Stuff ASUS : Enough is enough

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

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What is it with me and Asus boards?

Every single one of them has developed an inability to suddenly decide to not bother working anymore.

Latest in the long line of failures is the P5NE-SLI

I only bought that last week from the OCUK MM

I have plenty of Samsung 512MB Sticks, so I can easily put 4 of those into it to get the board setup...

The board came with a lowly P4 "D" 640 and so I ordered a new C2D CPU to plonk into it instead.

Ran seemingly fine, but on a restart, it decided that it didnt like 4 sticks of RAM, so I ran it on a pair instead, and then I tried a pair of GEIL 2GB 6400's in it and it seemed to like that so I also bought a pair of those two too!

I then came across a pair of 8600GT cards for a fairly cheap price so I thought... Stuff it, have a play with those too, and so I bought them.

So, I put the bugger away to await my new bits.

Fantastically, the Cards, the RAM and the CPU all came today, so, chuffed as a pig in poo I built up the PC but after 10 seconds of silence I get 1 long beep and 3 short ones... RAM ERROR!

Cutting down and already unnecessarily long post, I have now tried all my RAM in all various ways to get this Mobo to start up and all I am getting is either nothing or 1-long + 3-short beeps

Now, looking back at my other dead Socket 775 Mobos, I see a small pattern

Asus P5N32-SLI
Asus P5N32-Plus SLI
Asus P5NE-SLI

And my AMD Boards that are bead

Asus A8R-MVP


I think I have had it with Asus then

Im going back to Gigabyte or Abit... Heck Even my MSI Boards are still all going strong.

But Asus... Nope, thats it.
 
I have realised that my Opteron SLI system is an Asus... A8N-SLI

I am sort of happy with this board except that the NB cooler was rattling and so I have swapped this for a Vantec Fanless.. This is only just allowing my 2x7800GTX cards to go in but we are definitely talking under 1mm play either side.

I have to say however that pretty much every SLI Mobo I have had myself, the NB cooling is always in the most stupid place for an SLI setup

As for gigabytes, I have always been happy with them. NForce or not.

And as for nforce... I actually like NForce Chipsets. Always have since Abits NF7

Most of my PCs are either NForce or Intel Chipsets... OTTOMH I cannot name any other?
 
I can see that Both Gigabyte and Asus have good support and that many have opinions in both directions.

There seems to be a lot of hatred towards nVidia chipsets, but can I ask why, and get a reply other than "They suck"

I am looking at my nVidia Mobos and here is what I have right now on my LAN

DFI LanParty 250UT ( S754 )
MSI Neo2 Platinum NF3
MSI Neo4 F
Foxconn NF4K8AA
Asus A8N-SLI

Only one that I have issues with is the foxconn and even then its only because it does not like loads of RAM, so its being kept at 1GB - plenty for the games it plays. and all NV Chipsets and all are clearly an age now.

My only other Asus is the A8R-MVP, and this is ATI Chipset and its bloody awful. It has a constant dislike for me tampering in any way in the BIOS. Any adjustments in the BIOS and it fails thinking the CPU is overclocked??? - I have to reset the BIOS and the Time & Date must be done when in Windows because if I go into the BIOS to do it, I get failure to overclock CPU again??? - WTF?

Cannot blame the nVidia chipset there, only ASUS

As for Gigabyte, my main PCs are all runnning Gigabyte right now.

DS4 965P - this is what I am on right now as my main PC

I seem to have some sort of weird fetish with the DS3 too?

I bought the DS3 965P some years ago, not long after it was first out I think, and the only issue I had with it, was that it hated my GEIL RAM and I had to put in my Corsair just to set the RAM VOLTS in the BIOS and flick them over, but I think F6 or F7 cured that and since then, I have never had an issue.

I currently own 3 of that very same board today.

In fact, not long ago, I did a trade... one of my Intel Q6600 CPUs and a DS3 Mobo for an AMD Q9550 & DS3 Mobo - this was purely because I also have a Q9550 Intel and, well I just had to.

Either way, I love that AMD Board too... Gigabyte again.

Meanwhile, my ****** ASUS boards are the only ones that have failed me.
The catch 22 or me there is that they are both NVidia Chipsets, so whats the blame there, the Maker of the chipset?
 
Simon42 said:
I've had both Gigabyte and Asus boards and for me the Asus have been just a little more reliable but with such a small difference I keep an open mind for future purchases.

One thing I wonder though is how the reliability compares when comparing budget, standard and premium boards. Is it that the quality mobos are pretty good no matter what manufacturer and it's only the cheaper ones where the differences show?
Click to expand...

