no more asus for me. i'm a gigabyte believer now!

[jkw]

i've been building a new higher end system this month, and went through a hell of an asus nightmare. i wanted to go with an intel proc, and ati gpu, so i bought an Asus Maximus Formula, a QX9650, 8GB of Corsair DDR2-1066 Dominator, two 3870x2 cards, Tt 1200W psu, 150GB Raptors in Raid 0, etc.

the Asus mobo sucked! it wouldn't run with more than one stick of ram, couldn't make it through an OS install without spontaneous reboot, lockup, or BSOD, wouldn't run with 2 video cards, didn't like more than one HD plugged in at once, and didn't like the QX9650. i tried a dozen different sticks of ram, and it didn't like any of them. it wouldn't even post with a stick of ocz. i tried a half dozen different HDs, a Q6600, two different 3870x2 cards, two 1000W+ quality psus, and it didn't like any of the hardware. ALL of the parts were known good parts too that ran fine in other systems. i tried early bios, recent bios (809), and even beta bios that an asus tech sent to some guy who then reposted it on the asus support forum. i tried every possible combination of bios settings too.

so, after a couple days of struggling with it, i figured i maybe just got a dud mobo, and RMA'd it. got another Asus Maximus Formula, and had EXACTLY the same problems. RMA'd that one too. so, i got one of the "top rated" P5K mobos. same problems! i did finally get winddows installed, but couldn't OC my QX9650 by more than 200mhz. at this point, i was ready to just give up and buy a dell. after reading reviews on the egg though, i decided to try a Gigabyte EX38-DQ6 mobo. got it last week, and installed it a couple days ago. before booting up for the first time, i plugged in 6 drives, all of my usb devices, 4GB of Corsair, and both 3870x2 cards. it started right up, recognized everything, breezed through the Raid setup, and the windows install. i've been pounding on it all weekend, running benchmarks, photoshop, games, etc. its been ROCK SOLID, with nary a hiccup. i can easily hit 4.0Ghz on air, and all of my ram has OC'd well - easily OC all of it at 20-25% above spec.

i'm sold on Gigabyte now. no more Asus for me.

 

[Met-AL]

Hmm... did I read your post right, 3 bad motherboards in a row?

Sounds to me like it wasn't the Asus motheboard that was the problem after all and something else instead was at fault... RAM? PSU?

 

[colinstu]

Don't forget to change your sig

Did you ever try to run your ram at DDR2 800?

3 motherboards "dead" in a row... that's not a motherboard problem. Bios not liking something or something wrong in the bios...

Either way, good that you got a working board.

Gigabyte and Asus are respectable brands, I still prefer gigabyte because of looks. (cheap Asus boards look like crap, not till that $140+ range till you can get their basic decent looking boards).

 

[jkw]

Hmm... did I read your post right, 3 bad motherboards in a row?

Sounds to me like it wasn't the Asus motheboard that was the problem after all and something else instead was at fault... RAM? PSU?

yep, three in a row. all of the parts were known good parts that worked in another system.

 

[jkw]

Don't forget to change your sig

Did you ever try to run your ram at DDR2 800?

3 motherboards "dead" in a row... that's not a motherboard problem. Bios not liking something or something wrong in the bios...

thanks for the heads up about the sig.

yes, i tried running the ram at 800, and at 667. tried undervolting, overvolting, all sorts of timings, running on auto settings, and every possible manual setting.

i tried early bios, recent bios, beta bios, etc. i'm convinced it was a mobo/asus problem, because all of the hardware was known good, and its all working just fine now.

 

[DerComissar]

I had three bad EVGA 6800 Ultra's in a row, all sent to me by EVGA. Tested them in different systems, had the second card checked by an independent computer shop. The third card was claimed to be "personally checked and tested" by a member of EVGA's staff. It arrived to me still shrink-wrapped, with a missing capacitor. Needless to say, it didn't work at all.
My point is don't automatically doubt someone if they have multiple rma's. There are some unreputable companies and vendors out there too

 

[jkw]

My point is don't automatically doubt someone if they have multiple rma's. There are some unreputable companies and vendors out there too

i'm sure there are bad batches of products because of assembly line problems, bad batch of components, or maybe a box/pallet full of product was subjected to extreme heat, cold, electrical or magnetic fields, etc.

and then you have issues like the great leaky capacitor fiasco. back in the midst of the problem period, i actually had 19 mobos die in less than a year because of bad caps. the 20th mobo lasted several years and then leaked.

 

[toddw]

Man you got a lot of parts to play with. 19 mobos in a year? dozens of sticks of ram? 3870x2's, two 1k PSUs, etc, etc.

pfft, way before I did all that I would have gotten a dell. I haven't had to try so many different parts in 10 years of self builds. wow. Way to persevere.

Edit: Yeah I haven't heard one bad thing about either X38 gigabyte board. Would have the DS4 myself if the 790i preview didn't happen on the day I was going to order.

 

[jkw]

Man you got a lot of parts to play with. 19 mobos in a year? dozens of sticks of ram? 3870x2's, two 1k PSUs, etc, etc.

the 20 mobos were PCs for my work lab. bought all of them at the same time.

btw, back in the RDRAM days, i went through 3 gigabyte mobos that were all DOA. i eventually chalked those up to poor handling and packaging by ibuypower.

as far as the ram goes, its so cheap these days, and everybody has awesome rebates. its hard to NOT buy more ram every time i go to microcenter or order something from newegg or ZZF.

with all of the spare parts i have sitting around, i need to build an matx system, or maybe buy one of those pc workbenches and set up a test/reference system ... with a gigabyte mobo of course. lol