ASUS Motherboard - Quality ?

[wanderer27]

So, a year ago my MB had the Video support go out on it - there's a three year Warranty on these so I sent it in for repair/replacement.

At the time I was in the process of moving and this was the only Computer I had taken with me, so I bought and installed a new (same model) MB to get back up and running.

The replacement (#1) MB arrived and I just put it on the shelf since there was no real reason to tear everything apart just to put it back together with basically the same parts.

Now forward to March of this year. My MB dies - (lose of Video support again), so I sent it in for repair and put in the replacement (#1) I had received a year earlier. Everything worked with the exception that it would not shutdown/turn off - I have to manually flip the PSU power switch when Windows fails to turn things off (PWR & Reset switches don't work in this state). I operate like this until I receive the replacement (#2) for the MB I just sent in.

I install replacement #2 and everything works like it's supposed too, and I now send in the other MB (replacement #1) to be fixed.

Replacement #3 arrives. I now happen to have an extra Video Card and CPU, so I decide I'll put this together and upgrade one of the kids machines with it.

Nothing.

This thing didn't even beep, let alone have any type of Video output.

Okay, so now I have to get a Case# from ASUS to replace this one since it was bad straight from them. I do this, and off it goes, back to the repair center.

I just got the replacement (#4) and opened it up . . .

WTF?

There's no Heat Sink on the Chip set, it's been pulled off and replaced with a Fan. One of the main reasons I went with this board is because when these N4 MB's came out the Fans were nothing but trouble.

The icing though has to be the underside of this MB. It looks like somebody spilled Coffee/Cola on it.

I haven't tried to see if this thing is going work or not yet. If it doesn't I'm really questioning if I should even bother sending it back.


I've got a couple MSI MB's in the kids systems (old XP1800 & XP2000) and haven't had issue one with them.


Did I mention that with the very first ASUS MB (current model) I got, that the PCI slots didn't work? The Egg replaced that one.
Yeah, so counting that, I'm running a 20% chance of getting a working MB - that's pretty abysmal


Has anyone else been having these type of quality issues with ASUS products?

 

[jdkick]

I can't say that i've had such an experience with their boards tho, quite the opposite in fact. I've pretty much exclusively used ASUS boards in my personal machines from a P133 to my current C2D. I even had a S939 Compaq Desktop for a bit (long story) and the board was built by ASUS - it ran like a champ. I sold it a friend and it's still working great for her. I've never had to RMA an ASUS board...

 

[Sylvanas]

I have owned 2 Asus boards in recent times, one was the Commando which died due to a Windows Bios flash from Asus's stupid flash program (lesson learned) and the other is a P5N-E SLI which I haven't had any problems with. You're particular experience seems quite unlucky and I would assume that perhaps it is a bad batch of boards on Asus's end and you just keep getting ones from the same batch or the there is a manufacturing fault in the design itself. I have had only good experiences with MSI's boards so I will be sticking with them in the future.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I've always used Asus boards, never had a problem with one and I won't use any other brand for now. Am I just lucky? Maybe, but I also buy the upper end of their product line and memorize the manual and research all the other components for compatability first before I build. Of course their support is pretty bad and slow from what I've read, hopefully I won't need it anytime soon.

 

[Jessica69]

I've used multiple brands over the years....including Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Biostar, Zoltec, Intel, among others.

I've never had one Asus die or crap out on me......have had failures from other brands. Guess I'm just lucky.....

As for your Asus mb that had "no Heat Sink on the Chip set, it's been pulled off and replaced with a Fan. One of the main reasons I went with this board is because when these N4 MB's came out the Fans were nothing but trouble," you do realize that when you RMA a board, you're going to get back a refurbished one from their stock, not your same board. And since there were different revisions of this board, of which I had one if I understand what board you're speaking about, the fan was a problem in its first iteration. The second generation of fan, the one that has the ASUS name cutout in the sides of the silver heatsink/fan enclosure, were much more durable and long lasting.

As far as "It looks like somebody spilled Coffee/Cola on it," is it sticky? Probably not and is more likely remnants of whatever flux remover they used to clean the board of excess solder/etc. after refurb'ing the board. You're not the first to see that on the bottom of the board.

ps.....don't leave a board that you've gotten back via RMA sitting for a year without testing it. It's a refurb'd board you got back and could indeed still have problems, original or subsequent, remaining that weren't fixed. Had the same issue with an Intel 975BX2 board that I had to return twice to get one back that had all of its memory slots working.

