Falcon Northwest FragBox 2 Evaluation

Its sad to hear that a company like Falcon would ship a system with that kind of problem and for the price that you pay.

Its good to hear that they are going all out to back up their product, which imo is a great thing. However, they should have done a stress test before shipping.

I may have skip over it but how long did it take for the order to reach its owner?
 
Sad to see the stability issues, but not surprising with that motherboard.
 
Sz1hart said:
Its sad to hear that a company like Falcon would ship a system with that kind of problem and for the price that you pay.

Its good to hear that they are going all out to back up their product, which imo is a great thing. However, they should have done a stress test before shipping.

I may have skip over it but how long did it take for the order to reach its owner?
Click to expand...
21 days.
 
Wow, that's kind of excessive if you ask me but given the board they chose for it, I'm not suprised.

Chipset issues aside, now I understand why Falcon PCs cost so much more than their parted cousins. You're paying for the support. For those not techinically inclined that support is great! Better than your run of the mill "Run the restore CD and call us back". Overnight shipping BOTH ways?! :eek: That's some service!
 
Really nice review, quite in depth.

Glad to see these types of PC manufacturers being tested.

I was curious how falcon may have performed for the price they ask. While the machine may have had a hangup or two, the company was well on track. They have always been on top of the game when I call up to speak to them as well.

Very happy with my fragbox 2 DIY, strange though, never experienced anything that your machine did with that same mobo....hope that I am not jinxed. loved my fragbox so much i sold off all of my Tower PC's and gave my fragbox the gift of WC'ing.

box.JPG



Keep the reviews coming. How does falcon support DIY upgrading? does that void any warranty that they offer? adding ram changing vid card etc.
 
Let me say this - Falcon is not alone in their issues with that particular MSI Micro ATX Radeon XPress 200 board. I purchased the same board for a friend's system, along with a GeForce 6800 (non-ultra).

Every 1-3 hours while gaming, the system would lock or bluescreen. After running Memtest86+ for 14 hours, ATITool in artifact mode for 12 hours (on a different computer with the same graphics card), trying a different power supply, trying different memory, and trying a different CPU, I simply could not get the system to stop locking up (Warcraft III, Half-Life 2, and CS:S all did it).

At that point, I RMAd the mobo (thanks Newegg). The replacement, however, did exactly the same thing. Different BIOS versions, different ATI driver versions, different ForceWare versions - nothing would stop the lockups.

Based on my experience, I would not purchae the MSI RS480M-IL or ANY Radeon XPRESS motherboard. Compared to the stability and performance I have come to expect from NForce4, the Radeon XPRESS chipset was definately a let-down.

This [H] article seems to confirm my suspicions that there are outstanding issues with the RS480M-IL and certain games.

-- Brian
 
Nice eval, Chris.

I have the good fortune to work in the same office as Morley, and got to play with this system a pretty good while. I'll personally attest to the overall good looks of the system and the warm feeling you get from FNW by looking at all of the stuff that they send with their systems.

I unfortunately also bore witness to the dreaded repeated lock-ups. It's hard to describe the heartbreak and frustration he felt over the system. I'm sure you read about the sentimental value he put on FNW as a company. It's hard to stay objective in situations like that, so a lot of credit goes to Chris on being able to drop the hammer on them.
 
A Falcon-Northwest system has been a dream of mine since I got into gaming in '93. Custom paint jobs and nice layout inside. It makes me unhappy they would choose such a poor mobo for such a promising system.

On another note, I didn't realize how bad ATI chipsets really are currently. Considering they are pushing them for Crossfire, I don't think that is a good way to go in any way with such massive stability issues.

btw, nice review
 
Quite an impressive system at the start, but I must agree with Kyle with regards to the choice of motherboard (or any so-so component) in such an expensive computer. I have visited FNW web site many times over the years checked out the best that can be had. It is sad that a component they approved for use in their premier system has a major flaw that would tarnish their sterling reputation. We all make mistakes; what separates out the exceptional from the average is how they handle said mistake and what steps are taken to minimize future occurrence.
 
Hmm a motherboard with an ATI Chipset having problems with a Nvidia Video Card....


who would of ever though?
 
RadCliffeX said:
Hmm a motherboard with an ATI Chipset having problems with a Nvidia Video Card....


who would of ever though?
Click to expand...


