Which motherboards have the highest RMA rates?

[MortaniuS]

I hear yah, they are harder to work with. But once they are in your case and installed by an expert. They run great. I doubt there are many people who didnt open their case, didnt screw with the bios or overclock that had their abits go bad. Im sure the amount of rmas with an un-messed with abit is the same as and unmessed abit or msi. And alot of people say abits are unstable and msi are super stable. Thats because the msi's settings are alot less aggressive by default than the abits, therefore your gonna be more stable. If abits were as passive as msi's by default hte stability would be the same.

 

[MortaniuS]

Also, at my shop i dont like to sell an abit unless i install it, and configure it and but my warranty seal on it. I point more people towards the msi, because they dont need as much babying during installation. but in my own system i love abits. If there were no avbits i would prolly go msi or try out a new shuttle, which i have had great luck with

 

[damocles]

Umm, i have had a lot of boards- i have done nothing with my Abit boards that i havent done with other boards, but still the Abit's crapped out.

I really hesistate to buy Abit now

 

[SaturnX]

Abit, and I personally just don't like PCChips.

--Mark

 

[hans007]

asus is used in sony and hp. fic is used in compaq. abit, however is geared to the enthusiast market. they are supposed to know what they are doing. But you still get more completely DEAD type problems, as well as a broken parallel port or something like that. its just a quality problem.

 

[WyteWatt]

Asus

 

[LXi]

MortaniuS,

I think you're directing way too many of these Abit failures at the users, I dont think thats true. Many Abit users knew what they're doing, and still got Abits fail on them, and the same amount of people who doesnt tweak at all have their Abits fail on them. MSI is super stable not because their settings are less agressive(because I can make them just as agressive as Abits, and still maintain stability), it's because they're better built with higher quality components. If it was only the settings difference, Anandtech and all the other credible sites wouldnt say MSI is famous for stability, not to mention Abit also lost to MSI, Iwill and Asus in torture tests, given the settings are equally agressive/passive on all the boards.

 

[earthman]

Abit has always pushed the envelope of what a mainboard can do, which probably explains some of their problems. Just based on what I see on the boards, Abits have alot of problems...though I have had a couple that worked great. The only board I ever actually RMA'd was a PCChips.

 

[MortaniuS]

"asus is used in sony and hp. fic is used in compaq. abit, however is geared to the enthusiast market. they are supposed to know what they are doing."

Thats exactly what i am saying, thats why the rma rate is higher on abits, because enthusists push the motherbaord to and beyond that they are able to handle.

I mean picture it like this, asus probably sells 10 times more then abit. say you sell 1000 abits, probably 75% are sold to people who plan to overclock, or screw around with the hardware. Lets say 50% of that 75% screw up their board. So thats 37.5% that get rma'ed, or 375 (if im doing this math right lol).

Now asus, they prolly sell 10,000 for every 1,000 abits sold or better, so lets start here. at least 90% of these boards are going in pre-built machines, so lets assume they all are good and tested. Now we have 1000 left that are getting sold to enthusiasts. Lets say they kill just as many asus as abits, 375.

Now look, abits rma rate is 37.5% and asus 3.75%

Does this mean asus is better? i think not.

"But you still get more completely DEAD type problems, as well as a broken parallel port or something like that. its just a quality problem."

Honestly i have very little abits screwed up right out of the box, most are gigabyte and msi.

 

[LXi]

Are you saying every problem Abit has is caused by user error? Just yes or no.

 

[MortaniuS]

No, what i am saying is a abit straight out of the box is as good as any board straight out of the box.

People look at the numbers, but dont see what is actually behind the numbers.

 

[WyteWatt]

wow MortaniuS. Very good point. Thats true.
I am thinking about it now.
MortaniuS btw i have a abit kt7a raid mobo and this is my first abit mobo and i had it for 3 months no problems at all and i love it. Very good stabilty. The ZT BIOS is very stable even thou the WZ was too.
but i think the ZT BIOS is more stable maybe.

thanks

 

[LXi]

How about you picture this? Say MSI makes 100,000 board a month, Abit makes 10,000. 500 MSIs come back, 1000 Abits come back. MSI has a RMA rate of 0.5%, Abit has 10%. Btw MSI isnt used in any major OEMs.

