Refurb mobo warning on NewEgg.com

[Cyde Weys]

So I bought a refurb mobo from NewEgg. I noted that it had a very
strong disclaimer that "No additional parts are included," including
but not limited to manuals, cables, fans, etc. So I thought to myself,
"I hope that doesn't mean that the mobo I ordered is going to come
without the backplate."

Well ... the mobo just came in the mail and it is, indeed, JUST the
mobo. The backplate I have from my previous mobo is incompatible ...
so am I just supposed to run my computer with open space along the back?

 

[John]

So I bought a refurb mobo from NewEgg. I noted that it had a very
strong disclaimer that "No additional parts are included," including
but not limited to manuals, cables, fans, etc. So I thought to myself,
"I hope that doesn't mean that the mobo I ordered is going to come
without the backplate."

Well ... the mobo just came in the mail and it is, indeed, JUST the
mobo. The backplate I have from my previous mobo is incompatible ...
so am I just supposed to run my computer with open space along the back?

Yeah I had that problem once too. Its really annoying. Some people say
you can buy standard backplates. I havent seen them around here.

What I did was modify one I had which means drilling and cutting which
doesnt look pretty.

Out of the 5 refurbs Ive bought from Newegg surprisingly 1 only didnt
come with backplate the ASUS and ASUS sold a package with manual,
cables , backplate etc for $20. In this case it was till worth it
cause the ASUS was one of the top of the line boards at the time and
selling for a lot so the refurb discount was unusually large relatvely
speaking.

Now that there are zillions of cheapo MB deals if you do lose out on
the lottery and dont get extras and get a bad board you would have
been far better off probably getting a cheap new one.

For me sending a board back and paying for shipping here easily hits
$30 min both ways and if I had to buy extras that might add another
10-20.

 

[kony]

So I bought a refurb mobo from NewEgg. I noted that it had a very
strong disclaimer that "No additional parts are included," including
but not limited to manuals, cables, fans, etc. So I thought to myself,
"I hope that doesn't mean that the mobo I ordered is going to come
without the backplate."

Well ... the mobo just came in the mail and it is, indeed, JUST the
mobo. The backplate I have from my previous mobo is incompatible ...
so am I just supposed to run my computer with open space along the back?

Yes, or find a (same or compatible) backplate online, or
order one from the board manufacturer (sometimes they'll
send it free or a minor fee), or make one.

While making one seems a bit excessive, being a glutton for
punishment I have done so and it wasn't so bad if you aren't
picky about how tightly the port holes match the ports. I
held the board sideways against a scanner bed to create a
template, used the template to make center-points for
drilling holes, and appropriate sized drill bits in a drill
press. Sheet aluminum (maybe 1.5mm thick, I forget at the
moment) was used. However, this was a situation where I was
building a custom undersized case and *needed* a smaller
plate, IMO it's better to just hunt down one ready-made when
possible.

The other option is to just take any-random-old plate and
cut it out more, enough that the ports on the new board
clear it. I'd try contacting the manufacturer or regional
sales/support office first, though sometimes even ebay will
have something workable.

 

[Bob Day]

So I bought a refurb mobo from NewEgg. I noted that it had a very
strong disclaimer that "No additional parts are included," including
but not limited to manuals, cables, fans, etc. So I thought to myself,
"I hope that doesn't mean that the mobo I ordered is going to come
without the backplate."

Well ... the mobo just came in the mail and it is, indeed, JUST the
mobo. The backplate I have from my previous mobo is incompatible ...
so am I just supposed to run my computer with open space along the back?

Call http://www.monarchcomputer.com to find out
whether they can supply the backplate you need.

-- Bob Day
http://bobday.vze.com

 

[gbozovic11]

Great,
I just ordered yesterday the refurbished ASUS A8N-SLI Premium MB. Is
this the one you ordered refurbished?

I see there are some I/O shields/backplates on ebay for such
motherboards, I can find EIDE and SATA cables in regular store,
download the drivers, but is there anything else I need???

DO all newegg motherboard refurbished/oem come with nothing?

thanks,
george

 

[John]

Great,
I just ordered yesterday the refurbished ASUS A8N-SLI Premium MB. Is
this the one you ordered refurbished?

