Good and Bad Brand Names, share your experiences

Since when has XFX been a good motherboard maker? He might as well add Abit, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Intel and DFI to the "Bad Motherboard" list.

EDIT: I just realized that he doesn't have Corsair listed as a good RAM manufacture and he doesn't have eVGA listed as a good video card maker. What's with Antec not being listed on the "Good PSU" list. Antec is the best.
 
I don't think I've ever even seen an XFX motherboard. eVGA shouldn't be left out, they're good card makers too. Their cards are easy to find as well, I never see bfg cards in retail sale but I see evga
 
Bestec power supples are NOT the reason eMachines motherboards fail. They fail regardless of the brand of the power supply. Bestec is used in HP, Compaq, and Gateway without any more failures than any other.
The eMachines boards are made as copies under license in Korea... from several designs by Intel, FoxConn and so on. They fail in huge numbers because they are badly built, and cannot withstand the humidity, the lack of humidity, or the heat... their capacitors, and southbridges fail... among a lot of other things.
 
Do not agree... Supermicro is an excellent board... by MSI. Never seen a bad BioStar, never seen a bad eVGA.
Have seen bad:
ASRocks, ePoX, ECS, PCChips, Soyo, and Magic-Pro
 
Maxtor was so bad that they went broke. Dell, HP, Compaq, and Gateway all stopped using them because of their high failure rates. They folded and were bought out by Seagate two years ago, after which the assembly line and product line were completely restructured.. We have seen more bad Maxtor and Quantums in our shops than all other hard rives combined... Hitachi is next.

"maxtor is not bad. I know because I've had one for about 7 years (on about 50% day)"
 
By my experience 1 of every 2 maxtors die. I've bought two sets of 2 maxtors, each in different generation, 1 of each set have died.
 
The list is not mine to begin with. Stuff missing in my suggestions is there in korrupt's original list.
As for eVGA, their nForce 680i motherboard has much more problems than any other board with the same chipset, an example being XFX's similar motherboard. And I have seen certain Biostar motherboards (mainly with VIA chipsets) fail very soon, hence I have mentioned that. It does not imply that all Biostar motherboards are bad. As for SuperMicro, I had no idea of the original maker, so I apologize for the misinformation.
 
They certainly do. They even have a new motherboard based on the 690G chipset released last year. Not new enough though, since they don't sell any boards with the new P and G series chipsets, or the nForce 6 series ones.
 
I pulled a Maxtor from my aunties old dell that got damaged in a storm and it still works fine. It's in my rig now and i have it running nearly 24/7. It's also been through few formattings since i've had it. No problems so far. Not saying that i'm ever going to buy one over my trusty ol' WD, just saying i've had no problems.
 
Every motherboard manufacturer must target a niche market in which they can compete. Design and manufacturing costs are simply too high. Epox makes good boards, but they no longer compete against gamer boards such as Asus, Gigabyte, Abit, and a few others.
Some of it is marketing, as some boards by different brand names are made in the same plants in China and Korea.
There is no motherboard manufacturer that has not released some awful motherboards with high failure rates... ASUS is among the worst. Intel and FoxConn are among the best. Many others no longer exist, as new ones come into existence.
It is unwise to buy any motherboard by brand name. Also, it is not smart to buy the latest board with the hot reviews.
Yes, EPox makes good boards. It just doesn't compete in all markets.
 
PCChips does make crap boards, but they're usually the only company you find making older boards (Socket 370; Socket A; Socket 478), which is just what I use them for, replacement boards for old PC's.
 
PCChips don't do many fancy, high-speed things, but they very rarely fail. Good solidd board for people who don't do gaming or photo editing.
 
WARNING: THIS POST IS PROPAGANDA

This post has absolutely no value. I should lock it and delete, but I'm not nazi enough... I don't think I am yet anyway. :)

For example, I can buy Kingston memory... But say I buy Kingston ValueRAM... It has low compatibility, 'poor' performance and for all intents and purposes, it is 'cheap' memory. It is still Kingston though... How do you figure Kingston means quality?

