Lowest Quality Motherboards on the market?

[mutz]

Ha! ...there you go ...Kv hit it, that father-son relationship probably looks like and smells like that musty basement. Ha!

...thanks Kv!

[Flangor]

Hmmmmmmmmmm best boards I have ever had where made by Abit and Asus. Currently using a Abit KT7A and have not had one single prob with it.

Bad boards? Antying with the word green in it.

[lecter]

Ultra Board, PCPartner, Aristo, Octek, Fastfame, Jamicon, Commate, PCChips, EagleTEC, Acorp, LuckyStar, LuckyTech, Matsonic and my personal favorite...TOMATO!

[The PIT]

Abit = Recycle bin.
Epox = Reliable for me.
Asus = Mmm only had one I'm using at present and it doesn't seem to be the stabilest.
Pchips = Recycle Bin.

[DGhost]

hrmm, Sunflower and Q-Lity are the brands that i have not heard mentioned.

Abit, PC Chips, Gigabyte and ECS boards are ones we saw a fair amount of problems with (its late or this list would be longer). IWill makes good boards but they have too many random problems to be recommended. Biostar boards are also ones to avoid. we saw some MicroATX boards rated for Athlon XP chips acctually kill Athlon XP's if installed in the system.

Chaintech, Azza and Mitac make good cheap boards, but you could have issues with them occasionally. I would be careful about the Azza boards tho, some are complete crap, some are wonderful. Chaintech makes cheap boards that work well, but do have some issues. Mitac made the only decent quality SiS super socket 7 boards i've seen. their engineering was pretty good and we never had a problem with them.

Asus boards are good if you have to time to figure out all the problems with a specific model. don't recommend them tho.

Epox has had some QA issues, tho they have gotten better. If you get it and it works, it should last for a while. they do also have some issues with caps poping on a couple of their models.

MSI makes good boards, but usually has problems with inital bios revisions. several later and problems go away.

Btw, Asus still does HP motherboards (pre-compaq merger) and Mitac is one known manufacturer of Compaq boards.

Kruzin: out of curiousity, which shop is the sons PC shop?

K6-III: there is no reason why any desktop computer for the average person needs more than a 300W. Period. especially a good quality 300W. the average computer enthusiast can stand to get a 350W because its usually only $10 difference, and does protect them for later, but last i checked most high end systems draw well less than 300W.

[SteveC]

Agreed on the poor Abit front, but since they offer a 3 year warranty it's not too bad, it's just the incompatibility problems now.

PCChips will always be the worst make ever in my eyes. Especially after owning a board with the fake cache chips.

Soltek are right down there near PCChips too - the boards start out a bit funny, but after you have the niggles sussed, they're great... for about 6-9 months, then they crap out.

[Kruzin]

Well, as I expected, I have seen the name of the dreaded company come up many times. But I'm not gonna say for sure which it is yet...

But here's another couple hints. These mobos come with no brand name, model#, or revision printed on them anywhere. They obviously don't want you to know who made them. Makes getting drivers for them a real pain in the rear.
Additionally, most of these boards have both an AT and an ATX power connector. Some have both a slot1, and a socket 370 on them, and some have more than one type of RAM slot.
Yup....real beauties

[Pace]

PCChips I've seen, but never even contemplated purchasing one, much less as a business computer. PCChips are cheap crap.

Abit, I purchased two as they were among the best boards around, about two years ago maybe. However, shortly after that I heard some people saying they were crap, without knowing what about.

Then one of mine started going a little bit flakey, and more and more reports came in about the poor quality control at Abit, and their awful capacitors. I looked at my board, some capacitors were gone. A month later, the on board RAID (another silly decision, but I wasn't that bothered about the RAID) broke, and within a couple of days the whole system died.

My Abit board is currently on its way to Taiwan for repair, while the other one I'm trying to get out the door as soon as possible.

Anyone wanna buy an Abit SE6 i815E in perfect working condition? Free Abit SA6R with it. Come on....

(ok, maybe the wrong thread )

Very Bad: Abit, PCChips, VIA
Good: Asus, Intel, SiS, MSI
Very Good: Supermicro

The Abit boards were the first time I'd left Supermicro, as they offered more tweaking, but if you don't want to tweak, buy Supermicro. If you do, buy Asus/MSI

P.

[Pace]

Originally posted by Kruzin
These mobos come with no brand name, model#, or revision printed on them anywhere. They obviously don't want you to know who made them. Makes getting drivers for them a real pain in the rear.
Additionally, most of these boards have both an AT and an ATX power connector. Some have both a slot1, and a socket 370 on them, and some have more than one type of RAM slot

Sounds like CHEAP CRAP.

I've had to repair a few PCs, and I cringe every time I see a PCChips Last one I saw was a complete PCChips system - as if it wasn't bad enough using a motherboard from them, this system had case, power supply etc.

The power supply fan had failed btw, leading to nice smoky smells around the office.

I presumed it was Abit based, as many people are yet to hear of the problems, but PCChips? Argh! Surely NOONE can think they're good?!?!

Oh, I forgot to mention PCChips are cheap crap. Did I? Cheap crap.

Yup, crap.

P.

[The PIT]

One problem I've noticed with two epox motherboards (8kha+)I've got is shimmering monitors. I swappe done board out and the shimmering stopped.

[SteveC]

Originally posted by Kruzin
Well, as I expected, I have seen the name of the dreaded company come up many times. But I'm not gonna say for sure which it is yet...

But here's another couple hints. These mobos come with no brand name, model#, or revision printed on them anywhere. They obviously don't want you to know who made them. Makes getting drivers for them a real pain in the rear.
Additionally, most of these boards have both an AT and an ATX power connector. Some have both a slot1, and a socket 370 on them, and some have more than one type of RAM slot.
Yup....real beauties

Hmmm, that brings back nasty memories of PCChips/Protac boards. Do they look anything like http://www.pcchips.com.tw/M756LT+.html or http://www.pcchips.com.tw/M757LT.html ?

Poor you.

[G200 PSYCHOMAN]

Why did they have so many names? shiiiish
My 56k modem is made by protac - but it seems ok.

[az]

Kruzin, just out of curiosity, do you want to show this thread to your boss, is it just for your personal "enjoyment", as a confirmation of your thoughts on the matter, or both?

AZ

[Electric Amish]

I guess I've been lucky....

None of the motherboards I've tried have ever been really bad.

Abit, Asus, Epox, ECS, Biostar, Soyo, Shuttle...


Never really had a problem.

amish

[UtwigMU]

QDI PCChips VIA Biostar = teh suck
MSI ECS Abit = certain problems reported a lot in forums