I see there are some I/O shields/backplates on ebay for such
motherboards, I can find EIDE and SATA cables in regular store,
download the drivers, but is there anything else I need???

DO all newegg motherboard refurbished/oem come with nothing?

No. Its a lottery. They say expect nothing cause they cant guarantee
youll get more. But often times youll get the full retail pack and
other times you wont.

I dont know if theres a pattern there. Newer boards you get nothing ?
Higher costing boards you get nothing? I dont know. Or maybe its
random.

However generally the higher costing boards I got nothing.

So far when I got the boards I was jazzed and rated Newegg 100% good
for the boards I got. Unfortunately overtime I ran into the bad
capacitor problem and other problems.

Several boards had to be mailed back and fixed - bad caps. The good
thing is , the newegg refurbs generally are covered by a full
manufacturers warranty not some shortened one. Frankly after the
problems Ive had Id never take a shortened 3-6 month warranty and
frankly Im even leery about getting any MB with only a 1 year warranty
as many of the bad caps showed up around 1 year later or little bit
after. Another weird problem. A Biostar nforce2 board which I got
obviously was sent back because of this quirk.

The first day I got it tried to set the bios CPU settings and it never
works. Constantly showed no video and beeped. I remember when I got it
, it did that for over an hour and I was ready to give up after
taking the battery out and trying to reset the cmos over and over and
over. Suddenly after hundreds of tries it suddenly worked and after
that I didnt touch it. I got it back after 8 months from a neigbor
cause their PC was infested with spyware so I reinstalled WIN XP for
them and saw a newer bios that supposedly fixed some incompatibilities
on this old nforce2 board with some processors. I thought this is
whats wrong with it. I flashed the bios and tried to OC it a bit. Nope
.. Completely went bonkers like before and couldnt be reset . It was
permanently bonked out. So out of desperation I reflashed the bios. It
autodetected the CPU and worked. Theres a pattern where you cant
breathe on the settings . You have to leave them as is or you have to
reflash the bios again and let it autodetect. A real weird quirk.

So after living with the refurbs the percentage is actually quite low
for decent trouble free boards generally only my Asus nforce2 top of
the line board. All the rest - 4 baords had pretty severe problems
that were fixed or worked around but other people may not have
bothered and thrown them away.

 

[kony]

Great,
I just ordered yesterday the refurbished ASUS A8N-SLI Premium MB. Is
this the one you ordered refurbished?

I see there are some I/O shields/backplates on ebay for such
motherboards, I can find EIDE and SATA cables in regular store,
download the drivers, but is there anything else I need???

You're actually better off never using the drivers that
comes with any motherboard, new or refurbed, downloading the
newest instead.

DO all newegg motherboard refurbished/oem come with nothing?

No, I've bought quite a few that had the backplate and other
misc things like dongles, CDs, manual or cables but not
always ALL of these... but then, some OEM boards don't start
out with ALL of these either. Vaguely (I didn't keep an
accurate record of it), the most common to come in plain box
with little or no accessories were Asus boards. MSI seemed
to almost always have "some" additional items in the box,
Gigabyte sometimes did.

 

[gbozovic11]

Ok,

I am building a single simple system. I guess I will wait to see what
the MB comes with. I have some EIDE cables, I can run to the local
Compusa and get a SATA cable. I guess its livable without the I/O plate
in the back for a few days, I'll order one off ebay for $10. I know its
a ripoff.

Ten years of building computers (for personal use) in 30% of the cases
something is defective - OEM, refurbished, or new. Sometimes things are
DOA. So I know the risk with buidling my own system.

The drivers, of course, I will download, but besides the I/O shield,
the Sata cables, and EIDE cables for DVD/RW, I guess I don't need much
more. No floppy in this system, the case comes with firewire and USB
ports upfront so I guess I should be all right.

Thank you for the feedback, I will let you know how it turns out when I
recieve the system. It was ASUS A8N-SLI Premium MB, of course at a
much cheaper price than the retail box.

kind regards,
george

 

[John]

Ok,

I am building a single simple system. I guess I will wait to see what
the MB comes with. I have some EIDE cables, I can run to the local
Compusa and get a SATA cable. I guess its livable without the I/O plate
in the back for a few days, I'll order one off ebay for $10. I know its
a ripoff.

