Asus quality..Going down?

pat

Expert
Ok...Is it just me, or it looks like Asus are lowering his quality standard? I look at the posts here, and most of the time, they are Asus related. Do they botch their work in order to meet dead line. I dumped Asus in favor of Soltek for my AMD built. I'm more than pleased with that. Not a single one failed. But I consider Abit and MSI too, even if 1 MSI board get replaced 4 times in one machine. Even ECS prove to be more reliable than Asus (was bought to replace an old Asus board...)...One ECS machine, boot first time, XP install first time..running great since.

When nforce3 250 board will be more common, and I'll start building machine based on, that wont be Asus .

Ok, I know that they sell more board, and that mean more problems might happen... I could expect DOA board, but half working board (they post, but install is a real challenge) are sign of loosy design.

Maybe it is just my impression ...

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!
 

jonbach

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I run a custom computer company, and we use Asus in ALL our desktop computers. They occationally have a really stupid product (*cough* P4S8X), but overall I'm very impressed with them. If anything, I think you just need to know their quirks. An A7V333 had voltage issues with the Enlight 7237. Most Asus boards HATE to have a SoundBlaster card in the first PCI slot (we've found the second slot to be best). The PC-DL won't boot with a USB flash card reader until you flash the BIOS to v1004. But as quirky as they are, whenever we try another brand (Gigabyte, Intel, etc), we're always fast to find that Asus is the right pick. They perform great, and we have a quite low RMA percentage.

No, I don't work for Asus :) If I did work for Asus, I would be spending my time fixing their stupid website, not posting on forums!


Jon Bach
Puget Custom Computers
<A HREF="http://www.pugetsystems.com" target="_new">http://www.pugetsystems.com</A>
 

pIII_Man

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Gotta go with pat on this one, in the past 4 months or so asus' motherboards have started to go down the tube. They are having voltage regulation problems on their top P4 motherboards. The reason no reviews have stated this is becuase they get hand selected mobos. Also Asus is staying pretty damn expensive yet their boards dont warrent the amount of money they cost, you are much better off going for other brands. Asus used to have original feature rich top of the line boards, but now all im seeing is just another taiwanese motherboard manufacturer.

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jonbach

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Baloney! I personally work with 10-20 high end Asus boards (P4P800 or P4C800-E Deluxe) with 3.2 or 3.4 GHz CPUs every week, and they've been great!

That's right, baloney! With mayo. But not too much, that's just gross.

Jon Bach
Puget Custom Computers
<A HREF="http://www.pugetsystems.com" target="_new">http://www.pugetsystems.com</A>
 

pat

Expert
The quirks you taked about shouldn't be present in the motherboards from such manufacturer. You can expect them in budget mobo, not in expensive board. That's why I say that their quality standards are not that high..

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!
 

DCB_AU

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Asus mainboards must be the most common board out there.

Thats why there in most posts.

<font color=red>DCB</font color=red><font color=white>_</font color=white><font color=blue>AU</font color=blue>
 

Johanthegnarler

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I've been under that impression.. i stated in another post i haven't used them with AMd platforms, but the two deluxes i used (p4c800) have had mad voltage problems. Not enough to affect a normal user, but makes it nearly impossible for me to OC.

Since i'm not a normal user, i don't have a need to pay more to not be able to OC.
MSI boards, have been [-peep-] to me. P4 wise.

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Crashman

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Former Staff
The P4S8X was the worst 648 chipset board on the market, bar none. Because Asus is the most popular brand, the P4S8X nearly ruined SiS's reputation again, something they've been working hard to improve ever since their excellent 735 and 645 were released.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Mine too, P4C800-E Deluxe, it spikes vCore, resetting the system. It surges vCore, locking the system. Can't overclock worth crap. The older the board got, the worse the problem. All while line voltage has been rock stable. Various people have been modifying their boards to correct this problem, but that voids your warranty.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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endyen

Splendid
There were a lot of ocers who complained about the A7S333 board's lack of bios. Asus gave them new boards.
I have a few 4 and 5 year old Asus boards still running. If i need drivers or jumper settings, the Asus webpage has them.
Asus uses the best available components on thier boards, and stands behind them all the way.
These are part of the reason Asus is #1 in mobos. It has not changed.
Some other board manufacturers are adopting Asus policy, so Asus is going to see better competition. That is good for the consumer.
 

Titanion

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Good interpretation of the data.... ASUS is a popular board... i.e., look at all the problems people are having with PCs on this forum... you should all buy Macs... :) Indeed, that may not be sound reasoning...

But I do wonder if there is any truth to all the ATI 9600 problems... but this is the wrong thread for that...

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pat

Expert
So, if they are so common, how come that they still have problems? They should be fixed faster than the other brand, cause they sell more, they have feedback faster..so they should react faster..but no...they leave their boards as it, patching them with discutable BIOS update...

