Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

[370forlife]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

I recommend biostars as decent budget boards. Their Tpower and Tforce typically have all UCC solids, UCC solids on VRM with UCC/OST lytics everywhere else. Their other series usually have UCC lytics in the critical areas like VRM, near ram slots, and lower value caps are OST.

For a good solid build that needs to be put together once, and not touched for years I recommend supermicro or intel.

For someone who wants to game with a higher budget, I recommend gigabyte or intel boards.

[yyonline]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

Even recent Intel aren't safe from KZG/KZJ.

Has anybody seen recently made KZG fail? I'm sure UCC can't be unaware of the reliability issues... I'm curious if they ever fixed the series, even if they never admitted it had issues. Since Rubycon is discontinuing MBZ/MCZ I suspect we'll see KZG popping up on more boards. So far, my initial observations seem to support this.

I've started seeing Samxon on some Intel boards...mostly GP stuff in non-stress areas.

I used to use abit, but they started using cheap caps after they were bought out by universal scientific. Their high end stuff was still safe though. Of course, they're not around any more.

A recent Athlon build I did with an all-solid MSI board had entirely Nichicon FP caps. Gigabyte likes to use Sanyo polymer on their all-solid boards, from what I can tell. Asus boards are a grab bag, even with solid caps.

I haven't seen any solid polymer caps fail, even those from Chinese/Taiwanese brands.

[mockingbird]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

False. I have never seen one with KZG caps.....maybe the photo was that of a test board or engineering sample, manufacturers are known for that. Mine always had Sanyo WG's. My more recent ones are all polymer. I've been running SM boards for all my servers for over a decade, never had one fail. Some of which have been in 24/7/365 service for over 7 years. Can't say the same for MSI... SM boards are built for the high-end workstation and IT/server market, its not the cheap gamer shit for the kiddies. So what will you be attacking next?

I was just working on a quote for some high end 1U/2U servers, and I was looking through NewEgg for server boards. You're right, it was the Asus boards with the KZG caps, but some of the Supermicro stuff has Sanyo electrolytics (Yes, I'm aware Sanyo is reliable).

Go to NewEgg and look through Supermicro's stuff. A lot of it has too much negative feedback and customer service horror stories.

I like their boards - I think having audio and no parallel/com or USB ports is not for me - and I like the fact that some of their stuff has parallel/com ports, but people complain about those.

[Toasty]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

Funny, SM's customer service was super to me...

...and, they spoke ENGLISH !!!

>>but some of the Supermicro stuff has Sanyo electrolytics <<

Some??

I don't trust NE's reviews. Mostly crapola reviews (read: useless) and sometimes it seems the negatives are put up by other manufacturers reps.

[Topcat]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

^
SM support was great for me as well. I had a BIOS problem with my latest system, it wouldn't go past POST with my 3ware SATA2 raid controller, would just hang. After exhausting all the usual troubleshooting techniques, I called their support. There was a BIOS revision for the board that wasn't released to the website yet. The rep emailed it to me, I flashed the BIOS, problem was cured. Took 10 minutes. It would take that long just get through the switchboard of any other board maker....and then sit on hold for a rep, and pray he/she spoke understandable English. The rep I spoke to spoke fluent English. Their call center is in California, not India.

[acstech]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

I used to recommend Biostar. Their boards several years ago when they were using the Award bios, worked very well in spite of the OST caps. After they switched to the AMI bios, they would develop little problems here and there.

That's when I switched to Gigabyte, in particular the UD series. I've tried MSI too, and it worked fine. I just like the idea of all solid caps.

[mockingbird]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

Ok, I will keep this in mind. My views are not unswayable. I will definitely put their stuff back in my list for 1U and 2U rackmount builds. What do you guys think about Tyan?

[Topcat]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

^
I like Tyan boards, I've had good luck with them as well. I'm more partial to supermicro, but I've never had a tyan that gave me any grief beyond the occasional one I'd have to recap (they use KZG's frequently).

[ratdude747]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

i had a tyan with bad caps... it was what brought me to the forums in the first place. too bad I split a trace like a dummy... i had no idea what i was doing back then. stupid canicons.

it was old though... early pIII

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

Supermicro boards have a high failure rate. Just look at the Newegg closeups and see why. They are using KZG caps.

