After two motherboard failures in 3 months, can anyone recommend an MB manufactuer that will not fail?

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charles_i

charles_i

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I am facing my second motherboard failure in less than 3 months, so it seems that the rate of failure must be very high. I searched for stats on MB RMAs and this site seems to contain the most recent info, from 2014. It appears that these are the worst culprits:

- Gigabyte 2.51% (against 2.02%)
- MSI 2.65% (against 2.60%)
- ASUS 2.86% (against 2.31%)
- ASRock 2.99% (against 2.27%)

I actually find these stats hard to believe, At only 2 and a half to 3 percent failure rate I must be incredibly unlucky to have two of these fail - the first an ASRock H97 Anniversary that suffered total, unbootable failure after about six weeks, and the second, a Gigabyte Z97-HD3P which has been unable to hold any battery power, resulting in being unable to hold the correct time, even after trying a new battery since the day I installed it.

A second concern is the Atech Flash Reader that I bought which has only sporadically worked on both of these motherboards. The manufacturer claims that no drivers are needed. If I unplug the 3.0 cable and then insert a camera card and plug it in again it will force the unit to work for a couple of reboots - but after two or three reboots it will inevitably generate a "Set Address Failed. (Code 43)" error and the card reader will fail, but curiously the USB ports will still work. This appears to be a MB connection error. Maybe the MB doesn't like the fact that this is a secondary connection and I've had to unplug the primary USB 3.0 case connections. Is there a MB that has two 3.0 connection and is smart enough to keep this unit working?

Finally, I have my own serial number for Windows 10 for this PC - it is not an OEM, so I do hope that I don't have to start from a fresh format of the primary drive since I have quite a bit of configuration done on this PC already.

Thanks
Charles
 
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gilbadon

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They are all good manufacturers and make quality and also piss poor products. It is important to note that you purchased some of the cheapest motherboards from both ASRock and Gigabyte you can buy in the Z97 platform. I have the same gigabyte motherboard in the Z170 variant and it sucks, but it was $70, so I knew that going in.

Buy a quality motherboard and you will be good. Most motherboard manufacturers are indistinguishable.

Why I think your PC is dying however is some other cause. What is your system specs? It could be you have a shit PSU or wall outlet giving dirty power to the system.
 
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charles_i

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Thanks, I'm thinking that you are correct, the MB's I selected are too cheap. Any recommendations? I didn't say my PC was dying, I said the ASRock died - my PC is working very well, it's just that the MB won't recognize the USB 3.0 properly and the battery does not work.
 
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charles_i

charles_i

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Update. I just installed my FOURTH motherboard since September 2015. What are the chances of getting three defective boards in a row? On the advice above I stepped up my purchase price to the Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5, which is very fast. But alas, it too had a defect. No audio from the right channel. Traced to the plug on the board - probably bad soldering. So I exchanged it for another one of the same.

Is this a new trend? Am I the only person who has run into a slew of defects? Maybe that's why they don't cost $700 like they used to in the early PC days.

I don't usually go for extended warranties, but after board #2 failed I did with the Gaming 5 - fortunately. I highly recommend it.
 
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i6pwr

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I know you don't want to hear this but there's a possible common denominator....that's the user and/or other hardware. Coming from ASUS, I couldn't be happier right now with my ASRock Extreme 4, both build great boards. There were early issues with this board, serial numbers starting with 47 and below, some with 49, but mine is a 51 and all has been good.

With that being said, I think ASRock puts out some mighty fine boards. when you are building your rig, are you being careful not to damage anything with static electricity? Are you overclocking right out of the gate or waiting awhile?

What PSU are you using? Are you changing voltages in the bios?

Need a little more info to assist you.
 
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charles_i

charles_i

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Answer to 16pwr.

I don't think it was user error because I was very careful. I bought and used an anti-static wrist strap, I'm not overclocking or changing voltage, and the problems were completely unrelated:

- the ASRock board failed completely after about a month and a half (no boot up) and the vendor acknowledged the fault, and gave me a full refund, after they sent it to the manufacturer for testing

- the second board, the Gigabyte's system clock never worked from the day I installed it

- the third board, the Gigabyte Gaming 5, I believe had faulty soldering in the audio out jack

My current Gigabyte Gaming 5 has been working perfectly and I'm very happy with the speed of it.

All of the parts were recommended by various questions I posted here on Tom's. The PSU is a Corsair CX430M Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX which I wish I hadn't bought, actually. It's a nice idea to have plugged in cables so you only use what you need, but I have found it has some quirky behavior. I unplugging one of two hard drives on the same power cable when I took it in to have the board examined and this stopped any power from reaching the board - nothing happened when I clicked the start button. When I moved the plug to another output it worked. And later when I moved it back to the one marked for hard drives, it still worked. Maybe it's the connection between the cable and the unit - they seem rather flimsy. I don't know, but I don't like those cables, and there are only 2 of them for hard drives and disc burner power and I have been unable to find a place to buy just the cable should I want to add another HDD.
 
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i6pwr

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What is does your rig consist of hardware wise....number of drives, graphics card, etc? Not saying it's entirely user error, but could be a hardware issue. Depending on what graphics card you have, 430W seems like a borderline PSU.

Also something to check....the 8 small wires from the case panel....It's easy to get the reset wires reversed since I believe the red doesn't necessarily mean It's the POS + lead. Can't remember off the top of my head but either the red or black isn't what you would think is positive or negative in some cases.
 
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charles_i

charles_i

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I don't have/I'm not using a graphics card. The case panel plugs are labeled POS + and POS - there are no colors. I don't think that would have anything to do with the problems I've had. Good to know that the 430W is not enough if I do get a graphics card later, though. Thanks.
 
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