Re: BAD Problems with Asus Mobos

Thanks Paul, this was a very informative post. I know that on one occasion
that the entire USB controller did seem to die, but the mobo worked
otherwise. I had to RMA the board for the USB controller problem, but the
board failed a month later completely...again. I wonder if this southbridge
problem could kill the entire board? From the one picture it appears
possible, but I've checked the southbridge controllers on every RMA because
I remember reading where they could get extremely hot on occasion but I
wasn't sure why. I didn't find any sign of burning or discoloring however.
The northbridge seems to run hot on these boards as well, but I haven't
checked the temp on the southbridge. One thing that your post made me
wonder was that in each of these configurations I was using a RAID 1 setup
using the ICH5R chip with dual Seagate drives. I wonder if the failures are
due to the RAID 1 possibly combined with the USB problem?..or due to the
RAID 1.

Thanks again for your post, plenty of airflow in these systems so whatever
is happening isn't normal.

I wasn't even aware of the USB problem until your post.

-Steve


"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:nospam-1807052300410001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <J92dnZrBZqOKsEHfRVn-rw@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "Steve"
<spfouche@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> In the past 3 months I have seen 5 Asus mobos die. In the 10 years before
> then I have only seen ONE fail. All of the boards were either the
P4P800-SE
> (3), the P4P800 Deluxe (2), or the newer P5GD2 Deluxe (1) mobos. All,
> except one, are used for AutoCAD workstations and use ATI 9600 or 9800
video
> cards. At first I thought that the problem must have been a bad power
> supply, then a bad video card, then a bad hard drive...then memory. Now,
I
> realize that these boards have serious problems. First, I've noticed a
> couple of things about all of the boards that did not apply to all of the
> other Asus boards that I've purchase/installed over the years (about 100
or
> so).
>
> 1) The newer boards all use the "AI" bios and ALL of them seem to run
very
> hot
> 2) The newer boards are no longer made in Taiwan, but in China
>
> Now, one thing that needs to be mentioned is that these boards have failed
> when being used heavily. That is, they are processing huge data files in
> AutoCAD and/or gaming. My gut tells me that perhaps the switching voltage
> regulators are failing, or something else is overheating and failing. I'm
> certain that it is an overheating type of issue due to the way the boards
> are dying. They all usually lock up after being run for a while...then
they
> simply refuse to boot when the power button is pushed.
>
> I have RMA'd boards until I'm sick and now have decided to go with Intel
> boards due to their build quality since these are mission-critical
machines.
>
> My question is this: Have any of you noticed a similar pattern with Asus
> boards? I have the P4C800 Deluxe as my personal machine and while it
works,
> it does lock from time to time or refuses to boot leaving me with a blank
> screen. Keep in mind that these are 4 different computers that I've
> referred to, and all use high-quality Sparkle or Antec power supplies and
> high-end memory as well as other good components. The ONLY similarity in
all
> of them is that they are using ASUS mainboards.
>
> One machine (the P5GD2) I replaced with an Intel board and it immediately
> ran MUCH cooler and haven't had a problem since and that's been 6 months
> ago.
>
> I'm certain that there is a real quality problem with Asus boards now and
> would like to know if any of you, or how many of you may have experienced
> similar problems. I will never use another Asus board again, and I've
been
> using them and recommending them for the past 11 years.
>
> Thanks for listening....
>
> -Steve

Finding trends in motherboard failures, as end users, is a
difficult process. I only know of one serious problem that
a fair number of user have experienced.

There is a known problem with Asus P4P/P4C boards caused by the
ICH5 Southbridge and the USB ports. It seems like a little ESD into
a USB port, causes the Southbridge to go into latchup. Latchup is
a condition, where a phantom PNPN junction forms from rail to rail
inside the chip. The end result is meltdown (excessive current flow
makes the chip burning hot). Here is an article and a picture of a
typical victim. See if the ICH5(R) on your P4P boards
are the parts that failed, and compare the appearance of your
Southbridge to the picture in the second link. (Taking high res
photos of the motherboard you are RMAing, might allow to you to
check later for issues that can be identified visually.)

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/FAQ/FAQ_456.htm
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84122&highlight=usb+port

This problem is not restricted to Asus boards. And in one reported
case, the failure happened on a reboot. As there are no explanations
on the web, I'm going to have to assume this is an Intel chip
problem. The giga-byte warning page is the only public admission of
a problem that I've seen (and thank goodness someone posted the link).

I'd be more interested in what failed on the P5GD2, as there have
been no reports of failures on ICH6(R). And the funny thing about
the ICH5(R) problems, is that they happened quite a while after the
introduction of the board, implying the problem just might be
related in some way to "power on hours".

Regarding the Intel board thing, Intel doesn't actually make the
boards themselves. They contract out the motherboard manufacturing,
and at one point, you guessed it, Asus was making the boards :-)
I'm not sure that is still true of this date - it could be the latest
contract was let with someone else. (And the design authority, the
schematic capture, could be done in Folsom, rather than by Asus.)

As for the China bashing, do you really have a choice these days ?
I'm sure any production manager who wasn't manufacturing in China,
would be fired on the spot. It is all about the nickels and dimes,
after all.

High thermal, as such, does not guarantee a premature death for
hardware. Consider the lowly laptop, for example, which has to
endure very poor airflow, and restricted access to the outside
world. They seem to work OK.

High heat is bad for electrolytic capacitors. If your power
supply does not have a high enough fan speed to keep its innards
cooled, that will mean an early failure of the power supply. If
you look at the recommended temperature/humidity curves for disk
drives, you would realize the only real reason for cooling a
computer, is for the disk drives. The silicon on the motherboard
can take a lot more temperature rise than the disks can.

For the machines that haven't yet failed. start an Autocad job,
take the side off the computer, use an antistatic strap on one
arm, then probe the board with your fingers, looking for hot
components. In other words, do some more detective work, to see
if there is anything abnormal about your gear. A P4 system should
really have at least one fan in the front (pulling air in), and
one fan (separate from the PSU fan) on the rear of the computer.
If the only fan on your computers, is the PSU fan, then yes,
you are torturing your machines.

A 7 to 10C temperature rise inside the case, is a reasonable level
of heating for a computer case. If the outside air is 25C, then
the case air can rise to 32C to 35C. On one computer I have here
(the one with the P4 in it), I had to remove some plastic grillwork
on my computer case, to get enough air flow through the case. To
check the temperatures, you can use Asus Probe to make some
measurements. The side should be on the case, as if the fans are
working properly, the best cooling should be with the side of the
case put in place.

HTH,
Paul


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