Ya you would have though that Chris Morley would know better than order that combo. In my opinion the review was a bit harsh after all they were trying to make things right and offered to even overnight it! The last system I had built before I started building my own was a Dell and I had way more of a nightmare than what Chris had and I even spent more money on mine if you can believe that. Sigh Guess Chris really wanted to play BF2 :D
 
RadCliffeX said:
Hmm a motherboard with an ATI Chipset having problems with a Nvidia Video Card....


who would of ever though?
Click to expand...
Think about it... in most scenarios, pairing an nF4 board with an ATI graphics card produces good results. It's just that the Xpress200 still needs to be worked on. Asus is coming out with some nF4 mATX boards... maybe that would be a viable solution.

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=15&l3=0&model=766&modelmenu=1
 
Whitewolf said:
Ya you would have though that Chris Morley would know better than order that combo.
Click to expand...

Hmmmmm...I disagree. If this is a system any consumer could configure, it should work well right out of the box, especially considering Falcon's great reputation and the cost of their systems. Chris' decision was fair.

How many folks out there know next to nothing about components when they order a PC? It isn't the consumer's job to make sure everything is compatible unless they are building their own.
 
Thank you for docking Falcon Northwest for using an MSI motherboard! Hopefully this will be a wake up call for them that using crappy parts is unacceptable.
 
Umm, Jetway RS480 MB, Foxconn NF4 MB, Biostar 6100 MB, why aren't they offering any other s939 mATX motherboards, ones that have been working for us over in the SFF forum for months? (well except the biostar which just came out) If they're putting in a mATX board which has no overclocking options, then any of the other boards should be just as good, if not better.
 
Morely,

Do these reviews account for the amount of time it takes for ordering a system to actually having it shipped? I am not concerned by how long it takes to get from point A to my door but instead how much time it takes from the time they charge me/accept my order to when it does actually ship. I would think this falls under the purchasing category. One thing that has put me off buying a system from a builder is some of the better priced ones cannot deliver in a timely manner.
 
Shivetya said:
Morely,

Do these reviews account for the amount of time it takes for ordering a system to actually having it shipped? I am not concerned by how long it takes to get from point A to my door but instead how much time it takes from the time they charge me/accept my order to when it does actually ship. I would think this falls under the purchasing category. One thing that has put me off buying a system from a builder is some of the better priced ones cannot deliver in a timely manner.
Click to expand...
Yes, we do take that into account. Our system arrived on our doorstep 21 days after we ordered it. That was with ground shipping.
 
From the internal pics, the SATA cables are zip-tied pretty tight and folded 180 degrees. Isn't that a big "don't" for SATA?
 
N_Raged said:
From the internal pics, the SATA cables are zip-tied pretty tight and folded 180 degrees. Isn't that a big "don't" for SATA?
Click to expand...
I have personally witnessed SATA cable management to be an issue with large, 10 drive RAID 5 arrays pushing 500MB/s on writes, but have not run into any issues running single drives.
 
Good review. I used to game with a few of the folks from FNW, very good people and they do know there computers! At a small private LAN (~30 people) the dudes from FNW helped folks tweak their setups to get a bit more performance.

I am disappointed/shocked that FNW uses that mobo. Is that the only mobo they are using for the Fragbox2?

 
zoobaby said:
Good review. I used to game with a few of the folks from FNW, very good people and they do know there computers! At a small private LAN (~30 people) the dudes from FNW helped folks tweak their setups to get a bit more performance.

I am disappointed/shocked that FNW uses that mobo. Is that the only mobo they are using for the Fragbox2?

Click to expand...
You can get it in an Intel flavor.
 
I agree with the part about great service, but if you are not a novice then it doesn't make sense to pay for something you won't be using.

awesome review btw.
 
Good review, though I must say I found it a bit harsh. There is no way any OEM can test every possible motherboard, CPU, video card, driver and game combinations for issues or conflict, and the review was raving about the system until BF2 issues arose, and then everything quickly went to hell it seems, nothing else like the support, warranty or extras seemed to hold much weight after that incident.

Not to say that Falcon doesn't share some responsibility, since IMO that MSI board is not what I would consider a hardcore board that's fitting for such a system, and if they had issues with it early on, they should have seriously considered the long run and scrapped it then. But at the same time ALL of us enthusiests have installed some peice of hardware, software, a certain driver version that borked something in our system, be it a game, the OS, or whatever. Theres simply no way for any manufacturer to test every possible scenario that it will see in real world tests, if that was possible, most of us wouldn't be here.

