Biostar Motherboards....Bad?

The Happy Stromboli · 01-15-2010, 05:36 PM

I was told to stay away from Biostar as a motherboard manufacturer but I figured they make a lot of boards and have been around for a bit so I took the plunge. I found a great deal on the TA785GE board! 58 bucks! for my AMD X3 solution. So far I have been running my system since Christmas with not problems. Board worked great right out of the box, plenty of options in the BIOS especially to overclock and it's been great. Rock solid!

MalVeauX · 01-15-2010, 06:50 PM

Heya,

That's ridiculous. Ask whoever said that to you to provide proof.

I have a Biostar TA790GXE 128M board with an overclocked 955BE at 3.8Ghz driving 4 displays. It's rock solid stable. Excellent board.

So again, anyone who says not to buy certain `brand' boards are just repeating gossip. Provide proof with statements like that. Otherwise, it's just useless internet talk. Just because it's not the biggest name brand doesn't mean it's not good. And those people who still say that stuff may be embarrassed to find out that a lot of these boards use the same components and components made by the same manufacturer and then rebrand it in their name; lots of them are nearly the same with different names and get labeled `good' or `bad' based on that name. That's mindless.

Very best,

Zap · 01-15-2010, 07:59 PM

Biostar makes decent boards. I was a big fan of their GeForce6100 chipset micro ATX socket 754/939/AM2 motherboards because they were cheap and very overclockable. The only bad mark against them might be that their warranty service isn't as end-user friendly as some other manufacturers.

nerp · 01-15-2010, 08:27 PM

Biostar makes great boards.

Arkaign · 01-15-2010, 08:52 PM

Biostar seems to have improved a lot. I haven't personally used any of their newer boards, but they seem to be very decent from what I've heard.

I *did* have terrible luck a few years back though, in '06-'07 about the only socket 478 boards on Newegg were the Biostar microATX boards for around $50 or so, and more than half of the 20 or so that I bought died within a year, most within 6 months. The caps weren't solid state, and usually when one went bad I'd see a bulged/popped cap near the CPU section of the PCB. I successfully revived a couple by soldering new caps on (from Altex when they still carried an acceptable selection), but a few times this didn't work, I guess the damage was too widespread.

None of these systems had anything more than a single HDD and Optical drive, and the power supplies varied from Antec to Rosewill to Enermax (only one of them came in with both a bad mobo AND psu).

A lot can change in 3-4 years though, so judging from there not being a bunch of people complaining about dead Biostar boards, I'd say the new ones must be of much higher quality. The old ones seemed worse than ECS.

Tsavo · 01-15-2010, 09:10 PM

I had a Biostar board once...it stole my car and ate all my cookies.

Never again will I own another product from that company.

JaYp146 · 01-15-2010, 09:16 PM

Their boards usually overclock pretty well, but customer support ... haven't heard much.

bgc99 · 01-15-2010, 09:20 PM

The bad caps problem was widespread, not limited to biostar.

BGC

vanilla guerilla · 01-16-2010, 11:25 AM

i have owned a few, and as i go to service some older client'c pcs, i find that i used them a lot in the s939 days. i owned a few of the matx tforce 6100/430 chipset boards. they overclocked well, and as far as i know are still running. i also had a biostar nf 570 sli board in a secondary or terciary machine a few years back that was good too.

alyarb · 01-16-2010, 12:14 PM

i've only had good experiences with biostar. if customer support is bad i wouldn't know because i haven't had a part fail yet

Shawn · 01-16-2010, 12:18 PM

The only boards I've had problems with are PCChips and MSI.

thefreeaccount · 01-16-2010, 03:32 PM

Biostar sold a bunch of motherboards w/Phenom II core unlocking. Then they went out of their way to specifically disable core unlocking across all of their BIOS updates, even on high-end boards that otherwise had the complete set of overclocking features.

Never forgive, never forget!

