ASUS revies wanted

ecktt

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 22, 2004
Messages
415
I am currently building a new system and picking a mother board is near dammed impossible. I have never been a fan of ASUS and their products have had recurring issues that transcended model and processor types in my experience forcing me to avoid recommending them for a long time. As it turns out ASUS now is only manufacture that offers a feature set and board lay out that want. In that light, I wan to know of people recent experience with ASUS before I chance my money with them again.

Of particular interest:
1. Has your ASUS board been in operation for over 2 years in complete stability (plz don't confuse software/OS fail)?
2. Have you ever had to reset the CMOS out of the blue just to get the machine to boot?
3. If necessary, did their technical support respond in a timely fashion?
4. Is their OC powers all that review sites make it out to be?
5. How temperamental are their mother boards to fully loaded PCI slots?
6. Can their products handle above average temperatures?
7. Is you mother bard Lan Party friendly (does not kick a fuse when moved around)?
 
1. Has your ASUS board been in operation for over 2 years in complete stability (plz don't confuse software/OS fail)? Yes... But I've had to RMA it twice.

2. Have you ever had to reset the CMOS out of the blue just to get the machine to boot? Yes

3. If necessary, did their technical support respond in a timely fashion? Yep, it was OK. RMA takes forever though.

4. Is their OC powers all that review sites make it out to be? The P5B-deluxe and my A8N-SLI both OC great.

5. How temperamental are their mother boards to fully loaded PCI slots? I've never had a problem... wireless card, TV tuner, sound card...

6. Can their products handle above average temperatures? Not too sure... but most boards are really well made, so I'd assume yes.

7. Is you mother bard Lan Party friendly (does not kick a fuse when moved around)? Never been to one, sorry.

Their boards are really well made, and they OC like banshees (depending on the chipset of course), but their RMA service and non-toll free phone # are major downsides for me.
 
This is from the computer I recently replaced.

1. Has your ASUS board been in operation for over 2 years in complete stability (plz don't confuse software/OS fail)? It runs, but stability... kinda okay.

2. Have you ever had to reset the CMOS out of the blue just to get the machine to boot? No.

3. If necessary, did their technical support respond in a timely fashion? Not so.

4. Is their OC powers all that review sites make it out to be? I got a dud. 100 mhz oc before BSOD

5. How temperamental are their mother boards to fully loaded PCI slots? Temperamental, as I have 4/5 slots filled. Random restarts when using SB Live!

6. Can their products handle above average temperatures? Ran at 60 C* for four years.

7. Is you mother bard Lan Party friendly (does not kick a fuse when moved around)? Yeah.
 
Of particular interest:
1. Has your ASUS board been in operation for over 2 years in complete stability (plz don't confuse software/OS fail)?
2. Have you ever had to reset the CMOS out of the blue just to get the machine to boot?
3. If necessary, did their technical support respond in a timely fashion?
4. Is their OC powers all that review sites make it out to be?
5. How temperamental are their mother boards to fully loaded PCI slots?
6. Can their products handle above average temperatures?
7. Is you mother bard Lan Party friendly (does not kick a fuse when moved around)?

1. No, I've only had it 6 months. My older asus board, the P2B I think, ran for 9 years 24/7.
2. Yes, all the time. It will NOT work properly if I turn off the psu, I have to reset the cmos and then redo all my settings, then I can't hook up my data drives until it boots into windows, otherwise I get "BOOT DISK FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISK PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE"
3. N/a
4. It's ok. My Abit AN8-32x did better.
5. N/a
6. Yes, Mine was running in a 55 degree c case for about 2 months, and it still works.
7. See #2.
 
1. Has your ASUS board been in operation for over 2 years in complete stability (plz don't confuse software/OS fail)? Yes only one SB fan died (clogged) but I got it replaced
2. Have you ever had to reset the CMOS out of the blue just to get the machine to boot? Yes ( Striker Extreme is plagued by this )
3. If necessary, did their technical support respond in a timely fashion ? they reacted though slow
4. Is their OC powers all that review sites make it out to be? for me yes
5. How temperamental are their mother boards to fully loaded PCI slots? No idea one PCI card and that's the Xifi or the SB
6. Can their products handle above average temperatures? Survived many lans with plus 15°C above average
7. Is you mother bard Lan Party friendly (does not kick a fuse when moved around)? Stable as it should be

All these comments are based on my P4C800-E Dlx, AN8SLi Dlx, P5B DLX and Striker experiences, I never had the lower series mostly only the enthousiast range. Most mobo's are replaced within the year when upgrading though they all still run in my friend's rigs :D and we meet 3 to 5 times a year for a 3 day lanparty in belgium plus are active in Battlefield, GTR2, Q3/4 and CS source online each nite ... Our pc's are mostly used for gaming/ripping/leeching purposes only...
 
P5N32-E SLI Plus lasted all of 6 days, woo hoo!

don't buy if you are not getting their high-end stuff (and that is a waste of $ IMO).
 