<<No, what i am saying is a abit straight out of the box is as good as any board straight out of the box.>>

I do not agree with that. Therefore, I dont think the argue can progress any further. Abit boards out of the box are inferior in quality compare to other mobo makers.

 

[WyteWatt]

LXi i understand what you are saying. But i am just curious LXi how many abit mobos you owned? and which ones please? And what were the problems ? curious
Thanks

 

[LXi]

I owned three, all failed, but they were all BX/AP133A. I have worked with more than a hundred Abit AMD boards, rarely had any positive experience, things break here and there, especially IDE connectors and RAM banks, another good one is the HSF they put on their northbridge. The stability is totally out of sync, and a large amount of them are DOA, none of them are tweaked by the way, 'cause my customers aren't tweakers. I question them time and time again why they chose Abit and most of the responses were &quot;some Joe Blow say they make the best mobos in the world&quot;. My believes are proven again when the K7T Turbos I use rarely cause any problems with SBLive!, and the USB ports always worked reliable, Abit is the complete opposite. I wish I had as much time as MortaniuS to fine tune the Abits, let alone selling them to customers.

 

[MortaniuS]

LXi i can only call it as i see it.

Any ways where did you get those numbers?
Mine were obviously just to show the logic behind the numbers.

 

[WyteWatt]

LXi ok well i dont think i am getting a SBLive because i hear problems with them on all kind of mobos and chipsets. Intel chipsets , via chipsets, etc.
i am getting either a Hecules XP Game Theater or Santa Cruz i think.
But i am wondering have you ever worked with the Abit KT7A raid mobo ?
wondering
i have a Abit KT7A raid right now its my first Abit so far
i like the new DDR one they have i think

 

[MortaniuS]

&quot;I wish I had as much time as MortaniuS to fine tune the Abits, let alone selling them to customers&quot;.

They do need a lil extra lovin like someone else said on here, thats the reason i usually reccommend MSI's if they arent having me build the computer.

 

[WyteWatt]

MortaniuS they do need extra lovin ? wow didnt know that. So far my Abit KT7A raid mobo didnt really need that much lovin.

 

[MortaniuS]

...and yeah, i think northbridge fans suck a$$ on any mobo. Thats one thing i can agree on. I got a nice big old box of lil replacement fans that are a lil better quality then what asus, abit and other mobo mfg's put on there units.

 

[LXi]

I made those numbers up, I saw the actual ranking and MSI produced about 5 mil of boards in Q1 of 2001, Abit produced 1 mil, not exactly 10 to 1 ratio, but quite a bit of difference. I know some reliable source that showed MSI's RMA is consistently below 1%, while Abit's is usually 5 to 10 times that amount. My experience concured, so thats what I believe.

 

[WyteWatt]

LXi do you know the link to that reliable source link please?
i am interested in it. I will read the whole thing even if its 2 pages long or whatever.

Thanks

 

[MortaniuS]

Yeah, well my most common scenario with abits when a user claims its dead is &quot;My screen wont turn on&quot;. 99% of the time its because the user doesnt set the cpu speed right, and abits wont post if they are set wrong, or even sometimes if they are set on auto. You have to set the cpu speed correctly, and when get pass that small bug in the abit, they are flawless.

 

[LXi]

I'd be a sin for me to sell an Abit to my customers, thats just me. For the very reason that I aint got time to tune those Abits and make them work, life is short, y'know? And I dont want to worry about the customer come back complaining, that always happens when Abit motherboard is used(not by my choice). The advantage of me using MSI? Well, they're generally cheaper, just as well equipped as Abit, much more stable and reliable. My customers are happy with those MSI boards, tweaker or not, MSI gets the job done.

 

[LXi]

There is no link to the reliable source, it's a person I know, and he has dealt with literally tens of thousands of motherboards.