Hi everyone.

Ive noticed a lot of questions where people ask "is this a good brand" so I figured I'd seperate good from evil:p

CPU
Amd and intel are the only brands available and both are good.

Motherboard
Good: Asus, Intel, Gigabyte, DFI, Foxconn, MSI and Abit.
Bad: Need suggestions, Ive never had a bad Mobo

Ram
Good: Legend, Kingston, Corsair, Geil, OCZ, G.Skill, Crucial
Bad: Any generic brand, Centon, JetRam,

Hard Drive
Good: Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung
Bad: Quantum, Maxtor, Fujitsu, IBM

Video Card
Good: Asus, Gigabyte, EVGA, Sapphire, Innovision, ATI, nVidia
Bad: Point of view, legend

PSU
Good: Antec, Coolermaster, Thermaltake
Bad: Achieve
Aerocool, Allied, Apex, Aspire, Austin, Codegen, Colorsit, Coolmax, Demon, Deer, Duro, Dynapower, Eagle, EagleTech, Foxlink, InWin, JustPC, Kingwin,
L&C, Logic, Linkworld, MGE, Mustang, Power-Man, Powmax, Power-Up, Powerstar, q-tec, Raidmax, Robanton, Rosewill, Turbo, Turbolink, Ultra

I realise there are many more good and bad brands and many more components. Most of these are based on personal experience. This is basically a foundation to start this thread on. Anyone have any additions, I'd be happy to add them and give you credit for it.

Regards,

Korrupt

Credits: Additions courtesy of rik and Didou

In the graphics card section you missed the 2 biggest names out, ati and nvidia.

CPU
Amd and intel are the only brands available and both are good.
The Epia series from Via are quite populare & work well in certain areas.

Motherboard
Good: Asus, Intel, Gigabyte, DFI, Foxconn, MSI and Abit.
Bad: Via

Via is not a motherboard brand.

Ram
Good: Legend, Kingston, Corsair, Geil, OCZ, G.Skill, Ballistics, Crucial
Bad: Any generic brand, Centon, JetRam,
Ballistix belongs to Crucial & I myself have never heard about Legend Ram.

Hard Drive
Good: Western Digital, Seagate, IBM, Toshiba, Samsung
Bad: Quantum, Maxtor, Fujutsu
Quantum was bought by Maxtor which itself has been bought by Seagate. IBM no longer does HDDs, they've sold that unit to Hitachi but before the sale IBM was the brand with the most HDD failures (the DeskStar even got renamed DeathStar). & it's written Fujitsu.

Thanks for your replies.

Via is not a motherboard brand, you are quite correct. One of my mates told me it was bad but I assume he was talking about the chipset or something else then:P

Legend Ram and graphics cards are Australian.

Rik, I was under the distinct impression that ATI and NVIDIA are the chipsets?

I wasnt aware ballistix was by crucial but will change that

yes it it written fujitsu, typo.

I got IBM mixed up, yes it is a SHOCKING brand and even though they may not make hdd's anymore, you can still get them secondhand.

This also goes for Quantum and Maxtor.

Once again, thanks for your additions.

Regards,

Korrupt

Rik, I was under the distinct impression that ATI and NVIDIA are the chipsets?

Well they make the chipsets because they make graphics cards too, if you check my profile im using an ATI Radeon, its called ATI radeon because ATI make it.

Are you absolutely sure?

I'm not saying you are wrong but have never heard of ATI and NVIDIA being an actual brand name...

I could be wrong, but just wanna make sure.

Regards,

Korrupt

Er yes, im absolutely sure, i have the box my card came in in front of me and there are no other manufacturers names on it that i can see. I also used to use an old nvidia Geforce 2 mx440 and i still have the box for that, and again, it has no other manufacturers names on it.

Ok, if you say so I will add this in. I really feel stupid for not knowing this...

Regards,

Korrupt

this is all very subjective and is without evidence or objective means of
evaluation. I seriously doubt that anyone individual can possibly have
first hand experience with so many vendors products.

at the very least, these might be framed as "I recommend" or "I don't like" xyz because ...

to quote a line from Porgy & Bess, ... it anit necessarily so

A "I absolutely hate " section would be good too.

this is all very subjective and is without evidence or objective means of
evaluation. I seriously doubt that anyone individual can possibly have
first hand experience with so many vendors products.

at the very least, these might be framed as "I recommend" or "I don't like" xyz because ...

to quote a line from Porgy & Bess, ... it anit necessarily so

You are quite correct, I worried about this too. What I was thinking of doing is making individual polls on each piece of hardware and then posting the results back in this thread...

Sound good? This would make it more accurate...

Regards,

Korrupt

oh, don't forget about Bestec Power Supplies, they're one of the reasons why emachines die so quickly

You might want to add a section about OEM builders. Dell and Alienware get some bad rep from people who don't know how to upkeep their computers but are both high quality brands in my experience, especially the servers. Emachines makes crap desktops and HP laptops tend to be pretty nice in my experience.

Maxtor drives suck, I had 3 of them die within the 4 months after I bought them. What about Hitachi drives? I personally don't know but what category whould you put them in? You should include some bad DVD drives too.

