Nightmares of returning a motherboard

[stevo1210]

Hello Everyone,

I recently received my Gigabyte GA-8I945P-G motherboard back from RMA. It's the third time i've had to return it. This time I got it back, the plastic pins that hold the PCI ports down are melted on some ports ( As if someone got a soldering iron and melted it), the section near the ICH7 southbridge chip has gone a brownish colour, as if it got very hot in that section. Worst of all, sometimes It won't boot at all and I've confirmed it isn't a PSU, Memory or CPU problem since I have changed them all out with no luck.

I contacted the store and they agreed that I could pay some extra cash for an Intel Desktop board, MSI or Asus board.... I see Asus as a good board company as I use them for PC builds and I don't get complaints about Asus boards.... so far.

Many customers I see have faulty Gigabyte motherboards.... especially the ones with Intel chipsets.. unfortunately i'm a part of that too.

Does anyone know how Intel, MSI and Asus boards with Intel chipsets are in terms of reliability and stability??.

I will never buy another Gigabyte motherboard again since i've had to return nearly every single one that I have purchased so far.... Not only me, but many people I know also have to return Gigabyte motherboards all the time and they all got the boards from different retailers.

I'll take photos soon after I can get the digital camera off the charger.

Thanks.

[Fatal0E]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

Intel and Asus should both be good, I dont care to much for MSI. Best thing about Intel is the customer service, if the board dies they will ship one overnight air.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

May be there is something bad in your distribution system, if i would receive a board in that condition i would pay nothing and would urge the store to give me one in new condition.
I have seen a lot of Gigabyte boards here in Germany, and i know no store, wich would sell somthing that bad.
All Gigabyte boards are well build and without any problems so far (except the badcaps issue, wich was a problem with all brands IMHO).

May be there is a local sub wich does the repair work for the distributor (may be it is cheaper then shipping to Gigabyte), i doubth that Gigabyte is resonsible for those issues, butok nothing is ompossible in this busines, and i am not a Gigabyte fanboy.....

[Topcat]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

Asus was quick the last time I RMA'd one of their boards. Last Abit I sent in took about 2 months to get back. I think Abit and MSI tie for being slow, but they did come through. I've never had to RMA a Gigabyte....

[stevo1210]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

May be there is something bad in your distribution system, if i would receive a board in that condition i would pay nothing and would urge the store to give me one in new condition.

My first GA-8i945P-G motherboard had issues with the BIOS and I tried to say that but the store refused to give my money back.... instead they RMA'd the motherboard and came back with another crapshot board.

May be there is a local sub wich does the repair work for the distributor (may be it is cheaper then shipping to Gigabyte), i doubth that Gigabyte is resonsible for those issues, butok nothing is ompossible in this busines, and i am not a Gigabyte fanboy.....

Thats definitely true in my case, the store sent the motherboard up to a "Motherboard Repair Center" about 20KMs from where I live and they did the shoddy repairs to the motherboard. But quality wise Gigabyte is total junk in my opinion, people I know have to return thier boards all the time and so do I. I will definitely pay extra and get an Asus or an Intel original Desktop board.

Just to be sure next time, i'm going HP or Dell. The Dell PCs are OK for the the price they cost and customer service is great around here.

HP servicing I haven't tried but they make good PC's that last very long. In fact I still have a HP Pavillion 6305 that sat out in the back of a mechanics garage covered with oil and all types of junk in the air.... but it still worked (apart from a dead PSU after 10 years+ of service, but that was easily solved)


Thanks.

[shadow]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

I will never buy another Gigabyte motherboard again since i've had to return nearly every single one that I have purchased so far.... Not only me, but many people I know also have to return Gigabyte motherboards all the time and they all got the boards from different retailers.

Damn that is some bad luck you have there. I currently have in my possession three Gigabyte boards. All three of them work perfectly!

I currently have a Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X, GA-6VTXE, GA-7VA. All of them work great, initially I had a problem with the GA-7VA. The motherboards default BIOS settings were too aggressive or something because the computer would not boot. Pulling out the battery over night reset the BIOS settings and it has worked flawlessly ever since (and that was five years ago ). I think they fixed that problem with the second revision.

