Never again with Gigabyte.

S

shaggy77

Gawd
Joined
Jul 2, 2005
Messages
803
Hi,

[valley girl talk]

So this is like going to should like a flame thread but like it isn't...

[/valley girl talk]


Not like I post much on the [H] but my main computer seem to have had a slight motherboard problem. The board was a Gigabyte P35-DS3R with a 4 gb of Corsair XMS2 RAm and a Q6600. This problem started approximately a month ago to boot. I generally blow out my PC approximately once a month to keep the dust, dirt and general filth down inside. I take it back upstairs, plug all the wires back in, and power up but nothing. So I say "huh" and wonder what the problem is.

So I take the rig back downstairs and start pulling apart. I noticed a slight electronic order but nothing to really be alarmed about. However near the memory and processor the voltage controllers (as it turned out Google is awesome :) ) reside. The odor is a bit more stronger. Nothing thinking of it CPU and RAM, I figured the board cooked.

Well I order up one an ASUS P5Q Pro from the egg. Still the same result. From looking around on the net, I am thinking I got a DOA board which happens from time to time. Now this is kind of an important part of the story. As luck would have it, Micro Center is only 45 minutes away (38 minutes if I really step on it) for me. I drove down to pick an E8400 since they were cheap. Still nothing. Then I thought it was the video card. Back to micro center. Still nothing. Now thinking PSU, once again back to MC. Still the same result. (I got a nice Corsair HX520 Mod PSU ) When it was all said and done, I said to myself back to Newegg with a DOA. I will pay a slightly higher price from a board from a local place if there is a DOA issue.

So I go to a local shop and buy a P5Q. Once again the same result. I said screw I am going to RMA the memory thinking it crapped out. It took about 2 1/2 weeks but I got new memory from Corsair. (It came last night.) Once again, nothing. The only thing left was the CPU. I took out the Q6600 and put in the E8400. Bingo fires right up.

Now the second fun part comes. Believe it or not, the transition from P35 to P45 in Vista was not that bad. I remember the days of reformat and reinstall for the MB swap. However, this was not that bad. It took about an hour since I was only missing about a month's worth of updates and downloads.

As for Gigabyte, I have my board with them right now. I don't know when I will see it. I just know it cost me a bunch of money I really didn't have in the first place. It turned out it fried my cpu and RAM but left the video alone. I spent 400 in total to fix my PC. If GB turns around and claims I modded the board or not "their fault" I think will lose it on them :)

Big thanks to the guys who are out there and do hard mods to boards. They helped me out figuring out the problem. No I didn't do any thing of a mod to my GB board but Goggle has a ton of info. In short, it looked like a voltage controller fried and took out the CPu and RAM in one shot. Thanks GB! I think I will stick with Asus from now on and I am not saying they are without problems but I never lost a CPU and memory with them :)
 
did you bother telling gigabyte that the board fried your components?
 
Hi,

Sojuuk said:
did you bother telling gigabyte that the board fried your components?
Click to expand...

Well I didn't think the both the CPU and RAM were fried at the same time. Multiple failure cases are hard to diagnose sometimes. If I had known this, I would have let Gigabyte know. I doubt they would have reimbursed my loss though.

rxteenager said:
just a case of bad luck? i mean it could happen to anyone with any brand right?
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It is interesting in the fact that yes my CPU was overclocked but it voltage was below stock VID. The RAM was never overvolted. There was little stress on the regulator to begin with. However you are right it is possible of a case of bad luck. However the board ran well with other CPUs over a year without problems until the dusting.

Seeing other posts about Gigabyte P35 board dying tends to make me think there might be a related problem. Who knows. I am still waiting on Gigabyte to at least give me an update on the what is going on with my RMA. It is nearly impossible to get something out of them. No Emails stating they received the RMA or they are shipping out a replacement board. Nothing. I personally am done with GB's sub par performance. Both boards I owned were ugh at best.
 
I've had three gigabyte P35 boards die on me. They start with hard drive corruption and end with boot failure. I'm done with them.
 