Overall nice review, and nice system, with 1 teaspoon of bad motherboard.


RadCliffeX said:
Hmm a motherboard with an ATI Chipset having problems with a Nvidia Video Card....


who would of ever though?
Click to expand...

So why am I not having problems with a Radeon 9800 Pro stuffed into a nForce2 board? ATi's chipset has been showing signs of issues within itself, not necessarily when used in conjunction with nVidia cards.
 
Quite frankly I'd have loved to hear what FNW would have done after the problem was revealed but before the reviewer called the president directly.

That said, I agree that this isn't the type of motherboard to offer in a gaming system, but the selection for matx boards isn't great... If only DFI were to make a NF4 matx board...
 
The reviewer wrote a good review with a carefully build up conclusion. I hope FNW will stop building this system based on a non-matured motherboard. The incompatibility between the ATI chipset, the NVidia card and the Corsair memory should have been rated "not suitable for release" during quality testing when designing the FragBox 2!

Furthermore, the USB 'bug' in the ATI Xpress 200 chipset is already a well known issue and only this issue should have stopped FNW from shipping the FragBox 2 with the MSI motherboard. When buying a system from these guys for the mentioned amount of money, one may expect a 99% working system (maybe even 100%, but that wouldn't be rational). This means the system builder should not be aware of any known or possible bugs / incompatibilities between the selected parts.

For the [H]ard|OCP crew I would say, keep up the good work! These reviews and the independent view at products is what we customers are looking for.
 
Atarian said:
The reviewer wrote a good review with a carefully build up conclusion. I hope FNW will stop building this system based on a non-matured motherboard. The incompatibility between the ATI chipset, the NVidia card and the Corsair memory should have been rated "not suitable for release" during quality testing when designing the FragBox 2!

Furthermore, the USB 'bug' in the ATI Xpress 200 chipset is already a well known issue and only this issue should have stopped FNW from shipping the FragBox 2 with the MSI motherboard. When buying a system from these guys for the mentioned amount of money, one may expect a 99% working system (maybe even 100%, but that wouldn't be rational). This means the system builder should not be aware of any known or possible bugs / incompatibilities between the selected parts.

For the [H]ard|OCP crew I would say, keep up the good work! These reviews and the independent view at products is what we customers are looking for.
Click to expand...
To FNW's credit we were informed several times that they have not come across this issue either from systems in the field or their internal validation. However, BF2 is a newer title and they have not done extensive testing with it. They did catch some issues with the design early on with Serious Sam 2, but were able to resolve it with MSI.
 
I did raise an eyebrow when I saw the MSI board in the initial configuration, as I'd heard bad things about it.

On another note, you mentioned you started a gaming PC company, Morley. What was it? (Sorry if this is common knowledge)
 
FNW really should not have shipped a motherboard using the ATI SB400 southbridge. It is known to have issues. Had they shipped a board using the ULi southbridge, you likely would not have had these issues.
 
Lately I get confused when issues with hardware are blamed on specific games. FNW is pointing to BF2 as a stressful game that could crash their designed system.

How can it be that (only) a single game could crash your hardware? And why would MSI / ATI / FNW patch their motherboard BIOS / drivers for one specific game? For me there are two options:
1) BF2 is not properly designed and not compatible with every MB / graphics / memory chipset available.
2) the hardware used by FNW isn't 100% error free.

If option 1 is true, MSI / ATI / FNW shouldn't waste any time on trying to patch their hardware for a buggy game because this could lead to incompatibilities with proper designed games for the by FNW used hardware platform.

If option 2 is true, FNW should have caught the issue, because as mentioned in the review, the reviewer as a customer specifically stated he wanted a system for playing BF2. It is also mentioned in the review the system was preconfigured with BF2 installed and tweaked for maximum performance. During installing, tweaking and testing BF2 at FNW the system didn't crash a single time? For how long did they test BF2 on this specific system and was this part of the quality control?

I will never accept an excuse like blaming a game for crashing the hardware you bought from a top system builder like FNW!
 
Atarian said:
Lately I get confused when issues with hardware are blamed on specific games. FNW is pointing to BF2 as a stressful game that could crash their designed system.

How can it be that (only) a single game could crash your hardware? And why would MSI / ATI / FNW patch their motherboard BIOS / drivers for one specific game? For me there are two options:
1) BF2 is not properly designed and not compatible with every MB / graphics / memory chipset available.
2) the hardware used by FNW isn't 100% error free.