Maybe it was all just a big coincidence.

I have heard nothing bad about Asus here in Australia, and in fact I know people that love Asus motherboards to bits. I have personally never seen a failed one. However from what I have read on this forum in the relatively short time that I was here is that there have been some recent major issues with Asus motherboards lately.

Maybe I am just wrong.

[stevo1210]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

I currently have a Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X, GA-6VTXE, GA-7VA. All of them work great, initially I had a problem with the GA-7VA.

I have to agree with you on that point, it seems to me that the older series of Gigabyte motherboards are much more reliable. My GA-6VXE7+ is still running today after 7 years of service. It has 1200uf G-Luxon caps but none have bulged after 7 years and the PC is still stable so I'm assuming that the all the G-Luxon caps on that motherboard are all OK. The only problem with this motherboard is the VIA 693A chipset with the issues of slow memory and PCI output rates.... I tried the VIA 4 in 1 driver with no luck in performance.

I have heard nothing bad about Asus here in Australia, and in fact I know people that love Asus motherboards to bits. I have personally never seen a failed one. However from what I have read on this forum in the relatively short time that I was here is that there have been some recent major issues with Asus motherboards lately.

Maybe I am just wrong.

I live in Australia too and I haven't heard about bad Asus motherboards yet.... my customers haven't said anything bad Asus motherboards yet, so I guess they should be OK. I seem to notice the very rare amount of people using Intel motherboards here.

I have only ever seen one being returned at a store with a no POST issue and that was it.... and that was about 2 years ago.

I haven't seen any returns of Asus motherboards down at the store lately.

in fact I know people that love Asus motherboards to bits.

I'm in that group. I personally like my Asus P3V4X motherboard since it is a great and stable motherboard.
I think it was an overclockers motherboard too.... but I'm not sure.
I got it for free about 2 years ago after its owner decided to upgrade thier PC. It is a slot 1 motherboard with a VIA 694X chipset (Vast improvement over the VIA 693A chipset in my GA-6VXE7+ motherboard) and houses a Pentium III 650MHz and best of all it runs flawlessly. The best about it was the fact it used Sanyo WG (M) caps.... it is very odd to see a motherboard of that time period (2001) with good Japanese caps.



But in the end.... next time I get a new PC it will definitely be something from a big company like Dell or HP.
I'm currently looking at the Dell Optiplex 745 minitower and the Dimension E520.... they both look like great PCs.... I am not too sure but I think that the Optiplex is more reliable since it is designed for small businesses.... I may be wrong though. I am currently using a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop.... it is pretty OK in terms of reliability.


Thanks.

[stevo1210]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

Hello Everyone,

I forgot to add images previously so here they are. If you look at the photo with the three plastic pieces that hold the PCI ports down the motherboard, you will notice that the two of the pins to the right are melted and one of them is touching two contact points of the PCI slot.
The one to the far left is normal, in other words, how it should look like normally.

If anyone is wondering what that white stuff on the CPU socket cover is, it is Arctic Silver Ceramique. I used the socket cover as a test surface for the thermal compound. I wiped it all off but it still leaves a white mark but there is barely enough of it to fall into the socket and cause issues with the CPU pins/contacts.



Thanks.

[Fatal0E]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

I've seen that board come from the distributor new with the small caps behind the PCI Express slot vented.

[WNG]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

My motherboard inventory experience is minimal numbers-wise. But many varied brands.

Never had an OEM Intel manufactured board fail on me...from socket 7 to 478 (7 in total). But have seen (at work) intel-based chipset/onboard graphics motherboards defective with bad video output. Hardware related. But I don't remember the manufacturer.

Two Trigem motherboards, one is Intel-based socket 478 and the onboard Intel video is failing (shaky video, this is an HP Pavilion deskstop). Not caps related from what I can see. Other one was an E-machines VIA socket-7...flawless.

Abit NF7 v.2.0...flawless. BX6....reliable though not as overclockable as Asus below.

Asus P3V4X....flawless.

AOpen intel BX chipset slot-1....flawless overclocker, but a cheap PSU fried every component in the system except the CD drive.

