what mobo manfacturer do you swear by?

I voted AsRock.

I ve had 1 MSI,died 2 years later
Then 1 ASUS socket A,which still works,so OK.
Then 1 ASUS that RMAed because the temperature sensor was completely off scale.
Then 1 ASUS that still works,but has a bad habbit of forgetting BIOS settings from time to time and is something they never fixed in newer BIOS releases and i know i wasn't the only one with this problem.

Since then i ve uses AsRosk 939 with ULI 1695 and 1697 chipsets and they ve been rock stable and with pretty good features,at 1/3-1/4 the price of NF4 chipsets.And in some sectors they outperform NF4.

So AsRock for me.At least,if it fails,i won't complain too much,because i gave a fraction of the money that an ASUS would cost.I actually bought 2 AsRock motherboards (one to use as spare part in case the first fails) for less money than the equivalent ASUS and my guess is the 2 of them will outlast any ASUS board.

 

thanks for you response creal and hope you enjoy wilders!
lodore

 

ASRock is actually a subsidiary of ASUS.

 

I know.But i bought for 55-60 Euros a board and for 65 another with SLI and 4 SATAII ,while a DFI or ASUS at the time were from 150 to 200 Euros.Plus,both these AsRock boards,support future upgrade slot.So theoretically,i could buy the expansion board,put in in the slot and use the new generation AMD processors (socket AM2),without changing motherboard.As for the "Dual" boards,they have both AGP and PCI-E slots,with no performance loss,which a year ago,was important for me.

I have all 3 of them

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/asrock/939dual-vsta/g1.htm

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASRock/939Dual-SATA2

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/asrock/939SLI32-eSATA2/g1.htm

They costed from 55 to 65 Euros,with performance on par with many NF4 motherboards and much better SATAII controllers.With 160 Euros,i have 2 PCs built and 1 spare motherboard in case of failure.With the same amount of money,others buy 1 ASUS or DFI (actually some costed even more at the time).

I don't know,but seems like a bargain to me and it's the strategy i ll follow from now on.It is no coindicence that soon after these ULI chipsets,Nvidia bought the ULI division from Acer and soon after tried to cut support for the ULI SLI in the nvidia drivers.The 81.98 work as far as i recall.This chipset was too much of a competition for Nvidia,so she had to kill it.A good example that shows how much profit they make out of the motherboards that they sell.

P.S: Anyone knows how many people had to RMA a vaunted ASUS K8N board,because the chipset fan would fail within a week?No fan in these AsRock boards and cool temperatures.That was another plus for me.

 

hmm interesting I have a asus k8n-e deluxe does that have the same chipset?
because my computer is unstable atm.
it could eiether be
1. ram
2.power supply
3. motherboard
so do you think it could be the k8n-E motherboard?
lodore

 

I was talking only about the little fan that cools the chipset.Anyway,just checked,it was the A8N,not the K8N.Here's a sample
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/77909774/m/828007760831

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/435915.htm

^Asus fans on NF4 boards are notorious for failing.I had a fan fail on an ASUS VGA too,after 6 months.Since then,i only buy passive cooled VGAs.


Yours has NF3 chipset,while the A8N has NF4 chipset.The NF3 as far as i remember wasn't deemed very successful,but i can't say that it's the cause of instability.

Instability could be because of CPU /chipset/ram overheating.Make sure the fans all run ok.

Or bad RAM or too low RAM timings.

Or bad PSU.

Run Memtest,chech voltages with Speedfan under stress (they shouldn't drop much under stress) and temperature.

P.S:For me,ASUS reliability and quality control ,dropped considerably when they opened the factory in China.It was then that i first bought the mobo with the crazy temp sensors that were claiming that my CPU was running at over 90 C.

 

For me ASUS,since the era of VIA KT400 chipsets (which is when the opened the Chinese production line),has become the Norton of motherboards.Keeps selling cause people know its name.But their mobos aren't the top for their money.

For me,these Asrocks i bought for the same price,are much much better.And i have my PC running almost 24/7.AsRocks simply aren't good overclockers,but if you accept that,it's fine and they are good workhorses.They are also quite popular in Germany from what i 've read.

On the other hand,enthusiasts and overclockers,prefer DFI boards ,which are considered the best in quality and overclock.DFI is like the Kaspersky of motherboards.

But of course,people pay the same money and buy Norton anyway.

 

asrock mobo's do seem good.
what about gigabyte mobos?
lodore

 

For me Gigabyte is very good.In many tests,they finish first in benchmarks and they are often with good layout.I 'd put them 1st or 2nd.Abit is also good,on par with ASUS and MSI i 'd say.I wouldn't bother about the other brands,they are not very experienced in the sector,only relatively recently interested.Like Sapphire and Foxconn.Sapphire is the queen of video cards with ATI chips,but i don't know how good she is in making motherboards.As for AOPEN,i don't like it.

AsRock is the best bang for buck.Specially if you find the board with good performance.The quality of the electrical circuit isn't the top,that's why they usually can't stand high overclock,but if you use them at default speeds,you can buy 2 for the same money.Those that i have are very stable.I ve also built another,a socket A ,which runs Linux for 3 years now and with no problem ,for office duty.Usually boards either present problems soon or they live long enough to arrive at the point that you 'll need a new PC anyway.Usually they die from blown or leaking capacitors,which in theory you can also replace.And i don't believe there is a huge,if any,quality difference in the capacitors they put on boards.Some boards have more capacitors ,so they can stand higher voltages,but i don't think there are B class capacitors used on AsRocks.So for all i know,they can live as long as any other board.Or you can buy 2 with the same money and they you 'll most probably outlast any single board.

The fact that AsRock is popular in Germany,from what i ve read in forums,isn't a coincidence.Germans don't make crappy things,so they also don't like using crappy things.

 

And for whoever is curious,the ocworkbench readers' awards for mainboard manufacturers in 2006

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/readers-award-2006-results/g3.htm