I'll never buy another ABIT mobo again.

M

MassiveOverkill

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 8, 2005
Messages
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I don't care if this thing OC's to 5 bazillion gigahertz. Just spent 5 hours swapping my backup Biostar board to my RMA'd Abit NF-2 Nview and the freaking LAN port died (worked for 1 week prior bench-testing). I swear to god Abit's got a quality control problem. Sucks because I was about ready to buy the Abit IT-90HD and get a Core 2 Duo. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Who knows, maybe I'll get over it since I'm running 2.85 Ghz on my Brisbane...........just as long as nothing else craps out!!
 
I've had USB ports tank before, but I was running the board w/o an I/O plate and pretty sure I fed them some ESD! It's possible to do the same, even with a shield... All of those ports are probably made by the same manufacturer. If you ever look at the plastic hold down plate on AMDs, 90% of them are made by Foxconn.

Abit has never had a string of DOAs like DFI, which people still continue to use. Seems like I have heard of a few more dead boards than say ASUS or MSI, but I'd give them another chance. ;)
 
Until just the other day I've never had a problem with the abit boards I've used over the past several years, and I plan to continue using them.

I'm sorry to hear your bad luck, different experiences I s'pose.
 
abit nearly went bankrupt not long ago and were sold, new owners, new workers, new garbage.
 
I've had the same issue. I've not had quality control problems, I just haven't been able to get the "Amazing Oc's" out of it.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Seems like I have heard of a few more dead boards than say ASUS or MSI, but I'd give them another chance. ;)
Click to expand...
a French site that did some research on the different manufacturers' failure rates (& indeed individual mobo series failure rates) with a major distributor reckoned that 1 of MSI's Diamond (i.e. top series) mobos had a 30% return rate! :eek:
By contrast abit's worst board was 1 of their cheapest & iirc it was ~8% with most ~2%.
Was quite interesting reading - I'll see if I can find the link.

Of course that's not to say that actually all those boards from any mfr were genuinely faulty - I'm sure that there were more than a few returned that were either user error or another component problem.
 
I would love to see DFI's failure rates... They seem to use cheap components on all of their boards. Those studies are always interesting to see. I've been looking for a current drive study.

I hate MSI boards, because they ship minus OC controls on all of their boards, but the one time I asked for their support, it was phenomenal. I had a secondhand Neo Platinum where the original owner had lost the backing plate and within a day, they were shipping me the backing plate and the I/O plate, just in case I didn't know what I was talking about! Talk about going out of your way.
 
Could you have posted this like 4 days from now :p You are killing me here! haha
 
LOL, Sorry Steve, I'm sure peeps are still going to gobble up your stock of Abit boards. All the bad ones gravitate towards me.
 
Maybe some ppl need to learn how to take better care of their stuff. I have had no issues with mine since the 1st day I got it the 1st day it came out. Or any of my Abit boards for that matter for the years I had them. :rolleyes: Tipical Americans.
 
MassiveOverkill said:
LOL, Sorry Steve, I'm sure peeps are still going to gobble up your stock of Abit boards. All the bad ones gravitate towards me.
Click to expand...

No, the popularity for this board as dropped off insanly. People are upset that this board isn't overclocking as well as people think it should and people are upset that some of these boards have had issues. I'm going to address abit on Monday to let them know why this pre-order failed so badly....out of the 60-70 people that emailed me saying they would pre-order only about 5-6 actually did and a dozen or two others pre-ordered.

425 stable FSB with this thing and I'd have 200 boards sold by now.
 
take it easy guys, anyone who has had do deal with a flakey mobo can understand how frustrating it can be. no amount of carefull handling can deal with a mobo that was made 4:59 on a friday. Im sure an rma will sort things out(unlike dfi boards which are only made on fridays:p )
 
MassiveOverkill said:
You're right Serge, I forgot to stick it in vegetable oil with nitrogen pellets.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1135889

So what country are your from anyways Serge? I'm sure there's some village missing an idiot.
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I never finished the project meaning I couldn't find the pellits, or ever got all the parts for my water cooler, I'm trying to find a oil pump built for that sort of thing, but the P3 still works in v oil. I never said I would dunk my Abit in veg oil. :rolleyes: I said I'd use it with a water cooler for that. alstraila mate. I have the best comp in me village kriky. Thanks for reminding me. I'll update that thing with pics. ;) The P3 runs at 100F all the time with no heatsink now the fan stopped turning. Oh I got video of it running too. :eek: Just to pop your collor.
 
