed a couple). There are a few left yet but if you wait a bit longer, you will probably get the rest of the ?big guys? listed. Now, can you see the futility of this type of post. As stated earlier, the best bet would be to narrow things down to a few boards and then ask for opinions and comparisons of those. The premise of the start of this post was misguided and flawed. Not trying to crap on this but unless you can be more specific, you will not gain any real insight into the question.
Do yourself a favor BiggityB and narrow down your list to 2 or 3 boards that seem to fit your needs. At least then you can get some actual comparisons and discussion about features and flaws. You might even get a suggestion or two that would better fit your needs. Just a suggestion, of course. I wish you luck!
:beer:

 

[mdcrab]

Although "Jetway" isn't listed as a mobo to avoid, it probably should be included on the list.

mdcrab

 

[pspada]

I've never had a serious problem with FIC mobo's.