I buy partially both.

My own main PCs, I try whenever I can, both afford and justify a certain priced component to my PCs, but for the LAN PCs I mostly just get "Whatevva!"

The thing is, that the P5N32 and the P5NE are both far from being expensive, they are certainly NOT the cheapest boards either. and for them both to die on the same ( or very similar failures ) and I also have a mate who has the 32 too, and his did the very same as mine.

I have had some nasty cheap boards that have lasted me for yonks

I have been looking through my old bits and another maker that has been a low scorer in the reliability stakes is ECS.
 
bhavv said:
And you use a £70 motherboard to judge the quality of the entire line of products made by that company?
Click to expand...

When that board was first released it was £130

It has been such a massive success that they were able to lower it and now it can be had for half the price yes.

It has been around for some time too, which again, also owes this because it IS such a perfect motherboard.

I am seriously struggling to think of any other board by ny other maker that has been on sale for as long as this board has, and stil sells in such high numbers.

Those simple little fact speak volumes in my book.

And its also why I have owned 4 in the past and still own 2.

bhavv said:
If you see a £70 motherboard with barely adequate tiny heatsinks on it, you should be able to tell that its not going to be as good as the higher end boards which cost a lot more and feature much better cooling and maybe better quality components.
Click to expand...


Again, the DS3 came out at twice that price.
Has a massive ( if still inadequate ) Heatsink cooler
And was the first to introduce ultra reliable Japanese Caps

The board was also available in a cheaper version called the S3 as opposed to the DS3 and this was 100% identical but used standard Caps instead of solid ones.

But the DS3 was among the first to get Conroes into 500MHZ Territory even with their stock Heatsinks.

Mine however, all have Zalman cooling... Just in case.

But the DS3 is pretty much the grand daddy of so many other motherboards now, that to say he is judging over one board would be wrong... There are dozens in Gigabytes range that are basically DS3 Boards with "adjustments".
 
bhavv said:
The P965 DS3 wasnt ever a high end board, it was released as a mid range not for overclocking board which didnt even have two PCI-E slots.
Click to expand...

Not for overclocking?
So, the massive number of people that were hitting bus speeds never seen before were all making it up? - I myself broke 520MHZ

Didnt even have 2 PCI-E Slots!

So? - I am glad because it had 3 PCI slots and so my Sound, IDE, and TV Cards could all be used.


bhavv said:
The DQ6 version was the one made for overclocking.
Click to expand...

Maybe. I have one of those too.

As for the 2xPCIE, I myself have found that a third PCI slot to be much more useful than a second PCIE

Its not xfire or sli so you can mix and match with is a good thing I suppose, but still...
 
Abit no more?

WHAT????

I got a QuadGT Mobo a while back and I thought it was well sweet.

Given their massive success with the Likes of the NF7 / NF7S and other such little darlings like the KD7A ( I have one of those too... Still going well ) and the KT7 ( Someone mentioned their lack of palomino support, ( but thats what it run in mine just spanky - I think my brother is using that now to do his sewing machine stuff with? )

Anyway, Abit going down is a bit of a shock to me TBH!

Just goes to show.
 
So, lets get a little towards recommending particular boards rather than slagging off certina makers or even chipsets.

My personal favourite Motherboard is most probably the Gigabyte DS3-965P, and this is VERY closely followed by the DS4 and then the DQ6.
To be honest I cannot justify the price of the DS6 over the DS4 and given the fact that I have both, I myself have not yet found a reason to get the DQ6 over the DS4.

All these 3 in the 965P Chipset by the way.
 
jas72 said:
I power down one evening next morning I power up and the bios is back to default settings.
Click to expand...

Sure thats not simply the battery?

---

What was so good about SoundStorm?

Erm, ok, well at the time, the only options we had was Creative SoundBlaster Live! - Audigy was not around at the time. And when the SoundStorm came out it had both a warm sound to it, plus it was able to handle much more than any other onboard sound solution was able to.

It also depended on the Music you listened to as well... For rock music, the soundStorm was brilliant, but for trance/Dance stuff, not so much.

I know that the speaker setup used also played a big part too.

The NF7S sounded fantastic on my Altec Lansing 251 Speakers and playing back some Anthrax... Well, it was better than sex.

Only other option I had at the time was SoundBlaster & Cambridge soundworks speakers and these were made for each other but when compared directly to the SS, I found the sound too clinical and quite harsh.