_G_ said:
take it easy guys, anyone who has had do deal with a flakey mobo can understand how frustrating it can be. no amount of carefull handling can deal with a mobo that was made 4:59 on a friday. Im sure an rma will sort things out(unlike dfi boards which are only made on fridays:p )
Click to expand...

It is a good board regardless...people are just not happy with the "lack" of overclocking.

I can see being slightly upset but don't forget this still is a great mobo.
 
I wasn't referring to the entire line, just problem mobos in general (the small percentage that gets by QC)
 
I bought 2 new Biostar Tforce 939 6100s a couple weeks ago from TigerDirects Miami outlet, one for a friend. His works like a champ, mine was DOA. I installed it neatly wired everything in a MicroFly, looked great. I flipped on the power switch and fans all ran, LED lights said it was OK, it looked to be starting, but no video. I tried everything, swapped every part out with known good, working parts from several PCs. I finally gave up and took the board out to run it out of the box. I was looking at it and flipped it over. Yikes, there was a 1/16th x 1.5" trace sticking out of the board by the CPU, fried, cut in half!!! A blatent manufacturing error. I guess the guy that tested it and put his QA sticker that it passed inspection couldn't smell, and I didn't visually look at both sides before installing it. There was definately no plume of smoking friedness when I started it. This is the first DOA I have ever had since I started building PCs in the mid 80's. Thankfully all other hardware survived.

I have never had another Biostar, but wouldn't hesitate buying another, looking at a 690G board online right now.
 
Serge84 said:
I never finished the project meaning I couldn't find the pellits, or ever got all the parts for my water cooler, I'm trying to find a oil pump built for that sort of thing, but the P3 still works in v oil. I never said I would dunk my Abit in veg oil. :rolleyes: I said I'd use it with a water cooler for that. alstraila mate. I have the best comp in me village kriky. Thanks for reminding me. I'll update that thing with pics. ;) The P3 runs at 100F all the time with no heatsink now the fan stopped turning. Oh I got video of it running too. :eek: Just to pop your collor.
Click to expand...

/musing on

I'm sorry...I just had to laugh when I read the "subtle" changes in language when you said you were from Australia.

/musing off

It's sad to hear that your LAN port crapped out because that really makes it harder to fix any problems on the board...w/o the internet. However, I don't think that should detract you from purchasing another board from Abit, especially if it turns out to be a better than the competitors' boards. On the other hand, getting two crappy boards in a row is rather disappointing...
 
Steeeeve said:
It is a good board regardless...people are just not happy with the "lack" of overclocking.

I can see being slightly upset but don't forget this still is a great mobo.
Click to expand...
Steve, drum it up on HTPC, EOCF HTPC, Sudhian Forums, Anandtech SFF and AVSForums. I posted my review before you committed to 100 boards to try to give you some forewarning…
 
i'll join you and never buy abit boards again. had a few older ones in the past and always had the bios die totally.
this new micro one is no different. hyperthreading is borked for regular p4's and i have some dots that are on the boot up logo.
 
I've had pretty good luck with Abit. I continue to buy them and have bought them for years. Their RMA process is pretty good, and even allowed me to RMA a few parts over time even when they were out of warranty -- for a mere $25. not too shabby in my opinion.

My most recent purchase was the AW9-D Max. I waited a long time for that one!

Steeeeve, where do you have an online store? I'm interested in buying one of the new sff boards mentioned here. Plus I need that darned Silverstone mini tower :)
 
I've bought over a dozen Abit boards and NONE gave me a problem. All OCed at some level and I think it's a user problem.

I've also had some boards that were supposed to be very problematic and again NO problems. I think ppl just don't know what they are doing.

Outside a few boards that I have messed up I've rarely had a bad board. Outside of Junkabyte I cna't say I've had bad experiences with about 50 or so boards I've played with.
 
MassiveOverkill said:
I don't care if this thing OC's to 5 bazillion gigahertz. Just spent 5 hours swapping my backup Biostar board to my RMA'd Abit NF-2 Nview and the freaking LAN port died (worked for 1 week prior bench-testing). I swear to god Abit's got a quality control problem. Sucks because I was about ready to buy the Abit IT-90HD and get a Core 2 Duo. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Who knows, maybe I'll get over it since I'm running 2.85 Ghz on my Brisbane...........just as long as nothing else craps out!!
Click to expand...