DFI motherboards...socket 7 and socket A, only bad cap failure for the socket A. Otherwise, reliable boards.

FIC socket 7's and socket A (Uwave)....flawless.

Mtech socket 7 SiS chipset....flawless.

Gigabyte socket A VIA chipset....flakey keyboard I/O failures, probably soutbridge pathways. No bad caps.

ECS motherboards....intel socket 478...flawless. VIA PM400 socket A....defective right out of the box! (high pitched whine, crashed alot) SiS socket A....flawless.

Acorp VIA PM400a socket A...reliable, minor BIOS inconsistent boot behavior.

Biostar SiS socket A....no flawless.

MSI SiS socket 478....semi-reliable. Sometimes experience strange BIOS behavior, DDRAM compatibility issues I believe.

Granted, I kinda missed out on the whole bad caps era except for the DFI board that was given to me. But the frustration experienced from the ECS and Gigabyte boards are enough for me to never purchase these brands again. They are both VIA-based...and I now tend to avoid their offerings as well.

My next personal purchases will be Abit and Asus products. But heavily researched since Abit sourcing could be ECS these days, and Asus has been getting cheap on caps.

Being able to get by on older equipment since I'm not a power user at home, I can wait to acquire hardware for pennies on the dollar. So, even if an off brand failure is experienced, it doesn't sting financially as much. I rather replace it than RMA it to avoid the hassles and wait.

[stevo1210]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

Hello everyone,

I'm currently comparing the Asus P5LD2-SE motherboard and also the Asus P5B motherboard.... I don't know which one is better in terms of quality though.

The P5B is very fancy with all the extra items included on it and also the Intel P965 chipset. The P5LD2-SE instead uses an Intel 945P chipset and is a standard home use motherboard.

I haven't looked at any Intel bards yet because I haven't found any models with the 945P chipset and an ATX form factor.
Does anyone know of any models from Intel with the 945P chipset or even a P965 or G965 chipset and has an ATX form factor????

By the way does anyone know how many years of warranty Intel boards include here in Australia. I think Asus is about 3 years maybe????

Thanks.

[shadow]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

I am not too sure about them quality wise, however I say it would depend on the processor you are planning to buy.

The P945 chipset is not designed for the Core 2 Duo processors. Many manufacturers decided to include support in later revisions (but this chipset was never intended to be used on it). As such you have to be careful when buying a P945 chipset based motherboard for the Core 2 Duo. The P965 chipset was designed for the Core 2 Duo chips, it also has support for faster memory. The Asus ones look good but there are so many versions and I am not too sure what the difference between them all are. They are:

* P5B-Plus
* P5B Premium Vista Edition
* P5B-Plus Vista Edition
* P5B/TeleSky
* P5B-E Plus
* P5B-E
* P5B Deluxe
* P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP
* P5B

They all seem to have very different prices, ranging from about $100 to $400.

I have found a few full ATX Intel boards:

P965 Chipset: DP965LT

945P Chipset: D945PVS, D945PWM, D945PSN

945PL: D945PLRN

Hope this helps!

[shadow]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

Sorry about the extra post, did not know about the edit time out rule.

G965: DG965WH, DG965RY

[gonzo0815]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

Well, unless you want to OC, the i945 should be fine with c2c. But shure, some bios support should be availiable.

[DrCherry]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

I just went through the drill on a Gigabyte GA-7VA . Swapped out drives, memory, and a power supply before checking the caps. Believe it or not this thing was still running but would become unresponsive a couple of times a day.

[shadow]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

I just went through the drill on a Gigabyte GA-7VA . Swapped out drives, memory, and a power supply before checking the caps. Believe it or not this thing was still running but would become unresponsive a couple of times a day.

Wow those caps were pretty much gone!!!

Disturbing thing is that I have the exact same motherboard, I have the first version of this board (v 1.0).
I think it has those Choyo caps like yours, has been running great for five years so far! Hopefully I won't have to replace the caps any time soon.

[DrCherry]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

Hopefully I won't have to replace the caps any time soon.

I'd check for those Choyo caps.