So, for me, the SoundStorm was definitely a better solution than SoundBlaster, and nothing that I had on any of my Mobos even came close enough to bother trying.
 
I think you are being unfair JM

No one is saying the SS is still the kind of the hill.

No one is saying that when it came out there was nothing to touch it either, not onboard options anyway.

what I say is simply that when it came out, it was finally an onboard option that could give some stand alone cards a good run for its money.

And it could.

When it came out, there was no better onboard option and to compare onboard Audio with stand alone cards in my opinion is just stupid, but even so, you had to spend a few quid to get better.

What was so bad about SoundStorm then?

Its certinaly not going to stir my cup of tea these days, but at the time it was a great solution that worked very well.
 
I only ever had one NF3 Board and that was the DFI LanParty GB250 UT

I say only one but I had thios board twice, so only one model.

No, hang on... I also had an ECS that I stuffed a Tampon 3100 into.

God that was a crap board... Died all of sudden one day when it was only a few months old, but could I find the warranty?

That was an NF3 Mobo too!

Im thinking really seriously now... I love NForce boards, and NOTHING can change my mind on that... However... I have to look at my own experiences, and while I still have a few NF4 Boards and I still love them to bits, my 2 main PCs are intel 965 Chipset, and AMD 780

Both I am in love with and both are NOT NForce

I have spent a small fortune building up a SLI system only to find that by teh time I finish it, a single card has come out at half the price but twice the speed of the 2 SLI setup, rendering the whole idea useless and yet, why do I bother?

Sod it.
 
Fatboyuk2 said:
msi very good bords for me never had a prolelem with them
Click to expand...

No, to be fair, I have still some of their boards and I too have never had a problem with them.

They only lack in some BIOS options, but I have kind of given up in overclocking now, so the BIOS option list isnt THAT important to me anymore, so... I might give them a look for my next 775 board.

I got an E6600 and a 940 Pentium D spare that need rehoming.
 
Just to stir up the pot a bit more...
I just bought another Board off the MM and it came yesterday...
EVGA 680i - nVIDIA SLI Chipset

My god its bloody hot!

Few quirks with this board...

I went to plop in a pair of 8800GTS cards and the bottom PCIE Slot sits so low, that the card wont fit.

Similarly, the Audio header is so low in the board that in order to use it ( purely to se what its like and whether the headphone port on the case works with it ) I had to remove the back feet from the case.

So, in the end, I put in the 7800GTX Cards that I was going to anyway.

Irritatingly, all the components that were in the original Opteron are still there apart from the Mobo, CPU, and RAM and yet the heat coming from this now, is really something quite extra ordinary and I dont think that I have ever had a PC quite this hot ever!

I dont think its normal TBH.

I have now filled up the cases fan positions with some seriously hard blowing Delta 80mils and its helped tons, but its now too loud to be used in any serious capacity, plus the benchmarks that I have done so far has only shown me that its pretty much EXACTY the same speed as the opteron... Somethign totally contradictory to my first ever benchmarks on my first Core2Duo

Anyway, if this board goes pop, then it will be the last nvidia I buy.
 
As far as I am aware, but in the UK, the RETAILER has a legal obligation to provide you with a 12Month warranty, and so yes, you can simply take it back to the shop you got it.

Unless its "B" Grade or sommat other than braaan-spaaankin' noo
 
Well, as much as people **** off the NForce Chipset, I can only go by personal experience and I have had good results from them.

I still have a number of NF boards and my most recen build is based on a second hand NForce 680i and I am very happy with them.

I am also utterly happy with my Intel Chipsets mind you and given the choice, I have to say that I will say that the 965P Gigabyte DS3 is perhaps my most loved board ever - but very very close behind it, must surely be the Abit NF7S

I stil have a couple of DS3s and only recently got rid of my last NF7S to a dea mate of mine, who is chilling it as we speak!
 
Yeah, my A8N-SLI has my old Opty175 ( My fastest 939 ) and its fine. I have a Zalman Fanless cooler on the NB as its the only thing that will also let me use my 2x7800GTX Cards.

My EVGA 680i only has an E6400 and its not clocked although I have tinkered. Its not my main PC and I see no reason to clock when I wont need the power. Come to think of it, NONE of my PCs are clocked at all anymore as they are all more than fast enough for my needs.
 
HAHAHA!

My mate came to me today crying his eyes out cos his PC has just died on him... The PSU and the Mobo both got fried ( one took out the other via the 4pin 12v extra connection )

Guess what it was?

Do de do-do-do... Another ASUS bites the dust..
 
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