You know, it's really childish, and irresponsible to complain that a board which you are overclocking is failing on you. Have you tested the reliability of the board without overclocking it?

Perhaps your problem, is, in fact, YOU.

I've used abit boards in the past. I haven't purchased one recently only because I've been building "workstations" and "servers" 99% of the builds I do, and for those I use but 3 brands : Intel, Tyan, SuperMicro.
The few 'end-user' pc's I've built in the past year (say... 50-60 of them) have been so budget conscious that the price cap for the motherboard was ~$50.00, and.. well.. not many abit boards are $50
 
CyberDeus-RagDoll said:
You know, it's really childish, and irresponsible to complain that a board which you are overclocking is failing on you. Have you tested the reliability of the board without overclocking it?

Perhaps your problem, is, in fact, YOU.

I've used abit boards in the past. I haven't purchased one recently only because I've been building "workstations" and "servers" 99% of the builds I do, and for those I use but 3 brands : Intel, Tyan, SuperMicro.
The few 'end-user' pc's I've built in the past year (say... 50-60 of them) have been so budget conscious that the price cap for the motherboard was ~$50.00, and.. well.. not many abit boards are $50
Click to expand...


Childish? Pot meet Kettle. There are others in this thread that know how to post constructive replies whether they agree with me or not. Go join Serge84, I think he's in class learning how to spell.
 
MassiveOverkill said:
Childish? Pot meet Kettle. There are others in this thread that know how to post constructive replies whether they agree with me or not. Go join Serge84, I think he's in class learning how to spell.
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Odd, because it seems the only time you argue with a post is if it strongly disagrees with you.
Sounds to me like someone is taking the defensive approach and closing their mind to the possibility that, they themselves are in error.

I've NEVER had an abit motherboard fail due to any cause that was UNDENIABLY that of the motherboard. Looking over my records briefly, of the 279 abit motherboards we've sold in 5 years, I see three having been replaced. Cursory examination of the reports seems to indicate power surges as the cause of death of 2 of them, and "unknown" was the diagnosis of the 3rd by a technician whom I no longer employ.
 
CyberDeus-RagDoll said:
Looking over my records briefly, of the 279 abit motherboards we've sold in 5 years,
Click to expand...

LOL, the truth finally comes out. What's the matter, your pocketbook hurting from the bad PR? If you learn how to read, there are other posters in this thread who praise Abit and I haven't responded to them because they post in a mature manner and they're entitled to their opinions, why don't you take a lesson from them.
 
Alright calm it down....

The verdict on the F-I90HD is still out. It is hard to say since this board is receiving so much hype.

I didn't hear of many NF-M2 boards failing so overall maybe not terrible quality. Hard to say though because so many things can kill a mobo :) I wonder if there are any stats on this.

EDIT:

I just looked up some interesting facts. Seems like abit is all or nothing.

http://www.behardware.com/news/imprimer/8553/
- MSI : 2.49%
- ASUSTeK : 2.60%
- ASRock : 2.69%
- Gigabyte : 2.95%
- ABIT : 5.13%

As you can see, only one manufacturer really stands out. ABIT has a much higher failure rate than any other manufacturer. The origin of this problem is the failure rate of their best seller the UL8 Socket 939 based on ULI chipset that reaches 9.6%. We can see, however, that the third best seller of the manufacturer, the KN8 nForce 4, is only at 0.8%
Click to expand...
 
Keep in mind this is a new chipset on the hd and it is really an OC issue. The board isn't marketed as such but it CAN OC.

I think it's weird to slap a fatality name on it and then say it's htpc. Whatever. I'm sure it's a great board and just ppl go to crazy on it.
 
MassiveOverkill said:
LOL, the truth finally comes out. What's the matter, your pocketbook hurting from the bad PR? If you learn how to read, there are other posters in this thread who praise Abit and I haven't responded to them because they post in a mature manner and they're entitled to their opinions, why don't you take a lesson from them.
Click to expand...

Would the part I highlighted be an example of your posting in a mature manner?
I said it was childish and irresponsible.. I didn't say "d00d j00 are a t0t/-\L n00b, fuckwit"
I know how to read, and as you can see, I also know how to write. I am a published author, and speak and read 13 languages. (like most authors, I'm accustomed to letting an editorial & proofreading department check my spelling however, so on the off chance I have a typo here, don't get all bent out of shape.)
My statement was mature in nature. I speculated that, since you are OVERCLOCKING your motherboard (i.e. taking it out of it's designed specifications) that you are adding to the likelihood of failure. Professionally, we do not overclock our systems that go out the door, because we don't like them coming back for repair. My personal experience is that overclocking shortens the life of hardware by at least 50% (The brightest candle burns the shortest time, and all).

