Worst Motherboard Brand

Who makes the worst motherboards?

  • Abit

    Votes: 6 3.7%

  • Asus

    Votes: 5 3.1%

  • DFI

    Votes: 7 4.3%

  • MSI

    Votes: 19 11.8%

  • Epox

    Votes: 8 5.0%

  • GIGABYTE

    Votes: 19 11.8%

  • AOpen

    Votes: 8 5.0%

  • BioStar

    Votes: 19 11.8%

  • Soltek

    Votes: 37 23.0%

  • FOXCONN

    Votes: 33 20.5%
  • Total voters
    161
D

Darakian

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Apr 12, 2004
Messages
4,698
Same as the best but for the worst, I thought it would be a good complement. Read on to see other opinions that may not be in the poll.

Link to the best poll:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=994364

Edit:
Ok since I can see this being asked a lot as to why ECS, intel, etc... are not on the list please direct your attention here.
Darakian (a few posts down) said:
Well I made this to complement the best mobos poll so I used the same companies.
Click to expand...
Now I am sorry all your favorite to hate board makers are not up here so can you please just type in your vote if really want to say somthing different.
 
I vote soltek, my friend has gone through 2 soltek boards. One had leaky capacitors after a couple months and the other just didn't work at all.
 
Well I made this to complement the best mobos poll so I used the same companies.
 
Yes, I agree with the others here; ECS should be listed, and ECS is the worst. At least Foxconn can make a motherboard that works as advertised, barring the fact that they don't overclock (which is fine if you don't need to). Also, where's Intel; they make boards too and they're probably on level with Foxconn by making boards that fit the job with no special features.
 
yojimbo said:
Yes, I agree with the others here; ECS should be listed, and ECS is the worst. At least Foxconn can make a motherboard that works as advertised, barring the fact that they don't overclock (which is fine if you don't need to). Also, where's Intel; they make boards too and they're probably on level with Foxconn by making boards that fit the job with no special features.
Click to expand...

If you want a system that will run with ultimate stability, and don't need to OC or mess with stuff, Intel boards are the best way to go. Intel makes very high quality boards, they just aren't targeted at the enthusiast market.

I voted for Foxconn, just because the company has a goofy name, and I've never heard of them before. I only use Asus mobos though, so, I really don't have experience with most on that list.
 
yeah where's ECS.

Having 2 polls: (best & worst) open at the same time, messed me up and I accidentally voted slotek best, when I meant to do worse!! At least I didn't accidentally click Abit (my best) as the worst in here too!
 
Where's the poll for the worst poll creators? Most of the shitty mobo manufacturers aren't listed. pfft.

- JT
 
My Board was made by ECS, and it rox my sox. Not the best quality of course, but pretty good nonetheless. My only 2 complaints so far is that the BIOS won't let me adjust the voltages, and the manual was just put throught a translator (I think Chinese, but it could also be Swedish), which actually makes it kind of fun to read :p. My vote is for FOXCONN.
 
I chose Soltek because of personal experiences but another brand that should be mentioned that I had numerous time more problems with than Soltek is Machspeed.
 
PCChips, definately.
I've had lots of working ECS motherboards, none of my PCChips boards work :-P

I've actually had a few favorable ASRock boards, as well.
 
ScHpAnKy said:
PCChips, definately.
I've had lots of working ECS motherboards, none of my PCChips boards work :-P
Click to expand...

PCChips == Soltek == Amptron == ECS == M-Tech == Mustang == Machspeed

They're all the same company. Haven't produced a board worth wiping your ass with since the original Pentium and their knockoff 'VXPro' chipset. Who needs working IDE?
 
AreEss said:
PCChips == Soltek == Amptron == ECS == M-Tech == Mustang == Machspeed

They're all the same company. Haven't produced a board worth wiping your ass with since the original Pentium and their knockoff 'VXPro' chipset. Who needs working IDE?
Click to expand...

Maybe the same company, but it's obvious that both Soltek and ECS use higher quality components, I can't vouch for "Amptron," "M-Tech," or "Mustang" but the difference between the usability and build quality between a PCC and ECS/Soltek Board is night and day.

Also, it's a well known fact that ECS owns ABIT, and ABIT has excellent motherboards
 
out of what was listed and what I have had experience with ..I had to go with Foxconn .. still a good extreme budget solution tho


[H]
 
Teh Worst:

1) Soyo
Mainly due to the fact that they screwed over so many when they were getting out of the motherboard business. Bastards.

2) PCChips
Bad components, coupled with crap design. Support? What's that?

3) ECS
See comments above

4) Soltek
See comments above

MSI gets a pass on their shoddy reliability, thanks to their tech support (which isn't too bad) and to their overclocker-friendly features.

Jetway and Biostar are creeping out of the realm of the fetid, but still have a way to come. Same goes for Foxconn.