Humm some good, some bad and most both! I'm looking @ a P5B DLX simply because it has 3 PCI, RAID 5 support and supposed good OC ability. I live in Trinidad where the average temp is 32C. I plan to stuffing this board into an Antec Super Lanboy with 4 X 1Tb hds (when available) in RAID 5, 8GB RAM and a Conroe 6420 (Quadcore when prices drop) to keep it company. If I were to RMA this board it would cost me plenty.

Thanks for the response thus far. Keep the reviews coming!
 
Of particular interest:
1. Has your ASUS board been in operation for over 2 years in complete stability (plz don't confuse software/OS fail)?
2. Have you ever had to reset the CMOS out of the blue just to get the machine to boot?
3. If necessary, did their technical support respond in a timely fashion?
4. Is their OC powers all that review sites make it out to be?
5. How temperamental are their mother boards to fully loaded PCI slots?
6. Can their products handle above average temperatures?
7. Is you mother bard Lan Party friendly (does not kick a fuse when moved around)?

This relates to 3+ years of P4P800 Deluxe use and 7 months of P5W DH use
1. Yes
2. No
3. Have not used tech support as I have not had any problems
4. Decent OCing capabilities. Vdroop is the biggest issue, but usually good enough to get everything you want out of high end air cooling.
5. I haven't loaded up every single PCI slot, but with most of them filled, I had no problems
6. Yes (P5W DH has a very high Northbridge temp and older P4P800 Deluxe had a passive cooler also).
7. I've never had a problem, but that's just my experience. Depends on your case building skills I guess.
 
Well the Antec lanboy is a great case but with all those components in it it will get cramped, , also if you want to add a series 8 card (GTS or GTX) it won't work as there isn't enough room in it, go directly for Antec 900 series or others.
Also check if the case can ahndle supercoolers like a thermalright Ultra120 , I don't think it will fit inside the case as it's to high...and you will have to buy a beefy CPU cooler to cool those quads....

Plz check which rams work and which don't with the P5B Dlx because 8 gigs might be tricky when wanting to overclock.
 
I have the case already and a Ninja rev b can fit in it so i hope the Thermalright ultra will fit. As for the ram, I'll be going with a 4 GB kit and then upgrade to 8 GB when the novelty of OC ware off. I think DDR2 800 should give enough headroom with a 1:1 fsb memory ratio. I saw a pic of a 8800GTX fit but it was tight (thank god the power connects are on top). Thanks for the input.
 
I've had several Asus boards. They're better than most. But they're not immune to problems.

But man am I getting tired of seeing people post that "Comany X sucks!" or making other broad, sweeping generalizations based on the one bad board they've had. . . or possibly two.

I've personally had:

CUSL2 (old school!)
P4
P4P-E
A8N-SLI
A8N32-SLI
P5B Deluxe (build for my brother)

At work, I run a server based on the P5WD something or other.
Another server runs on a P4C800-E Deluxe
Our video editing machine is a P4C800-E Deluxe

Haven't had a problem with a single one. I loved my A8N32-SLi. Probably the best motherboard I've ever owned.

Just now replaced my eVGA 680i with the Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus. So far, I love it. And, if mine dies after six days likesomeone else's did. . . I don't think I'll suddenly decide that it's "cheap" (since it's got better caps and the same construction as it more expensive sibling and is actually nearly identical to the Striker Extreme).

And, as always, remember that those people who are going to be most motivated to answer this survey won't be the people most likely to have had no trouble with their Asus boards.
 
But man am I getting tired of seeing people post that "Comany X sucks!" or making other broad, sweeping generalizations based on the one bad board they've had. . . or possibly two.

I can make one sweeping generalization about asus though. There website for drivers sucks. While it has gotten better in the last few years(you can download drivers now vs the ftp busy messages), the site is still slow as are the downloads. Really ticks me off to the point I try to stay away from asus now. Most of the time I just build systems with intel boards(business systems with no need to overclock).

Asus boards seem to hold up well though. I've worked with them for years and other then the cap issue that everyone had a few years ago they have held up well.
 
I have bought Asus boards for myself and friends for 10 years.

I have given up on them recently... Make sure you buy their high end offerings, dont even waste your time with their value crap..

Even then.... Be very careful which board you choose.... And their BIOS updates are crap.

My P5B had no headroom whatsoever and various memory/bios problems... !!
 
Well. . . all I can say is that people shouldn't let one or two bad experiences (which might have just been bad luck) taint their view of an entire product line or manufacturer. And, as always, forum opinions should always be taken with a grain of salt. Forums being the eternal hangout of the wronged and the oppressed. :D

Myself? I just finished stress testing my OC on my "budget". . .Asus. . . 680i "Striker Light" P5N32E-SLi Plus. Love the all-solid caps and the same PCB as Striker. Even though it uses different NB and SB, nobody would ever be able to tell that this isn't a "full fledged" 680i board. It even uses the 680i reference drivers instead of the 650i ones.

Couldn't be happier.
 
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