Additionally, how would my pocket book be hurting? End users (my clients) couldn't tell a motherboard from a harddrive, let alone know what abit vs asus vs ecs are..I've never EVER EVER lost a sale because of the brand of motherboard I use in my systems. You know why? I've never TOLD a client what brand of motherboard I use in my systems, because.. they've never asked. I could say Flaggenheimer brand motherboards, and they'd believe me, because they just don't know, or even care. I have built up a reputation of knowing what I'm doing.

You think non computer geeks ever even HEARD of abit? 95% of the people out there think dell makes their own computers. Geesh. (Wait.. you're not one of the 95%, are you?)

I think the only brand issue I ever get asked is "amd or intel" and "ati or nvidia"

Our customer base has split into the $499 computer and the $4,999 computer. I don't personally quote each system built, but I just don't see any "gaming" computers going out the door with 1KW psus, and SLI 8800GTX's.. I doubt we've sold a single sli system.

I've had 3 bad abit boards out of 279.. that's around a 1% failure rate. Now, there IS some error in that rate, because, well, we don't keep repair logs the same way for systems that were out of warranty, so I'd have to check those.. I've had 3 failed abit boards, that I've had to replace for clients UNDER WARRANTY.. Our typical warranty for systems we sell is 2 years, but we've been keeping this database for 5, so, extrapolating the 2/5 numbers, that means that in 5 years time, out of the 279 boards we sold, theoretically, 8-9 of them failed.

My company makes a FORTUNE, and to be blunt, probably has 100x the data collected (versus the link that steeeeeve posted) as to what is a good quality vs a bad quality product, based on the sheer number of computers we sell every year. (in the thousands), and abit is showing better reliability than asus, msi, and, the brand we will never use again.. Gigabyte. We have around a 20% failure rate with gigabyte products, however, in all fairness, all of those boards were the same series, and were ALL based on nvidia chipsets, which, truly, I think are the culprit with the problems we had with these boards, of course, I'm also talking about boards for athlonXP processors, such as the 7NNXPV (nf2 chipset), and the 7n400e, as well as the 7NF-RZ that.. I think, we sent ALL of them back to SED. I can't speak for the quality of TODAY's gigabyte boards, but, when you've got 20% failure rate in a product, you tend to not buy that product anymore, however, you have to look at that failure rate only if it's with a large sample..a single motherboard from a single manufacturer equals 100% failure, but that doesn't mean that you, personally, just don't have a lemon.

When you buy 1 motherboard a year, it's easy to not see patterns in quality. When you buy 3,000.. you do. IS abit the best brand? Surely not. Are they total garbage that should not be purchased? Again, surely not. My point, that you missed, was.."how reliable is your board when you don't mess with it, and just use it as it is intended?"

For our servers, I've had to replace 1 motherboard under warranty, out of all 3 brands we use, in 5 years. :)

The difference is, I spend $500-$2000 for a server motherboard, so I expect them to last longer.

the article steve linked said:
[As you can see, only one manufacturer really stands out. ABIT has a much higher failure rate than any other manufacturer. The origin of this problem is the failure rate of their best seller the UL8 Socket 939 based on ULI chipset that reaches 9.6%. We can see, however, that the third best seller of the manufacturer, the KN8 nForce 4, is only at 0.8%. In the next paragraph, we will study the failure rates of several models from each of the manufacturers. At least 100 units of each products listed below must have been sold to be included to these statistics.]
Click to expand...
See what that says? The ULI CHIPSET is causing their boards to screw up. Is that abit's fault? Or ULI? 9.6% failure rate, is unacceptable, so that tells me .. "don't buy a motherboard with a uli chipset" not "don't buy an abit"
it also tells me something I already know.. nforce4 boards are pretty damn stable (0.8%) including ones from abit.
I had nothing but issues with those NF2 based gigabyte boards.. the nf4 based gigabytes might be awesome. Part of the reason we still won't use gigabyte products is my experience with dealing with their support department. They wanted to charge me $25 to replace a failed motherboard that was UNDER WARRANTY.
 
