Has Asus Quality gone downhill?

[MatthewH12]

I am posting this, not so much as a rant, but in hopes maybe someone knows whats going on. TL;DR, skip to the bottom. 😃

Does anyone else think ASUS Quality is dropping these past few generations?

As a bit of backstory, I've used ASUS Boards since 1999, when I bought my last OEM System, a Sony Vaio which had an Asus OEM P2B-AE (AKA the P3B-1394 but CPU Locked). That system still runs to this day.

I later built an Athlon XP System on an A7N8X-E Deluxe, that system also works to this day.

It was replaced by an Athlon 64 System, powered by an M2N32-SLI Premium, again, still works to this day, and has been running my 'server' for over 4 years straight now, AFTER it was replaced as my desktop system.

The next system was an M4N (I forget the full model no.), Phenom II based system, it was replaced with the SATA Chip in the nVidia chipset died randomly one day (This is probably more nVidia's fault then ASUS).



The next one, however, is where my issues really began. It is a P8Z77-V LK board hosting an Ivy Bridge I5, and it's been RMA'd 3 times now. The system would hang on post, no matter what you did to it. It's been downgraded to my secondary system, and replaced by...

--tl;dr system read from here down--

My Maximus Viii, i7-6700k system. Which I built around November, and which worked fine until today, and has had no recent hardware changes. Today I woke it from sleep, and used it for about 10-15 minutes before it hung up. Reset the system, no post. Powered it off and on, still no post.

Removed everything but the PSU, 1 Ram stick (I have 2, tried both, in all 4 slots), CPU, and CPU Cooler.

All I get is "error 62" which is listed as: "Installation of PCH Runtime Services". Tried MemOK, Tried CLR Cmos, both the button and manually, even tried USB Bios Flashback, nothing worked. The BIOS was 1601, however I tried flashback to 1202, 1601 and 1701. For those curious, the code IS 62 and NOT b2.

I spoke with Asus, and they eventually agreed to an advanced RMA (Thank you 2nd tech I spoke to!), but I am concerned, is this what ASUS Quality has become? RMAing my boards every 6-9 months until the warranty expires and then replacing them? I sure hope not, because I used to highly recommend them, even as others switched to other brands such as ASRock and Gigabyte.

I hope this isn't my last ASUS build.

If anyone has any ideas/suggestions, it'd be greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading.

P.S. Mods, if this is in the wrong forum, my sincerest apologies, and feel free to move it.

[Chino]

Perhaps it's a matter of luck. I own a few of their motherboards and graphics cards and none has died on me yet.

[Praz]

Hello

The PCH is Intel not ASUS. Seems the question of quality control is being misdirected.

[Code_Frenzy]

Well I completely agree. Having spent the past few months reading posts here in the forum and my own experience with the ROG Front Base I am led to believe that ASUS is not the brand it used to be. It's a shame because I always used to recommend ASUS to all of my family and friends.

[Kenrou]

Only Asus motherboard i ever killed was a CVF (non-z) and it was already bugged when i got it second hand, every now and then showed cpu error and wouldn't boot. All the rest worked fine till i upgraded, maybe you just got bad luck as Chino said ?

[ondersma80]

I think Praz is pointing the right way. I think Intel has been so fixated on minor improvements and power savings (with little regard for quality control) that things have gotten really difficult for mfg to manage. I have used boards from 3 of the major mfg and each has their own quirks. ASUS seems to have the least - or at least most manageable - issues. Always need to remember building your own system isn't plug and play. You need to know what you are doing, aim within reason, manage expectations, and have a little luck. If you want plug and play stupid easy (with way less functionality) there are iPads and ZenPads.

[Code_Frenzy]

ondersma80 wrote:
I think Praz is pointing the right way. I think Intel has been so fixated on minor improvements and power savings (with little regard for quality control) that things have gotten really difficult for mfg to manage. I have used boards from 3 of the major mfg and each has their own quirks. ASUS seems to have the least - or at least most manageable - issues. Always need to remember building your own system isn't plug and play. You need to know what you are doing, aim within reason, manage expectations, and have a little luck. If you want plug and play stupid easy (with way less functionality) there are iPads and ZenPads.

Fully agree, but when you purchase an ASUS mobo and an ASUS accessory such as the ROG Front Base, or an ASUS gfx card, then you would expect them to work perfectly together. Or is that somehow expecting too much??

[Kenrou]

Code_Frenzy wrote:
you would expect them to work perfectly together. Or is that somehow expecting too much??

Every hardware piece has a small chance of not functioning well or be DOA, it's sad but "normal" :confused:

[rickytuk]

I've had an old Nvidia based Asus board for years, I've built it into about 10 different cases and it always posts first time every time. Since it's all moved to Intel I have had 2 asus board die so I think it's more an intel thing than Asus. I'd love to see Nvidia get back into the chipset game. No Offence to AMD but their tech is just not competitive at the moment.

[iCeD00D]

So here's my .0002 on Asus . I've been a AMD fanboy for YEARS now building my own PCs and using mostly Asus products. My last build before this one was a AMD Sabertooth FX-8350 which has lasted me for quite some time. Then last year I bought this G751JY ROG laptop and have been very pleased with the product, with some minor bugs but I blame WinBlows for that. Then in January I decided to go down the dark path and build an Intel box with the new Skylake processor. Doing research I found several credible sites saying that the Maximus Hero Alpha was the best bet for the money, so I decided to get one. When the board came in I noticed that the CPU pins where bent - WTF ?? So RMA away it went back to NewEgg. A week later I received a new board after having to 'purchase' it from NewEgg (long story). After using it for about a month, I noticed that the performance was slowly degrading. While doing some troubleshooting I decided to take out the graphics cards to see if that was the cause (Winblows was constantly crashing - almost like it was a driver error). When I started to take out the bottom card, yup the plastic PCIe piece came off the motherboard - 2nd WTF! I called NewEgg and asked for a refund - yeah out of the 30day window so they suggested I call Asus. When I called the tech support the person was more then happy to let me know I could RMA it, but because of the 'damage' to the board, it's highly possible that I would have to 'pay' for them to replace the board if THEIR tech's felt it was my fault. Never in all my years of building PC have I ever had a tech support person tell me that. So now, I Have a Max Formula VIII that Nate was kind enough to help me setup. I'll be testing it out this weekend for sure, but after the last ordeal, not sure anymore on the quality of Asus products.