I've had two Hitachi and Matox hard drivers for 2 years and both are still running great. Also Raidmax makes good power supplies. Once more I've had 2 of them running strong 2 years. I've had 3 Apevia (Aspire) PSUs for 3 years so they are also good. I would like to add that "Turbo-Link" is a sub brand of Apevia and the three PSUs I've had from them are Turbo-Link. MSI makes a bad motherboard; 2 and a half years ago I bough one... A whopping four months later the DIMM slots go dead.

I have a Point of View 8800 GTS and in the other computer in my house is a Legend 6600 GT. I am sadened that they are considered bad.

On a side note the 6600 GT has failed twice and had to be replaced, So i will agree that that is a bad brand. as of PoV no problems with it yet.

Legend ram is cheap, I dont think its that great compared to corsair and such (mine which just died, got RMA # though) Never have my legend ram sticks die.

I also have a maxtor hard drive, one of the original sata models which is still going quite strong, especially all the crap i've put my pc through.

Hitachi drives are good imo, they do seem a little slower than a seagate or Western Digital. Seagate drives are really quiet most of the time and they last forever, my mom's Compaq 5440 had an 8 gb Seagate in it and it's still running. Everything else went before the drive; fan, onboard sound, onboard video, cd-drive.

post is kind'a old ,but keep them coming
some of the brands are getting better some worse
a few memory chip makers where sued for price fixing with generic names
so even the cheap'o brand sticks are just as good
I just updated an old gateway with an IBM drive in it from 1999
very quiet drive no errors with testing

well, NVidea often goes under the nae PNY, becuase PNY makes the hole line of nVda products.

An old thread but awesome. If korrupt is still around, I have these additions:
Motherboards:
Good:
ASRock, XFX, Tyan, Shuttle(some)
Bad:
ePoX, Biostar(certain models), eVGA, ECS, PCChips, Soyo, Magic-Pro, Supermicro,

Graphics Cards:
Good:
XFX, BFG, Diamond, PNY, Zotac, Gainward, Gigabyte, Leadtek, HIS, MSI, PowerColor,
Bad:
Jetway (higher-end cards only), Chaintech (6600 and FX series), Colorful, ePoX, AOpen(certain models)

Hard Drives:
Good:
Hitachi

RAM:
Good:
pQi, Mushkin, Buffalo, A-Data(some kits), TwinMOS

PSU:
Good:
Corsair, Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, OCZ, Fortron FSP, Seasonic, Akasa, Zippy\Emacs, Silverstone, Seventeam, Tagan, Mushkin, Sparkle
Bad:
Athena Power, A-TOP, ATADC, Broadway, CompUSA, Diablotek, I-Star, Logisys, MGE, Norwood Micro, NorthQ, NMEDIAPC NZXT, Shuttle, Skyhawk, Spire Coolers, Star Micro, STARTECH, XCLIO, XION, Youngyear

FYI, Maxtor is owned by Seagate and is meant to be a lower-priced alternative to the Seagate products. It's not completely bad but not recommended for a higher-end system that will be on 24x7.

I have noticed that. My card has the Geforce FX 5200 chipset and has 128MB. When you go to look for the specs it pulls you up to it on Gateways site, yet the card itself is marked nVidia on the board. It's a good card :)

Also, add Deer to the list of bad PSUs, every one that I have looked at has taken out the motherboard similar to Bestec PSUs

What would you consider Sunbeam/CaseGears PSUs? They're really cheap and light, but the one in my system seems to be really good for the price. It is a CaseGears Black Steel 580w PSU.

The MGE vigor 400 wat PSU in my friends system has seemed to be rock-solid in his computer and his customers systems as well, and he paid $9 for each.

Another thing is that each brand whether good or bad has +'s and -'s. The CoolMax V-400 PSU which has good and bad ratings on newegg has been rock solid in my parents emachine. The Antec PSU in my spare PC cant even put out a solid 12v when the cheap Sunbeam PSU in my system and the cheap CoolMax PSU in my parents system puts out around 12-12.3 volts solid. This goes for all of the other rails as well. The antec would probably last longer though.

Nah, korrupt hasn't been round in a while as far as I'm aware. Also, maxtor is not bad. I know because I've had one for about 7 years (on about 50% day) and it's still going strong. ECS is kinda in the middle as I've had one for about 4-5 yrs and it's fine except a ram slot has failed. Also, even though Seagate has bought Maxtor it is still a good idea to put Maxtor in good or bad (good I say) as a few of their products are still about.

An old thread but awesome. If korrupt is still around, I have these additions:
Motherboards:
Good:
ASRock, XFX, Tyan, Shuttle(some)
Bad:
ePoX, Biostar(certain models), eVGA, ECS, PCChips, Soyo, Magic-Pro, Supermicro.

Most incorrect post I have ever seen.

@Acclamator: I never actually noticed his list, but that is ridiculous. Since when is EVGA crap?

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.

Does EPoX even still make motherboards? I remember back 2004/2005 they were top of the line.

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.

So they no longer make "top of the line" mobos?

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.

Sadly, EPoX used to my kind of board =\

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.

eMachines has the third-highest sales in the world, and the number one highest mother board by a whopping margin.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...

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.

Toshiba Laptop Hard Drives, I have quite a few of these that are dead from relatively new laptops. 2 from mine.

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?