Abit IS7, although I'm using it now, it is not 100% stable.
Abit IC7-G, I killed this on accident, plugged a fan in wrong.
Abit IC7-Max3, inexplicably died, have not been able to figure out why.
 
:CLIFF NOTES:

Cyber hasn't bought an Abit desktop board lately but is an expert on them and everything else.

If one manufacturer makes a board that I can throw out the window and beat the crap out of like my Biostar, and if another manufacturer makes a board which may have alot of bells and whistles, but might blow up when you whisper at it, guess which board I'm going to buy?

:CLIFF NOTES:

Here's my last reply to you Cyber, because frankly....the Keyboard Warrior, E-Penis banter is getting old, and I'm sure both of us are sick of writing novels.

You stated yourself that you haven't purchased an Abit motherboard lately, yet you obviously know that it was my error and not a possible quality issue with Abit. !!!!!!ism at its best. One could easily blame your failures with Gigabyte boards with your lack of experience/knowledge. I've never had a Gigabyte board die on me.....which must mean you don't know what you're doing right? FYI, I'm not a big fan of GB either. Of course you're going to have less failures with Server/Enterprise class boards. We're talking desktop boards here in desktop cases, not server cases with 5000RPM fans and dual power supplies.

I would say the majority of people on this forum and those who visit forums like this are overclockers. We know what we're doing and we don't need you to preach to us about warnings and disclaimers about overclocking. The voltages I used in overclocking the chipset were only one increment higher than stock setting. I have an active fan blowing on the OTES and it is cool to the touch. I am using one of the best air-cooled heat sinks out there. PCI bus frequency was left at stock and all bus frequency multipliers were set to X3. I'm also using a highly-rated power supply hooked up to a UPS with line-conditioning. We're overclocking CPU and memory here, I can accept it if one of them dies.

I have only had one board die from overclocking and yes it was a ULI chipset.

This is not an OEM board. IT DOES NOT HAVE AN OEM-STYLE BIOS. Sure, all the manufacturers put in their disclaimers how they're not responsible for overclocking........etc. The BIOS has all the overclocking features enabled in it.

Although you look up overclocking with a frown, it is an excellent tool to determine if a board is up to snuff, or if it has design problems. If I have board (A)bit, and it has problems with an overclocked setting and then I have board (B)iostar, and it works fine at that same overclock without onboard components dying, which do you think is a more stable board? We're talking using the exact same components on both builds. Look at the reviews for the Biostar AM2 and there are very few complaints about actual hardware failures. The reviews are no longer up for the NF2-M2, but there were a substantially hgher number of hardware failures among those reviews. Of course, there were plenty of responses to those negative reviews by people like you, who know think they know everything, and automatically assume it has to be user error, despite the fact that other users had the same problem.



CyberDeus-RagDoll said:
Would the part I highlighted be an example of your posting in a mature manner?
I said it was childish and irresponsible.. I didn't say "d00d j00 are a t0t/-\L n00b, fuckwit"
I know how to read, and as you can see, I also know how to write. I am a published author, and speak and read 13 languages. (like most authors, I'm accustomed to letting an editorial & proofreading department check my spelling however, so on the off chance I have a typo here, don't get all bent out of shape.)
My statement was mature in nature. I speculated that, since you are OVERCLOCKING your motherboard (i.e. taking it out of it's designed specifications) that you are adding to the likelihood of failure. Professionally, we do not overclock our systems that go out the door, because we don't like them coming back for repair. My personal experience is that overclocking shortens the life of hardware by at least 50% (The brightest candle burns the shortest time, and all).

Additionally, how would my pocket book be hurting? End users (my clients) couldn't tell a motherboard from a harddrive, let alone know what abit vs asus vs ecs are..I've never EVER EVER lost a sale because of the brand of motherboard I use in my systems. You know why? I've never TOLD a client what brand of motherboard I use in my systems, because.. they've never asked. I could say Flaggenheimer brand motherboards, and they'd believe me, because they just don't know, or even care. I have built up a reputation of knowing what I'm doing.

You think non computer geeks ever even HEARD of abit? 95% of the people out there think dell makes their own computers. Geesh. (Wait.. you're not one of the 95%, are you?)

I think the only brand issue I ever get asked is "amd or intel" and "ati or nvidia"

Our customer base has split into the $499 computer and the $4,999 computer. I don't personally quote each system built, but I just don't see any "gaming" computers going out the door with 1KW psus, and SLI 8800GTX's.. I doubt we've sold a single sli system.