Hmms not very encouraging considering I was considering the EP45-UD3R/P mobos :(
I'm hoping this just a case of some bad luck... :(
 
i cant possibly see why gigabyte boards would fail like this, they seem to be using the utmost highest end components available
 
Some friends and I have have the hard drive corruption problem with ASUS P35 boards. I have a Giga-Byte EP45-UD3R on the way. Iono something to me just seems fishy about the P35 boards. I'm hoping the P45 boards are better.
 
So let's see here....

Everything was working fine before you took it downstairs / outside / wherever to "blow" it out. Then when you put it back together the shit hit the fan (so to speak).

Sounds to me like it's user error through and through. You could have blown some metal fragment sitting in the bottom of your case into just the right spot to have caused a short the next time you powered up your machine. You could have had some sort of a static related failure... I see endless possibilities where the motherboard isn't directly at fault.

When all is said and done what I gathered from your post is the machine was working fine until you went at it with your air compressor or can o' air or whatever, and then suddenly it didn't. That's one hell of a coincidence..... ;)

*shrug* Just my $0.02
 
my p35-ds3r is working awesomely. and i agree with ^^^^blue falcon on this one
 
I built two systems for friends over a year ago using the exact same board. Both systems use Q6600 processors, G.SKILL DDR2 RAM, and Corsair HX620 PSUs. Both systems have been running fine since day one without a fault. I am personally using a Gigabyte P45 board in my personal work system at home as well with no problems.

I would concur with Blue Falcon on the possibility of compressed air being the cause of the problem. Besides the issue of blowing who knows what everywhere, compressed air is a tremendous static generator. At my former workplace we used to ground our air lines and keep the pressure below 30 PSI just to minimize the risk of ESD damage.

All that being said, use whatever components you feel comfortable with, it is your money after all. Please don't jump to conclusions and go blaming Gigabyte, when the most likely scenario appears to be a technician induced failure.
 
I've had nothing but positive experiences from my gigabyte boards over the past decade.:confused:
 
Compressed air is a terrible thing to do to electronics. It is full of static electricity, and all it really does is move the dust/pet hair/whatever around (ie. you didn't want it in your computer, now it's in your lungs). People also use the compressed air too close to the electronics they're trying to clean, so it jams dust into areas it normally wouldn't get into which can cause a short that wouldn't usually occur. Don't get me started with the idiots that will spray the can upside down for the 'frozen air' effect...

When cleaning a PC I usually use a vacuum cleaner with the plastic crevice tool attachment. All of the dust goes into the vacuum cleaner's bag (you wanted to get rid of it, right?) and you don't have to worry about static.
 
SharpieFiend said:
Compressed air is a terrible thing to do to electronics. It is full of static electricity, and all it really does is move the dust/pet hair/whatever around (ie. you didn't want it in your computer, now it's in your lungs). People also use the compressed air too close to the electronics they're trying to clean, so it jams dust into areas it normally wouldn't get into which can cause a short that wouldn't usually occur. Don't get me started with the idiots that will spray the can upside down for the 'frozen air' effect...

When cleaning a PC I usually use a vacuum cleaner with the plastic crevice tool attachment. All of the dust goes into the vacuum cleaner's bag (you wanted to get rid of it, right?) and you don't have to worry about static.
Click to expand...

I haven't any problems using an air compressor to blow dust out of the pcs that come into the shop I work at (nor have any of the other three techs. We use it at 80 PSI and ditched using the canned because some of the cases we see have so much dust in them, you don't even want to touch them. Anyway we have yet to damage a single system and we've been doing it for over a year. We also do it outside at our loading dock so we don't have to worry about it getting everywhere in the store.

As far as gigabyte goes. I have the GA-m57-SLI board and have it had for a year with no problems of any kind with it.
 
SoAndSo said:
my p35-ds3r is working awesomely. and i agree with ^^^^blue falcon on this one
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My p35-ds3r is still purring along just fine. Running 5 hard drives, and an e2180 that requires more voltage than my q6600 does. Next time use fan filters, then you dont have to ever open the case to blow it out.
 
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