Jetway and Centon are bad memory? They don't even make memory ICs (NONE of the brands on your list do), they repackage the same stuff that IS made by Micron (Crucial), Samsung, Hynix-ST... This post is borderline ridiculous and a disservice to people looking for honest suggestions.
 
Ahhh, the propaganda kills me!

raybay said:
eMachines has the third-highest sales in the world, and the number one highest mother board by a whopping margin.
raybay said:
PCChips don't do many fancy, high-speed things, but they very rarely fail. Good solidd board for people who don't do gaming or photo editing.
Considering eMachines has almost exclusively used PCChips for their system boards for past several years, how do you figure? Recently, Emachines has been using Asus as well, but I fewer Emachines that I used to...
 
raybay said:
Bestec power supples are NOT the reason eMachines motherboards fail. They fail regardless of the brand of the power supply. Bestec is used in HP, Compaq, and Gateway without any more failures than any other.
The eMachines boards are made as copies under license in Korea... from several designs by Intel, FoxConn and so on. They fail in huge numbers because they are badly built, and cannot withstand the humidity, the lack of humidity, or the heat... their capacitors, and southbridges fail... among a lot of other things.
I have worked on several emachines systems, one in fact, the Bestec PSU had a capacitor physically blow out and ruin the system. The ECS mobo had no bad caps or anything, it just wouldn't post. The reason the Bestec PSUs in HPs and newer compaqs never fail is b/c they use a more high quality model of Bestec PSU. I have opened a Bestec PSU out of a compaq and it has a totally different array of parts than the one I pulled from our emachine before it fried it. They were similar, but not the same. The model out of the compaq was ATX-250-12E Rev. D, when the one from the emachine (the one that is responsible for failures) is the ATX-250-12E Rev:p7. Besides, I have had 2 bestec PSUs fail in HPs as well both because of the fan and failed capacitors. It's easy to tell the ones in emachines are much cheaper because they never have those green status lights on the back of them. The ones in HPs and Compaqs have Green LEDs that light when there is power going to the PSU and blink when there's a motherboard issue, instead of frying it like the emachines version.

But I do agree on the motherboard issue. TriGem Imperial boards have a high failure rate. I have seen some intel boards with nichicon caps fail, but the on in our W2888 is fine. It has Rubycon caps which arent part of the capacitor plague brands like nichicon, lelon, taheh and so on.

My neighbors Emachines system has an "Enhance" PSU, and this thing is atleast 6 years old... from the old beige minitower era, the one that doesn't have the big E with the light around it. And this thing runs almost year-round, maybe once every month they turn it off, or it gets a break when the power goes out etc. it's the longest lasting emachine i have ever seen! And guess what, the motherboard is a Trigem board... that hasnt failed yet. not to mention, some HPs and Compaqs use these boards as well
 
Old eMachines are fine, my cousins eMachine from around 2000 has an enhance PSU as well and its still running. Its an ugly little tower, too.
 
It seems like only the old ones are good. By late 2002, once they started downgrading their motherboards and started using cheapie Bestec PSUs , they went downhill. The worst systems were made from late 2002 to 2005, because they used the Bestec ATX-250-12E Rev. P7 power supply that powers your system 2-4 years and then murders your motherboard. My dad got a W2888 as a gift back in 03 or 04. It sat in storage in the bedroom, because my dad actually had nothing to do with computers, he didn't even know how to use windows!!! It was hooked up a few months later though. in 2005, my mom decided to move in with my dad so the w2888 was but to use. in 2006, it ran constantly. This was also ther year my mom gave her T1840 to her dad to use and then the (either A: motherboard killed the PSU or B the PSU killed the mobo b/c it was putting out 38v on the 12v rail). computer killed over. in 2007, I signed up to Techspot and learned about the issue with the Bestec PSUs. Then I removed the Bestec PSU out of the w2888 and stuck a CoolMax V-400 PSU in it. It runs to this day, I am using it to type this post.

P.S. I know this is getting off topic from the thread, which has to do with good and bad brands, but if you think about it, this tells others how emachines is a very bad brand for average Joe users.
 
The Bestecs have never been the real problem. The motherboard destroys the power supply not the other way around. The same Bestec has been used on HP, Compaq, Gateway and other computers with none of these problems. We also have a large database of reports from owners.