I've had 3 bad abit boards out of 279.. that's around a 1% failure rate. Now, there IS some error in that rate, because, well, we don't keep repair logs the same way for systems that were out of warranty, so I'd have to check those.. I've had 3 failed abit boards, that I've had to replace for clients UNDER WARRANTY.. Our typical warranty for systems we sell is 2 years, but we've been keeping this database for 5, so, extrapolating the 2/5 numbers, that means that in 5 years time, out of the 279 boards we sold, theoretically, 8-9 of them failed.

My company makes a FORTUNE, and to be blunt, probably has 100x the data collected (versus the link that steeeeeve posted) as to what is a good quality vs a bad quality product, based on the sheer number of computers we sell every year. (in the thousands), and abit is showing better reliability than asus, msi, and, the brand we will never use again.. Gigabyte. We have around a 20% failure rate with gigabyte products, however, in all fairness, all of those boards were the same series, and were ALL based on nvidia chipsets, which, truly, I think are the culprit with the problems we had with these boards, of course, I'm also talking about boards for athlonXP processors, such as the 7NNXPV (nf2 chipset), and the 7n400e, as well as the 7NF-RZ that.. I think, we sent ALL of them back to SED. I can't speak for the quality of TODAY's gigabyte boards, but, when you've got 20% failure rate in a product, you tend to not buy that product anymore, however, you have to look at that failure rate only if it's with a large sample..a single motherboard from a single manufacturer equals 100% failure, but that doesn't mean that you, personally, just don't have a lemon.

When you buy 1 motherboard a year, it's easy to not see patterns in quality. When you buy 3,000.. you do. IS abit the best brand? Surely not. Are they total garbage that should not be purchased? Again, surely not. My point, that you missed, was.."how reliable is your board when you don't mess with it, and just use it as it is intended?"

For our servers, I've had to replace 1 motherboard under warranty, out of all 3 brands we use, in 5 years. :)

The difference is, I spend $500-$2000 for a server motherboard, so I expect them to last longer.


See what that says? The ULI CHIPSET is causing their boards to screw up. Is that abit's fault? Or ULI? 9.6% failure rate, is unacceptable, so that tells me .. "don't buy a motherboard with a uli chipset" not "don't buy an abit"
it also tells me something I already know.. nforce4 boards are pretty damn stable (0.8%) including ones from abit.
I had nothing but issues with those NF2 based gigabyte boards.. the nf4 based gigabytes might be awesome. Part of the reason we still won't use gigabyte products is my experience with dealing with their support department. They wanted to charge me $25 to replace a failed motherboard that was UNDER WARRANTY.
Click to expand...
 
Steeeeve said:
I just looked up some interesting facts. Seems like abit is all or nothing.

http://www.behardware.com/news/imprimer/8553/
- MSI : 2.49%
- ASUSTeK : 2.60%
- ASRock : 2.69%
- Gigabyte : 2.95%
- ABIT : 5.13%
Click to expand...
whilst it's interesting it shows how 1 popular (cheap) but potentially unreliable (9.6% - how many were truly faulty, how many were returned because they don't overclock well, how many were user error etc.) can influence the overall results.
On the other hand Asus has an expensive mobo in those stats with over 30% failure rate but because they won't have sold many of them pro rata it doesn't have much effect on the overall rating ...

It's lies, damn lies & statistics ..
 
MassiveOverkill said:
You stated yourself that you haven't purchased an Abit motherboard lately, yet you obviously know that it was my error and not a possible quality issue with Abit.
Click to expand...

If you "learn how to read" (to quote you) you'll see that I said, that it MIGHT be you, not is DEFINATELY you. Go back, and read it again. I'll save you the trouble, here it is.
Perhaps your problem, is, in fact, YOU.
Click to expand...
Perhaps Perhaps is a word that indicates UNCERTAINTY. As on "possibly" or "maybe" or "could be"


One could easily blame your failures with Gigabyte boards with your lack of experience/knowledge.
Click to expand...
Actually, the gigabyte board failures were because of their interaction with the NF2 chipset. The reason the boards failed is not because of gigabyte's error, IMHO. It's nvidia's.
I'm pretty sure I made that clear in my post...

The reason I won't BUY gigabyte products anymore is not because of the failure of the boards, but because of the service impression I got from their rma department. I didn't get into details about that, but, gigabyte, when I tried to send back 3 failed boards, wanted to hit me with a $25 a POP service charge for returns of defective merchandise for EXCHANGE. This was for boards that cost $70. Even a 25% restocking charge would have only been $17.50, but restocking charges should only apply for, you know, if I bought something and decided I didn't need it, and sent it back.


