Foxconn, crap tech support...

mrbios

mrbios

mrbios

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Sent the foxconn technical support an email yesterday as we're having a problem with a particular motherboard, we have about 150-200 computers with this particular board.

If some of you know the nature of switching a network environment from windows XP to windows 7 you'll know why "going back" isn't an option, we chose particularly not to have a combination network due to the various bits of trouble it causes and went straight for an entire site shift from XP to 7 in one go.

This is what i asked foxconn (about a 945GZ7MC-KS2H board):
Currently we have about 200 of this exact make of motherboard, We have attempted to change every replacable component on the offending boards but nothing fixes the issue.

The problem we're getting is purely random with no set method causing it and no specific piece of hardware attached to cause it.

The issue is this: Turn the PC on, we can get in to the bios screen and leave it there for hours but as soon as windows attempts to load we get a blank screen and no power goes to the keyboard or mouse. The same problem occurs when attempting to image a machine using windows deployment services just past the moment of downloading the boot image.

They were working fine for near 3 years of use on windows XP, this problem has only appeared since we installed windows 7. I can boot in to a bootable linux CD and run various tests ok without the board failing on me.

The interesting thing is that once a machine gets this issue it will no longer load windows 7 or windows deployment services ever again, we have tried multiple hard drives each with different windows 7 installs on and it simply never comes back to life.

Is there any resolution to this? So far we have had 7 die on us, we're worried the rest won't be far behind.
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And what as their response?

Dear Valued Customer,

Welcome to Foxconn.
As this particular motherboard doesn't support Windows 7.
You'll encounter certain issue when operating Win 7 with board.
We suggest that you go on using Windows XP on this board.

Your Sincerely
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To be honest i don't think they read past the title. When someone says "it doesn't support X operating system" how exactly do they mean that?... as in they haven't made drivers for it (as there are many drivers for it!) or they simply didn't ever intend on it working with it?

I'm so glad i've stopped my manger purchasing foxconn boards in the past year, £2 more per board and we get decent gigabyte ones.
 
That's pretty shocking mate.. Very poor.. Surely their motherboard/drivers are dictated by the chip-sets they are using so I'm not sure why this product has an issue with Windows 7?? How bizarre?
 
God damn them for not designing their boards better to work
with an OS that was not released yet , poor design decision foxconn

or should it be foxCON ?
 
lurkio said:
God damn them for not designing their boards better to work
with an OS that was not released yet , poor design decision foxconn

or should it be foxCON ?
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The boards were only a year and a half to 2 years old by the point that windows 7 came out, they have full vista support, so why could they not add windows 7 support at a later date?

windows 7 was in beta from january 2009 (maybe earlier, that's just a google guess), other manufactuers have put windows 7 support and drivers on boards older than windows 7 is, why can't they?
 
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MeatLoaf said:
Did you not check compatibility before you upgraded?
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I ran 10 PCs on windows 7 in a test environment, using this very motherboard, from the moment windows 7 was released to MVLS customers up until july this year (so about 9 months!) while i set everything up, they were being used every day, drivers albeit not directly off the foxconn website were windows 7 compatible, the majority of drivers were built in to windows 7.

VGA is intel based, sound is realtek based, NIC is realtek - All those were latest versions from intel and realtek sites. When i see a board with full vista support i assume windows 7 support would be a given considering they aren't that different.
 
EDIT: post removed, i jumped the gun there, got more hopeful than the outcome provided
 
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Did you check the ahci/ide/sata settings in the bios? I've had a similar issue with xp/7 and it not liking certain settings.
 
There aren't any settings specific to setting AHCI mode, it allows me to set "enhanced mode" "Sata Only" etc (of which i've tried them all)

What i've tried since last post:
Reflashing the bios (latest version - same as before)
vista DVD
vista boot.wim in to WDS opposed to using the windows 7 boot.wim
External graphics card

None of these fixed the issue but the external graphics card has changed the scenario slightly, with the onboard the screen would go blank and inputs cut off altogether, with the external card the screen stays on but locks up EG vistas green bar just stops mid load or windows 7 loading screen just stops onthe 4 blue orbs.

Still no luck getting one working again

EDIT: i know we have some PCs here somewhere with E2000 processors in, seems they don't support the E5xxx ones which are our most common ones here :( I want to try a completely different processor in them, so far i've only tried two pentium Ds (such AWFUL processors)
 
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AH HA!

Original processor in those 200 odd boards is a Pentium D 920 2.8ghz

I have just put a Celeron D 352 3.2ghz processor in to one of the boards with the issue and hey presto it works!

I'm going to rigerously test this, i've got a couple of celeron Ds and Pentium Ds im going to try at least 3 of each and try to determin if it's the individual processor causing the issue or the entire processor model

EDIT: tried another 920 processor from another board that was doing the same thing, managed to load windows and get to the desktop and then cut off soon after, E2180 appears to not be compatible even though foxconn state it supports up to E4xxx processors as the PC doesn't boot at all with one in, last thing to try is a 920 processor from a PC that has no issues what so ever, im starting to think some of them might have been heat damaged somewhere down the line
 
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Found the cause of my problem, cannot believe i didn't notice it before!!!!

2wd5xc0.jpg


See anything wrong there? :p
I have a pile, which is slowly growing, the count is currently at 10 boards all with the exact same issue! >_< all have occured in the past 2 months and i think it's just a mere coincidence that it's happened when we switched to windows 7
 
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PhillyDee said:
Wow! Replace boards or caps?

I know which is easier :p
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Typcial that it'd appear at this time of year though :( the precise time of year where we've already done our yearly computer replacements and spent so much cash that we can't afford to splash out on loads more.

Government need to give the school more money! :p *keeps dreaming*
 
Looks to me like those capacitors have overheated - Rubycons don't usually fail...

Have you been running them in very hot environments?
 
Well they are sat next to pentium D processors so that should class as a hot environment :p but not especially hot no, not to the extent that i would expect them to pop
 
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