Bullshit.
They use Sanyo and poly almost exclusively.

Edit...
... I guess I was late to the party..

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

Personally I class Biostar with Jetway and PcChips.
.

[ratdude747]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

Edit...
... I guess I was late to the party..

it's fine, you're still invited

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

Even recent Intel aren't safe from KZG/KZJ.

Has anybody seen recently made KZG fail? I'm sure UCC can't be unaware of the reliability issues... I'm curious if they ever fixed the series, even if they never admitted it had issues. Since Rubycon is discontinuing MBZ/MCZ I suspect we'll see KZG popping up on more boards. So far, my initial observations seem to support this.

I've started seeing Samxon on some Intel boards...mostly GP stuff in non-stress areas.

I used to use abit, but they started using cheap caps after they were bought out by universal scientific. Their high end stuff was still safe though. Of course, they're not around any more.

A recent Athlon build I did with an all-solid MSI board had entirely Nichicon FP caps. Gigabyte likes to use Sanyo polymer on their all-solid boards, from what I can tell. Asus boards are a grab bag, even with solid caps.

I haven't seen any solid polymer caps fail, even those from Chinese/Taiwanese brands.

I heard KZG & KZJ were FINALLY discontinued.
Seems to be confirmed in Chemicon's new catalog.
http://www.chemi-con.co.jp/e/catalog...m_diagram.html

[mockingbird]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

What was KZG deprecated with? Or are they out of the Ultra-Low ESR electrolytic market like Samxon?

[Toasty]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

I heard KZG & KZJ were FINALLY discontinued.
Seems to be confirmed in Chemicon's new catalog.
http://www.chemi-con.co.jp/e/catalog...m_diagram.html

But....

Is this a true manufacturing discontinuance, or simply a horizontal move to another series that will have the same (electrolyte formula) problems?

KZx ?

[kc8adu]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

QFT!
sm has not had a cap problem since the nrsy green caps fiasco.
the one time i needed tech support was also a bug with an untested raid card.same email me a bios and problem solved.on my short list of server parts suppliers.

Funny, SM's customer service was super to me...

...and, they spoke ENGLISH !!!

>>but some of the Supermicro stuff has Sanyo electrolytics <<

Some??

I don't trust NE's reviews. Mostly crapola reviews (read: useless) and sometimes it seems the negatives are put up by other manufacturers reps.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

But....

Is this a true manufacturing discontinuance, or simply a horizontal move to another series that will have the same (electrolyte formula) problems?

KZx ?

Chemicon's best Lytic in current catalog is not as good as Panny FM.

I think they expect people to go to Polymer which isn't always an option outside of a VRM.

They do have a new Poly Series which has some attractive value/size combinations.
[470uF 16v in both 8 & 10 mm and a 1600uF 2.5v 8mm.]

.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

QFT!
sm has not had a cap problem since the nrsy green caps fiasco.
the one time i needed tech support was also a bug with an untested raid card.same email me a bios and problem solved.on my short list of server parts suppliers.

I remember that.
I think the pencil pushers at SM confused NIC Components - NRSY series ,, with NRSY - brand.

Thing is although people were replacing the NRSY brand out of paranoia [and I did too] I never actually saw or heard of one of them going bad on a SM board.
I don't think they had much of a load on them where SM used them.
.

[Sudum Gumudu]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

Think I'd probably go with the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R.

Thanks for all the advice, esp. about solid caps.

Good choice! Have had a GA-EX58-UD3R, a similar board for just over a year now. Very happy with it. Before that, I had a GA-965P-DS3 for two years. Very happy with that board too.

[Toasty]

Re: Recommended STABLE Motherboard?

<snip>
They do have a new Poly Series which has some attractive value/size combinations.
[470uF 16v in both 8 & 10 mm and a 1600uF 2.5v 8mm.]

.

Not seeing them in either Mouser or DigiKey. I have an old PSF sheet from 2008 with only 6 caps listed, so this is a step up with 7 new sizes or values...

...if only someone would carry them :/