 

[o1die]

If the only problem is the northbridge fan, I would replace it with a fanless copper heatsink. I don't trust rma boards anymore. I got 4 bad ones in a row from msi; I would rather keep my original than get another used board.

 

[wanderer27]

GrumpyMan:

This MB is the A8N-SLI Premium, which at the time was their top of the line board.


Jessica69:

Here's a picture of the MB as it is supposed to be - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...um+ATX+AMD+Motherboard

Notice the Heat sink towards the bottom left with the heat pipe running to the upper right cooling vents - all of this has been removed from the board they sent back


Now as for the MB I got back from them that is working . . . oddly (or luckily) that was a brand new board like you'd buy off the shelf (box, cables, books, CDs, and all).

The spill on the bottom doesn't really look Flux, since it has drip like runs, and it's in the area around the ATX power and Mem sockets. I guess it could be, maybe I just expect too much that they should have cleaned it up.

It still amazes me that they sent out an earlier board that wouldn't even power up.

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: wanderer27
Here's a picture of the MB as it is supposed to be - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...um+ATX+AMD+Motherboard

Notice the Heat sink towards the bottom left with the heat pipe running to the upper right cooling vents - all of this has been removed from the board they sent back

The board they sent back does it look more like this?
http://www.asus.com.tw/product...l1=3&l2=15&l3=148&l4=0

That is the board I have now and it's been running strong since I've owned it (almost 5 years now)

..and tbh, theirs not much difference between the boards.

 

[cuti7399]

i just got another p5w board died on me. that's two in a row, but i think the antec psu might have something to do with it. It's bad for me this time because it also shorted out one of the hard drive. Just a quick question:
i still have the green light on the mobo but nothing happen when i press the power switch or short the power pin on the mobo, the fans does not even spin. This indicate bad mobo right?

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver

Originally posted by: wanderer27
Here's a picture of the MB as it is supposed to be - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...um+ATX+AMD+Motherboard

Notice the Heat sink towards the bottom left with the heat pipe running to the upper right cooling vents - all of this has been removed from the board they sent back

The board they sent back does it look more like this?
http://www.asus.com.tw/product...l1=3&l2=15&l3=148&l4=0

That is the board I have now and it's been running strong since I've owned it (almost 5 years now)

..and tbh, theirs not much difference between the boards.

Well, the Deluxe and Premium had the same board layout with just a few differences in components (Chipset & cooling mainly) so yes, it looks quite similar to the picture you linked too.

There differences though. There are no heat vents on the upper right, and the board I have has "A8N-SLI Premium" printed on it (silkscreened). I can only conclude that it's a modified MB.

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: cuti7399
i just got another p5w board died on me. that's two in a row, but i think the antec psu might have something to do with it. It's bad for me this time because it also shorted out one of the hard drive. Just a quick question:
i still have the green light on the mobo but nothing happen when i press the power switch or short the power pin on the mobo, the fans does not even spin. This indicate bad mobo right?

I would try the Reset pins also.

MB seems to be the prime suspect, but you could also have a PSU problem - one or more voltage lines may be out.

 

[cuti7399]

Originally posted by: wanderer27

Originally posted by: cuti7399
i just got another p5w board died on me. that's two in a row, but i think the antec psu might have something to do with it. It's bad for me this time because it also shorted out one of the hard drive. Just a quick question:
i still have the green light on the mobo but nothing happen when i press the power switch or short the power pin on the mobo, the fans does not even spin. This indicate bad mobo right?

I would try the Reset pins also.

MB seems to be the prime suspect, but you could also have a PSU problem - one or more voltage lines may be out.

i tried it with an ocz psu but no help. and since i bought it used here, i can't even rma or is there a way

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: cuti7399

Originally posted by: wanderer27

Originally posted by: cuti7399
i just got another p5w board died on me. that's two in a row, but i think the antec psu might have something to do with it. It's bad for me this time because it also shorted out one of the hard drive. Just a quick question:
i still have the green light on the mobo but nothing happen when i press the power switch or short the power pin on the mobo, the fans does not even spin. This indicate bad mobo right?

I would try the Reset pins also.

MB seems to be the prime suspect, but you could also have a PSU problem - one or more voltage lines may be out.

i tried it with an ocz psu but no help. and since i bought it used here, i can't even rma or is there a way

That's a newer board than what I have. They have a three year warranty on their MB's so I would just go to the ASUS site and request an RMA #.