I've never had a Gigabyte board die on me.....which must mean you don't know what you're doing right?
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And how many gigabyte boards have you owned? I've owned around probably 700, hell,
pre-athlon XP, they were about the only brand I used (that and unfortunately. lets see.. FIC, Soyo, and asus) I think the sheer volume of what I do imparts some knowledge that can only be obtained through experience. When you do something 700 times, you might learn a bit more than someone who did it twice. But pre-athlon XP, I was also buying them from a LOCAL supplier who literally would come right to my shop to hand deliver them, so if something was wrong with one, HE dealt with it, not me. When we moved up in the world, and got "bigger" I started buying up the chain a little, then found out what Gigabyte is like to deal with directly, which has soured me to them. They may be a great company NOW, I wouldn't know.. I don't care if they send a stripper to personally pickup and exchange every failed motherboard, I still won't give them my business because of their CUSTOMER INTERACTION.


Of course you're going to have less failures with Server/Enterprise class boards.
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Because of better construction? Or because you can't overclock them? I think it's the non overclockability and the fact that the boards do not have any "tweaks" that allow you to do "Risky" stuff.
Hardware is built as cheaply as possible.

We're talking desktop boards here in desktop cases, not server cases with 5000RPM fans and dual power supplies.
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I do not know of any server we have with 5000rpm fans. In fact, our servers are using passive heatsinks + one slow fan for the case. The psu's have small fans as well. This tells me you do not know about server construction.

The 75 servers WE own personally in the company (and 25 more i'm in the process of building right now to deploy elsewhere for OUR company) . I think the largest fan is one of these .. These are FANTASTIC 80mm fans for lowish noise, and good airflow, and Of the 2-3,000 of them i've bought, I really don't hear a about the failures in them from the feedback of the technicians. Asking my Chief tech right now, he says that "those fans rock"


I would say the majority of people on this forum and those who visit forums like this are overclockers.
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I would agree that this is a forum for overclockers. However, I would also state that the FIRST STEP of configuring a computer that you intend to overclock is......

1) Make sure it runs stable at stock speeds.
Did you do this? From your post, I don't see that you did..


I do not frown on overclocking. I frown on overclocking machines we send out to clients. Overclocking is for getting something extra for "nothing". Why would I want to give my clients an $80 processor set to run like a $300 processor. That means I don't get to sell them a $300 processor! I overclock, I know how to overclock, I've had some incredible overclocks. But when I am overclocking and the machine is acting strange, I don't say it's because the hardware is crap, I say it's because I'm pushing the hardware farther than it can go!

You might understand overclocking, but you don't understand how a business works. Giving someone a $2000 configuration performance wise, by selling them what you would normally sell for $1500 at $1500 means you didn't sell that $2000 config.
If I got someone who wants to play Crysis, Stalker, Oblivion, or "insert name of higher end game here" then I sell them a HIGH END computer, not a low end computer configured to RUN like a high end machine. Also, I think, since we only use retail processors in our machines, the voiding the warranties from intel is a bad move. I know, you could say "But intel will never know" - the difference is.. I'LL know, and I won't commit fraud.
If they want the performance of a C2D-E6700, they'll have to BUY a C2D-E6700


We know what we're doing
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You MIGHT know what you are doing. I question your methodology and analytical abilities.

The voltages I used in overclocking the chipset were only one increment higher than stock setting.
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YOUR SIG said:
Abit NF-M2-AM2
3600x2 Brisbane 300x9.5 1.38V
eVGA 7900GTO
2x1024 Super Talent DDR2-667 @ DDR2-814
Seagate 7200.10 320 gigger
Enhance 500w PS
SFF Club Member
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300MHZ "fsb" [I know, not the right term, but still convenient for me]
and 1.38 v is just over stock?
There's no increments before that to the stock speed?

I mean, from what I'm reading, that processor (I don't have one handy) is a 200 x9.5 @ 1.25V It seems to me that you are adding 50% clock, and 10% voltage..
I wouldn't call that a "minor" oc.. It's not major, either, but it's not, by any means, a slight overclock.