This is not what I expect from a #1 company

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!
 

pat

Expert
4-5 years old board are not the problem...new one are. As for good support, This is the less we can expect from such company.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!
 

addiarmadar

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I just think that thier quality of support is going down. That damn website of thier constantly goes down and HAS NO FORUMS!!! Also their # for tech support is wrong in the manual for it takes you to their fax machine. The more you know the mobo company, the more quirks of their porducts you will discover. They all have them..

I would like to point out that on thier A7N8X-Deluxe mobo that the SATA drivers are on CD ONLY. This does not help those with that the only machine and just installing windows.

Mobile Barton 2500+ @ 2420mhz 11x220 1.7v
Asus A7N8X Dlx 440 FSB
1gb Geil GD pc3500 Dual Channel (2-3-3-6)
Segata 80gb SATA 8.5ms seek
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro(420/720)
 

addiarmadar

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God I hate that. My A7N8X-D mobo does a major spikes in vcore and can be up to .05. My NF7-S mobo stays where I want it, may drop but doesnt spike so friggin high.

Mobile Barton 2500+ @ 2420mhz 11x220 1.7v
Asus A7N8X Dlx 440 FSB
1gb Geil GD pc3500 Dual Channel (2-3-3-6)
Segata 80gb SATA 8.5ms seek
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro(420/720)
 

endyen

Splendid
Asus makes very good general purpose boards, reliable for most users, not so great for ocing. Abit makes great ocing boards, I just wish they would learn to make manuals.
 

Johanthegnarler

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Actually, the MSI neo ls 2 is doing the same thing, i thought it was the powersupply ,but it's the board! I wish I wouldn't have built that machine for my friend using the reviews off this site.

But right now i have a useless P4c800-e , unless you could show me something to modify it. I don't care about warranty, i rarely use it.

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Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
I see you didn't read <A HREF="http://www.sysopt.com/reviews/asus-P4C800-E_Deluxe/index.html" target="_new">My P4C800-E Deluxe Review</A>, else you would have spotted <A HREF="http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8561201~root=ocusa~mode=flat~start=0" target="_new">This link to such information</A>. If you cared to google "P4C800 droop mod" you'd find even more information, such as how this mod came about.

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addiarmadar

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True that. Abit markets for the enthuasts and pros. They are a nightmare to newbs.

Mobile Barton 2500+ @ 2420mhz 11x220 1.7v
Asus A7N8X Dlx 440 FSB
1gb Geil GD pc3500 Dual Channel (2-3-3-6)
Segata 80gb SATA 8.5ms seek
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro(420/720)
 

Johanthegnarler

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Actually you are wrong sir. I did google and came up with the same thread, just different colors. But, it's too much work, i was hoping there was a better mod that i didn't know about.(basically i'm lazy and i have a new board now ^^.)
Heh, i just realized i did read your review awhile back, i just forgot about it and dubbed my board useless.
Thanks for letting me in on my forgetfullness<<almost as good as mr. bush's usedacoulda he used in one of his speeches. :)

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46,510 , movin on up. 48k new goal. Maybe not.. :/<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Johanthegnarler on 03/28/04 01:56 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

jimbo99

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Have to agree. Asus quality has been dropping for some time. I'm glad others are noticing it. I tried to address it with them many months ago but they ignored me. As if I didn't think they would.

If lots of ppl comment on this then someone's bound to get a clue at ASUS and hopefully direct some sort of change.


And thank god for reviews such as that done by crashman.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Jimbo99 on 03/29/04 07:07 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

ChipDeath

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I had an Asus A7V333 which was total garbage, Voltages all over the place, and after about a year wouldn't run @ 133FSB anymore, so ended up underclocking and running at about 112 (PCI divider wouldn't allow more) in the end I just got too pissed off with it and bought my present Epox board, which I think is great. I still have the Asus in my second PC @100FSB. occasionally it blue screens when booting and kills the registry, but I'm used to that now, and have measures in place to recover quickly :eek:

---
Epox 8RDA+ rev1.1 w/ Custom NB HS
XP1700+ @205x11 (~2.26Ghz), 1.575Vcore
2x256Mb Corsair PC3200LL 2-2-2-4
Sapphire 9800Pro 420/744
 

CaPtAiN_InSaNo

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Well, you can't bash Asus quite so much, just look at how many boards are produced!! They produce many more boards that any other company, there for the law of averages says that there will be more defective boards. Yes their quality has gone down, but I have yet to see someone who wasn't able to get their money back or a new working board. For OC, i'd suggest Abit from what i've read about, they have really stable votls, asus could probably cut down by half their RMA's if they would just get some freaking vregs that work!!! NO company is perfect, no company stays the best all the time, they may fall by the wayside, but i doubt it will happen any time soon.

P4 2.6@3.15
P4C800 Deluxe
512mb OCZ DDR533
(No vid card, waiting to return Asus 9800 and get a 128 9800P that will oc more than a measly 4%)