IIRC, one of the Biostar nForce2 boards here was an 'egg
refurb, has OSI caps and has held up surprizingly well
considering it's overclocked. In the past I'd seen quite a
few Biostar board failures but figured at the price I got
the board, at worst I'd just have to replace the caps
eventually... only time will tell, I might still have to do
that someday if the board's worth repairing at that point.
Ive seen some posts about bad caps and biostar but then all the MB
makers are mentioned especially ABIT and even MSI, ASUS , Epox etc. so
Im not sure they are far worse than the other makers. Im basing my
general impression on the posts at NforcersHQ forum. I see posts about
bad caps and Biostar at other sites scattered around the net but dont
see a lot of talk about it under biostar at nforcers - especially the
model I bought - a nforce2 with 400mx graphics. Also they have at
least a 2 year warranty. I hate to say this but when it comes to MBs
--- I would really be suspicious of any boards with one year
warranties since there seems to be fairly recent boards with bad caps
and especially any nforce2 and older boards or refurbs laying around
for sale. The caps seem to last about 6mos -1.5 years - Ive seen many
say their boards died slightly after the 1 yr warranty. If you have a
2-3 preferably a 3 yr ---- at least you have some insurance. I think
Ive even seen some nforce3 boards mentioned. Just saw some posts
about Epox boards that died right after 1 year or so of use. According
to the posts in that forum --- Epox was or still is aggressively
replacing the boards with repaired boards with "good" caps so the
owners seem happy.
However I see several threads about bad caps under Leadtek. Im worried
now though. I called them yesterday and finally got through after
calling over and over. Someone answered and said RMA was closed call
tomorrow. So Ive been calling on and off this morning and no one
answers the phone.
Maybe the whole industry is going down the tubes. Maybe the Maxtor
bashing isnt indicative of Maxtor having exceptionally bad QC on
certain batches but if youve seen the posts about WD and even Seagate
-- the reviews on the 300 and 400 meg externals which are devastating
by consumers who actually bought the Seagates at Amazon --- its a sign
of huge QC problems all through the industry with some batches.
Update -- Ive seen some posts about Leadtek. Generally they say tech
support is nonexistant and some complained they couldnt get in touch
with the RMA dept. I tried calling last night and today and it was
impossible to get through. But I saw posts from several posters who
said they got speedy and excellent service after emailing them. I did
that too and I got a response this morning which is quite fast. They
must prefer email and seem to be avoiding the phone. The fast response
is in line with the positive posts so I hope that means speedy RMA
service. They didnt hassle me at all and seem to be agreeing to RMA
with the email so Im hopeful itll go as smoothly as positive posts Ive
seen about their RMA service and not the negative ones.
Now if that does come to pass Im only worried about getting DECENT
replacement board either a newer model with good caps or a replacement
with good caps and not another returned one with bad caps they dump on
me. My theory is initially they did do that but as the public became
aware of the bad cap problem widely around the end of last year though
this was actually mentioned years ago at some websites ----- they
started replacing the MBs with a newer model with good caps from what
I can tell from the posts though they clearly state on their RMA form
WE DO NOT UPGRADE MODELS for people who are trying to scam them ,
trying to just get a new board.