We have 300 of them in an old barn, and have done detailed analysis on them in preparation for further action.

You are correct that the problem occurred fairly late. Out database shows that there are 14 bad models, and those failures began to occur in March of 2004... When they failed under warranty, they were replaced. But once out of that one-year warranty, they were worthless.

The optical drive is good, the power supply is lousy, but not part of the real problem, the CPU and fan are fine, as are the memory and modem.

The problem is nearly always localized in the motherboard.

There is no question that the eMachines desktop and the eMachines laptop have the highest failure rates in the US.

It is almost certain that the cost is because the motherboards are made in a bad plant, under terrible inspection and engineering. Then, they refused (until recently) to offer a warranty longer than 1 year.

Of course there are also other problems as with any computer, and there have been power supply failures, but the failure rate of the motherboard is special.
 
I remember before we took the Bestec PSU out of our w2888, every 25-30 minutes the computer would make a short "whining noise" while running It has done it ever since it was new. Once we replaced the PSU, we never heard a whine from the computer again. I used that Bestec PSU to test another board and it made whistling noise, so I think that PSU was about ready to fry something lol. I agree with you on the motherboard issue. I've seen emachines with motherboard issues and power supply issues, one where the capacitor in the PSU really blew off of the PCB, it was loose inside of the PSU case. This was a system with an Athlon XP 2000+, can't remember the model. It has an ECS motherboard with a VIA chipset, and another that had a TriGem board in it with capacitor plague and a PSU that put out 38+volts on the 12v rail. The memory, drives, cards and cooler survived, but the fried board hangs on my bedroom wall to this day. The ones in Compaqs and HPs are similar, but not the same, I posted this earlier in the thread...

I have opened a Bestec PSU out of a compaq and it has a totally different array of parts than the one I pulled from our emachine before it fried it. They were similar, but not the same. The model out of the compaq was ATX-250-12E Rev. D, when the one from the emachine (the one that is responsible for failures) is the ATX-250-12E Rev:p7. The ones in HPs and Compaqs have Green LEDs that light when there is power going to the PSU and blink when there's a motherboard issue, instead of frying it like the emachines version.

Here's's the difference, The one I opened that was pulled from the compaq had much better quality parts and even had a status LED on it to tell you if there was problems. The one from the emachine had very poor quality parts. haha, my friend tim converted a Bestec mATX PSU from a HP into a lab PSU to charge batteries and run his CB radio. It's only rated for 2 amps on the 12v rail, yet it put out 5 amps on the battery charger (this charger is for RC car batteries like ones that go in Traxxas cars). He used a Bestec from an emachine to do the same thing and every capacitor went KAPOW! And it was rated for atleast 10 amps on the 12v rail.

...updated, 4/4/08 I recently looked at a dead compaq, which had the PSU replaced, the motherboard would power on, but do nothing else. I troubleshooted it and figured it was a bad board. I then found the Bestec PSU that came out of the compaq. I found out that the PSU took out the board by looking inside the PSU and noticing several swelled capacitors on one of the output rails, so now i'm saying, avoid Bestec PSU's by all means, no matter what what brand the computer is.
 
We service a very large number of corporate clients with laptop support and repair. They cover four states, both cities and rural, corporations and government clients.
We find the Seagate laptop hard drives to be most reliable, the Tohshiba to be second.
So I am sorrry, but we cannot agree with your assessment.
Next are recent Western Digital.
Laptop hard drives we consider totally unacceptable next include Samsung, then Hitachi, Hitachi Travelstar, (and of course, the older IBM Travel Star), and Fujitsu as the worst of the bunch.
Other brands get much too limited of a distribution to count.
Then you can boil them down to sizes: 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 160, 165, and 200... the 5400 rpm are substantially more reliable than the 7200 rpm. The few 10,000 rpm have yet to last a year.

The Toshiba 80 and 60 GB drives of 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm, are very close to the Seagates of similar sizes and rotations. But the Seagate has a five-year warranty, whereas the Toshiba has a 3 year warranty. Others vary depending on whether they are sold in a retail box or oem through shops.

Since the Toshiba's are warranteed for three years, did you return them for warranty exchange?
 
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