LoneNinja · 01-16-2010, 03:44 PM

I've got 3 Biostar boards running in my home. A TA790GX A2+ which has been running with a 3.0Ghz Phenom 9850 since late 08, a TA790GXE running a Phenom II 940 @ 3.5Ghz for nearly a year, and just recently got a 785Board to pair with my old Athlon 7750. I've had good luck with all 3 and plan to continue purchaseing from them.

vanilla guerilla · 01-16-2010, 07:18 PM

i also had the tforce p45 ip board, which was a fantastic overclocking board in the first wave of p45 boards. it had a couple bios issues that were never fixed (some voltage settings left out, vcore settings too widely spaced) for some reason, at least while i had the board. biostar comes out with some good overclocking boards once in a while, but seem to be half-assing it.

albertreyes · 01-16-2010, 07:37 PM

it depends on the model motherboard i guess. I had some good luck with biostar mobos.

SpeedEng66 · 01-16-2010, 08:11 PM

just recently donated my p4m800 (c2d & agp with ddr1 ram lol) and that was good mb. wouldnt overclock anything over 9fsb(over stock) but what ever it worked using all of my older leftover poo..

moved up to a p4m890 and so far it's been pretty good
not as great oc as a p35/45 but i paid like 15 bucks so I cant complain

Jhatfie · 01-18-2010, 12:16 PM

I've built several PC's for people and myself using Biostar motherboards. I have never had any problems and generally, they are solid and offer a good bang for the buck. Currently using one in my personal gaming rig at the moment and it has been trouble free and a pretty decent overclocker.

StrangerGuy · 01-18-2010, 04:28 PM

Bad? You kidding right? Their TA785GE is one of the best mATX AMD overclockers and only at $80, it makes the more expensive DDR2 boards rather pointless unless you really want SLI or Crossfire.

justinm · 01-18-2010, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StrangerGuy

Bad? You kidding right? Their TA785GE is one of the best mATX AMD overclockers and only at $80, it makes the more expensive DDR2 boards rather pointless unless you really want SLI or Crossfire.

+1

I had their TA785GE 128MB and unlocked my PII x3 710 to a quad core and overclocked it to just over 3GHz stable. A good overclock since I barely used that computer

F1N3ST · 01-18-2010, 05:27 PM

I love love love my Biostar TP35D2-A7

Year-Zero · 01-19-2010, 01:10 PM

Well my BIOSTAR TA785G3 with a slightly OCed X2 250 is still trucking after 2 Weeks....lol

Farfrumhumpn · 01-19-2010, 02:46 PM

I've had good luck with Biostar mobo's untill a Tforce 780G M2+ I put in my parents PC died 2 months out of warranty and Biostar only has a 1 year warranty so thats the reason I won't use them anymore. They are good products but they should put longer warranties on thier products.

Good products, yes. Will I use them again? Only is they adopt a 3 year warranty but untill then no, I won't.

I shop for warranty and TBH if you have to spend $5 - $10 more to get an Asus or Gigabyte mobo then do it. Even FoxConn has a 3 year warranty and they make good mobo's that are cheaper than Biostar.

I've had a couple Biostar mobo's die on me along with a few Asus mobo's. I've owned a few FoxConn mobo's and used some for builds for friends and oddly have not had a single issue or failure yet.

If you're on a budget look at some FoxConn mobo's, 3 year warranty and though not OC oriented, many do have decent OC options but the 3 year warranty is nice to have.

Lazlo Panaflex · 01-21-2010, 11:37 PM

Mine's been chugging along for 3 years now. They may have had crap in the past, but turned it around with the 965 series onward. Never had to use their warranty service, but they were always fairly quick to respond to any questions via e-mail. I'd go with them again

brblx · 01-22-2010, 12:08 AM

i've used a few and am using one now. nothing wrong with them.

if it's a good chipset, biostar's board will probably be pretty decent.

ronss · 04-05-2010, 10:45 PM

i am using the same board in one my rigs as above thread, the biostar t5xe cfx-sli board...i basically got it free at frys electronics, combo deal....with the i7 860-$289.....

this is my first biostar, thought probably would not have gotten it if it was for the combo deal. i am use to asus and gigabyte boards, have used them mainly lately...the the board seems to work nicely, has overclocking in the bios though have not used it. i think biostar t-series board are not bad, and the compacitors on my board are all solid state, top notch too...i was looking at a evga board at frys today....they had a p55 for $185, and was not all solid state, i was thinking,,,,you are cheap......but biostar is not bad from what i can see from my board, it just plain looking, nothing real fancy......would i get one again...just depends on $ and reviews.