I'm retiring this guy. I replaced it with an Asus/Celeron on Sunday.

[starfury1]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

I have 2 gigbyte pcb's but of the older vintage
first had badcaps GSC replaced with panasonic FM series
(willawake has a post on the same MB and this replacement)

not sure of the caps in this one but they looked ok last time I looked.

Apart from the caps they appear to be reliable, they are not for over clockers though

Since you say its with an intel and it is a later MB it may well be the quality has fallen abit. (I have a feeling those MB are on the cheaper side too. not so cheap $146~$195AU from static ice search)

That does not sound good that they "'Refused"to give you your money back....check what your consumer rights are with the ACCC and start talking ACCC if you are with in your rights

Sounds as if the product is clearly not performing and you have the right to a product that works to spec.

Personally I wouldn't deal again with a mob who won't do an exchange or give me my money back.

There was a big thing about this and Apple here (Australia) with I pods, were whom ever sold it was telling people they had to deal with Apple about exchange or repair...this apparently is not so
(it was Apple I think that had instructed retailers they were to do this if memory serves me but I could be wrong)

Thinking about it it may even be some issues relating to the change to RoHs manufacture
(you might have been unlucky and got an intermittent faulty one)

Asus seems to have a good Rep it it would be my choice from what I've read about them, but yes all companies I suppose have had a bad run of pcbs either from design bios or manufacture. so google my be your friend here.

Google the model with "faulty" "not working" "problem" and see what falls out
when looking at buying a MB might help you decide.

This is the down side to building your own systems , in that they can assume claim its your fault

I think your situation sucks stevo and it shouldn't happen, you are entilte to a working product

since they are at lest prepared to offer you an exchange for a bit of cash and another type of MB I'd go for it and get rid of what appears to be a lemon mate.

Cheers and good luck with the next one

[starfury1]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

Humm looking at the pics it appears the solder mask has been removed or not applied properly
Was it like that before you RMAed it? (like from brand new?)

Didn't notice any RoHs on the box so guess that theory is out the window
(intermittent faulty still applies thought)

As to the melted plastic, Ive known this to be done but it shouldn't have been done that way anyway.

give the next one you get a good look over before you leave the shop mate

[stevo1210]

Re: Nightmares of returning a motherboard

Hello starfury1,

What do you mean by the solder mask???? which part is it??

Anyway it has been 3 weeks and I haven't even seen my board come back yet. I rang to ask the other day and the store doesn't even know where it is in the repair process?! The Intel BLKDP965LTCK motherboard is $193 dolars and this board was $150 2 months ago when I bought it. Now it is worth $120-130 so I have to pay extra $90 for the Intel motherboard.... It should only be $70 but the $20 extra is for the "trouble" I caused for the shop.... seriously it isn't my fault that this board is faulty.

I have been without a computer for a few weeks and it is starting to really tick me off.

I can't get my money back at all since they said it was my problem for buying the board in the first place.

They had one so-called "Great" solution and that was to give me the Gigabyte board back and then I would have to sell it myself.... thats if I wanted my money back.

I have only one option now and that is to pay the extra for the Intel motherboard.

Last time I RMA'd my Gigabyte GA-8iG1000-G motherboard it came back with scratches in various parts the PCB, some scratches on the traces, bent polyfuses etc. I notified the shop when I was collecting it and they told me that it works so I can't just return it for another RMA. I still use it and it is still under warranty, but I can't just go back and return it.

I'm confused, tired and angry but I just have to live with it for now.

If I complain to Consumer Affairs (ACCC) because it would probably make the situation worse than it is now.... I seriously don't want to store to call me and complain about anything.

At the moment my relationship with the store is really crap, it seems to me everytime I call up there I end up arguing with the store owner.

Last time I tried to chase him up on the status of the repair on another motherboard, the shop owner told me off for asking about the board??!!

And for anyone that is curious this is also the shop that burnt out my PC Partner/Achieva Australia motherboard by connecting the USB cable the wrong way. The shop didn't pay for the damages to that board either. Theres a thread about the F-USB header burn out somewhere here.

I just wonder what I have to do now??. I am really confused.



Thanks.