If option 1 is true, MSI / ATI / FNW shouldn't waste any time on trying to patch their hardware for a buggy game because this could lead to incompatibilities with proper designed games for the by FNW used hardware platform.

If option 2 is true, FNW should have caught the issue, because as mentioned in the review, the reviewer as a customer specifically stated he wanted a system for playing BF2. It is also mentioned in the review the system was preconfigured with BF2 installed and tweaked for maximum performance. During installing, tweaking and testing BF2 at FNW the system didn't crash a single time? For how long did they test BF2 on this specific system and was this part of the quality control?

I will never accept an excuse like blaming a game for crashing the hardware you bought from a top system builder like FNW!
Click to expand...
FNW never really tried to pass the buck, I think that they were caught unawares due to the recent release of this game. You can have game specific incompatibilities...
 
Morley said:
FNW never really tried to pass the buck, I think that they were caught unawares due to the recent release of this game. You can have game specific incompatibilities...
Click to expand...

OK, but then you shouldn't blame FNW's system for the problems you were having with BF2! I would say let EA patch BF2 (or whoever developed it for them). To my believe game specific incompatibilities cannot be accounted to hardware designers.

Don't get me wrong, I would and I really credit FNW for trying to patch their system to work reliable when running BF2 and the way they gave support to [H]ard|OCP as a customer is honourable!
 
Atarian said:
OK, but then you shouldn't blame FNW's system for the problems you were having with BF2! I would say let EA patch BF2 (or whoever developed it for them). To my believe game specific incompatibilities cannot be accounted to hardware designers.

Don't get me wrong, I would and I really credit FNW for trying to patch their system to work reliable when running BF2 and the way they gave support to [H]ard|OCP as a customer is honourable!
Click to expand...

We specifically asked FNW for a system to play BF2 on. They sold us a system to play BF2 on. The system has issues that looks as if they may not be solved. When I paid the $3000 to FNW, I expected to get a system that played BF2 and we did not. You can spin it how you want, but bottom line the customer did not get what he paid for an it is FNW's responsibility. As stated in evaluation, I would not put my company's reputation on the line with an ATI chipset leading the way.
 
Morley said:
And that really is the bottom line.

We can, as enthusiasts, debate who is to blame for the issues we encountered, but in the end we spent $3200 on a system for a specific purpose and it did not perform. That's what we base our conclusions on. If I was a customer I wouldn't care who's to blame.
Click to expand...

I totally agree to the review's bottom line and that's why I think it's a good review, because feelings (from the past) towards FNW were put aside and one of the best system builders gets a bad mark.

Now I'm curious what comes next... a different type of system from FNW to give them 'another change' or a similar system from a rival system builder to see if they know how to play the game (in this case BF2 ;) )!
 
Atarian said:
Now I'm curious what comes next... a different type of system from FNW to give them 'another change' or a similar system from a rival system builder to see if they know how to play the game (in this case BF2 ;) )!
Click to expand...

I'd be curious to see how a Mach V does.
 
Or a prebuilt shuttle, as it would be a direct competitor. ST20G5, SN25P or SN26P would be nice to see.
 
Whitewolf said:
But no company or person is perfect. Mistakes are made, even you at [H] have made a few over the years. :D It what is done to correct the mistakes that makes a company or person special. If FNW was willing to correct the mistake but Chris never let them then how would we know the full worth of FNW. I think Chris cut the review short by not following thru all the way. Wouldnt the overall mark be a lot higher if FNW actually got BF2 working properly? But they were not given a reasonable chance to do this.
Click to expand...
I was frustrated to the point of returning it, and that was my feeling as a consumer who spent $3K on a system and several days of troubleshooting on it. At the point I cut the eval period off was when I decided that I would have sent the system back for a refund. I have no doubt that Falcon Northwest would have taken care of me as a customer and supplied me with a different solution, and enumerated as such in the article.
 
I liked the article, and think that the final assessment was fair given that you asked for a machine configured to run a specific app, which it couldn't do.

However, I would've liked to see you continue to work with FNW to get the issue resolved, instead of ending the review. As it stands now, if I am considering buying a FNW system, I have no idea how far tech support will go to help me with a problem like this. Would they just refund me and tell me they can't build what I wanted? Would they offer a motherboard swap? Would they tell me its my problem and do nothing? Something else? Who knows!?? Would've been interesting/informative to see how/if they resolved this specific type of situation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top