Abit has fallen down badly and cannot get up. Time for them to launch fatal1ty into space and focus on design.
 
kunsunoke said:
Abit has fallen down badly and cannot get up. Time for them to launch fatal1ty into space and focus on design.
Click to expand...
Agreed, their last motherboard was the max 3, everything else has been less-than-stellar

I am so tired of the fataly14235ty campaign, they, and all of the other manufacturers need to drop the line. However, the leds on the motherboards is a neat idea, but at least make it a decent board!
 
ScHpAnKy said:
Agreed, their last motherboard was the max 3, everything else has been less-than-stellar

I am so tired of the fataly14235ty campaign, they, and all of the other manufacturers need to drop the line. However, the leds on the motherboards is a neat idea, but at least make it a decent board!
Click to expand...

Agreed Fatal1ty is the lamest marketing crap ever. Abit does it, creative does it, and I'm sure someone else I can't think of does it.
 
Jetway

I'm surprised no one's mentioned them yet. I can't remember all the Jetway 867AS's I've replaced that had swollen caps.
 
AreEss said:
PCChips == Soltek == Amptron == ECS == M-Tech == Mustang == Machspeed

They're all the same company. Haven't produced a board worth wiping your ass with since the original Pentium and their knockoff 'VXPro' chipset. Who needs working IDE?
Click to expand...
Don't forget...Aristo, Minstaple, Matsonic, Eurone...and they also OEM for a TON of others...
 
Blaineikans said:
Jetway

I'm surprised no one's mentioned them yet. I can't remember all the Jetway 867AS's I've replaced that had swollen caps.
Click to expand...
Going by that logic all Abit boards are shit too I guess then...


The cap issue is a single component issue....
 
Alpha736 said:
Agreed Fatal1ty is the lamest marketing crap ever. Abit does it, creative does it, and I'm sure someone else I can't think of does it.
Click to expand...

zalman has one of their vid coolers with the Fetality name on it. It over twice the price of their normal coolers.
 
ScHpAnKy said:
Maybe the same company, but it's obvious that both Soltek and ECS use higher quality components, I can't vouch for "Amptron," "M-Tech," or "Mustang" but the difference between the usability and build quality between a PCC and ECS/Soltek Board is night and day.
Click to expand...

That's because you haven't got experience in OEMing, or nearly enough of it. M-Tech and Mustang are long dead and gone. Shut down to make way for new 'brands' which are really the same exact garbage.

MD_Willington said:
Don't forget...Aristo, Minstaple, Matsonic, Eurone...and they also OEM for a TON of others...
Click to expand...

Yes, it's hard to keep track with all the shellbrands they have. Bear in mind, these companies all produce the exact same parts with different names and brands. They're all shoved out of the same low-Q fabs in China with the same 'save every $0.001' components. They're known to OEM or have OEM'd for HPaq, some Dell subboard assemblies, Packard Bell, Alienware, eMachines, Gateway, and you'd be hard pressed to find a whiteboxer that doesn't use this same trash.

ScHpAnKy said:
Also, it's a well known fact that ECS owns ABIT, and ABIT has excellent motherboards
Click to expand...

So? Owning a majority share in a company does not make it automatically crap. ECS may own a large amount of Abit shares, but Abit still has it's own R&D, engineering, etcetera, and has fabs dedicated to their exclusive use.

As far as defective capacitors go; name a manufacturer that doesn't have bad caps. Asus was shipping P4 boards with the defective caps. My KT7-RAID's caps are fine except for the AGP voltage regulation caps. Why are those blown? Defective Chaintech card, too many surge cycles. My very expensive IBM Netfinity 4500R (dual pIII 1GHz, 2GB) had to have all it's caps replaced, including the caps on the ServeRAID 3L. Sometimes you got lucky; there was specifically a run of the KT7-RAIDs with non-defective caps, because the defective caps were actually unavailable for a period.But pretty much everyone got bit by it. There were four manufacturers using the defective formula, and they were underpricing the competition by as much as 50%.
 
AlmostEvil said:
zalman has one of their vid coolers with the Fetality name on it. It over twice the price of their normal coolers.
Click to expand...

Wasn't there also an "extreme" fatality-edition X800 that had 512MB of memory?
 
Blaineikans said:
Abit fessed up to it and warrantied them though ;)
Click to expand...

...and Abit never really recovered from it. I like Abit boards, but I don't know how long they'll be in business.
 
My first board was a Gigabyte...crapped out after 3 months...Asus next, stable no OC options, but good, MSI next, came with bad SATA ports and a few other issues...took me awhile to work out the bugs. I now have a Biostar. Rock freaking solid at stock speeds. Haven't updated the bios to OC yet, not sure if I want to. My friend has a Soyo Dragon, and he loves it...it's solid stable, too. If you ask me, you can't really lump any manufactur as "bad" nowadays.Just my .02..... :)




Edit: Punct.
 
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