This is not an OEM board. IT DOES NOT HAVE AN OEM-STYLE BIOS
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What does that have to do with anything. Going back to the car analogy, your car can have a nitrous system added (figuring an analogy to LN2 extreme cooling) to it, or even without modification, you can drive your car at 120mph, that doesn't change the fact that you are more likely to 1) crash 2) cause extra wear and tear on the vehicle.

is your point that, since the options are there, you MUST use them? Well, the OPTION to stick your hand into running water while putting a fork in an electrical outlet is possible, too, that doesn't mean you MUST do it. I CAN drive my car at 120mph, but it doesn't mean I SHOULD. Just because the manufacturer didn't put a governor on the machine doesn't mean that they recommend that "incorrect" usage


Although you look up overclocking with a frown, it is an excellent tool to determine if a board is up to snuff, or if it has design problems. If I have board (A)bit, and it has problems with an overclocked setting and then I have board (B)iostar, and it works fine at that same overclock without onboard components dying, which do you think is a more stable board?
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I think your reasoning is flawed. I can drive a lamborghini @ 200 mph, but I wouldn't call a lamborghini a reliable car, super enthusiast vehicles are FAMOUSLY known for always "being in the shop" My "stable" beater car that can only do the speed limit is reliable.

Which car would you call reliable.. My dodge viper that I drive on the track and have to get serviced every 3 months (because it's been heavily modified, and I don't think is indicative of the overall quality of the product) or my jeep grand cherokee with 1.15 million (yes, I said million. the odometer has rolled over, I watched it do it, i got out of the car when I was on I-10 in texas, and just did a walkaround figuring "heh, what a vehicle) miles which hasn't had any service except maintaining "wearables" (brakes, spark plug, oil changes) for 3 years?

I'd say the jeep, which looks beat to hell, has been driven off the side of a mountain, has towed 7000 lbs UPHILL through arizona (i-17 from phoenix to flagstaff - if you know the path, you'll know the challenge..!) and is potentially the longest running GC in existence might be the most reliable. The difference? I can't do 180mph in it, and it doesn't do 0-60 in 3 seconds, and output 700 horsepower at 60mph.
 
I will ditto about Junkabyte. I will actually add and say that their boards DO suck and their RMA is terrible. TERRIBLE. I returned a board under warranty. Paid going AND coming (The only other place I've paid coming was Asus) and when it arrived it still didn't work!!!

J U N K A B Y T E Every board I've bought from them had issues within a 6 month - 1 year time frame. NIC going, sound, something. JUNKABYTE and what!

I <3 Abit and will admit that I think they haven't been on top of their game but I still would take them over a lot of other companies. They just need to work on fully functional bios' when they release boards. I aslo think they should dump the fatal name and put that $ to work on the board themselves.
 
MC FLMJIG said:
I will ditto about Junkabyte. I will actually add and say that their boards DO suck and their RMA is terrible. TERRIBLE. I returned a board under warranty. Paid going AND coming (The only other place I've paid coming was Asus) and when it arrived it still didn't work!!!

J U N K A B Y T E Every board I've bought from them had issues within a 6 month - 1 year time frame. NIC going, sound, something. JUNKABYTE and what!
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Seems MCFLMJIG agrees with me about not only gigabyte quality, but gigabyte service quality.
By your reasoning, MassiveOverkill (heh.. with a user name like that, it's hard to believe you play things conservatively) that must mean HE too, doesn't know what he's doing.

I can't say I've had as much an issue with quality has he has, as we've got 80&#37; of them that DIDN'T fail under warranty.
 
I don't know if they have changed. I have not bought a board from them in 2 years. I'll be honest. I'm "afraid" of the issues and most def afraid of their RMA policy.

I'm thinking of going Intel and looked at the DS3 but... I think I'd rather take my chance with the Fatality Abit for around the same price than that one! lol Funny thing is that board hasn't received many good reviews from sites or ppl! lol (I remember that the ABit AN8 had tons of BAD reviews but I bought that and the AN8 SLI and I have to say they were both reliable and very good OCers!) Heck I may gave the Tforce a shot over all of them! Well, DFI has that new 965 coming. Has me drooling a bit. I just can't see paying more than $125 for a board. Like Eclipse once said.
 
I stopped using ABIT when they got bought out, switched over to primarily ASUS now.

Didn't help the mediocre Hardocp review of their 965 board.
 
Menelmarar said:
I stopped using ABIT when they got bought out, .
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Why?
They've had major investment & it shows in the no. of new boards & time to market.
Yes, the BIOS team seem to be a bit behind the design/production guys but even there there are signs of improvement.
 
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