Ten years of building computers (for personal use) in 30% of the cases
something is defective - OEM, refurbished, or new. Sometimes things are
DOA. So I know the risk with buidling my own system.

The drivers, of course, I will download, but besides the I/O shield,
the Sata cables, and EIDE cables for DVD/RW, I guess I don't need much
more. No floppy in this system, the case comes with firewire and USB
ports upfront so I guess I should be all right.

Thank you for the feedback, I will let you know how it turns out when I
recieve the system. It was ASUS A8N-SLI Premium MB, of course at a
much cheaper price than the retail box.

kind regards,
george

$10 for a backplate !

Call Asus. With my ASUS nforce2 a while ago all the people were
posting they got it FREE - a bag with a manual , cables and backplate
etc. I wasnt so lucky and had to pay but even i way out in Cucamonga
only paid $20 for the whole thing and the shipping is usually $15-20
here. I would call. THey night sell you the whole pack for $10-20 or
if you are lucky free. Dont say refurb say you didnt get the
accessories with the board. If they press you , say refurb dont lie of
course.

 

[kony]

Several boards had to be mailed back and fixed - bad caps. The good
thing is , the newegg refurbs generally are covered by a full
manufacturers warranty not some shortened one. Frankly after the
problems Ive had Id never take a shortened 3-6 month warranty and
frankly Im even leery about getting any MB with only a 1 year warranty
as many of the bad caps showed up around 1 year later or little bit
after. Another weird problem. A Biostar nforce2 board which I got
obviously was sent back because of this quirk.

By "quirk", you mean the Biostar nForce2 board failed?
I don't recall when I bought it, but I too have one of those
(M7NCG-400), mATX. Only quirk I"ve observed so far with it
is that it's more stable at CAS2.5 than CAS even with CAS3
memory in it! Odd thing is, fine through 400FSB/Mem, it's
not that it's instable but rather it seems to be some kind
of CAS3 timing bug. Newer bios didn't make a difference and
I dismissed it since CAS2/2.5 memory is common.

The first day I got it tried to set the bios CPU settings and it never
works. Constantly showed no video and beeped. I remember when I got it
, it did that for over an hour and I was ready to give up after
taking the battery out and trying to reset the cmos over and over and
over. Suddenly after hundreds of tries it suddenly worked and after
that I didnt touch it. I got it back after 8 months from a neigbor
cause their PC was infested with spyware so I reinstalled WIN XP for
them and saw a newer bios that supposedly fixed some incompatibilities
on this old nforce2 board with some processors. I thought this is
whats wrong with it. I flashed the bios and tried to OC it a bit. Nope
. Completely went bonkers like before and couldnt be reset . It was
permanently bonked out. So out of desperation I reflashed the bios. It
autodetected the CPU and worked. Theres a pattern where you cant
breathe on the settings . You have to leave them as is or you have to
reflash the bios again and let it autodetect. A real weird quirk.

IIRC, mine is currently running a mobile Barton @ 2.3GHz.
Might be that CAS quirk I mentioned, I can't be sure but
think it has a pair of 512MB DIMMs that are spec'd for CAS
2.5. It isn't running the integrated video though. That
doesn't necessarily mean anything though, maybe I got lucky
or you unlucky and your board had a defect. I'd also wonder
about power, IIRC it uses 5V for CPU and needs a fairly
beefy PSU as a result. Think I put a Thermaltake 420W in
that box. I didn't use it as much as some systems though,
maybe it's just a ticking bomb. Dusted it out a couple
months ago though and caps looked ok at that point which was
a relief as it uses some off brand like OST (Taiwan Ostor).
Seems a lot of the cheap boards are using those now,
including ECS and Shuttle... though IIRC, PCChips makes
Shuttle so it makes sense.

So after living with the refurbs the percentage is actually quite low
for decent trouble free boards generally only my Asus nforce2 top of
the line board. All the rest - 4 baords had pretty severe problems
that were fixed or worked around but other people may not have
bothered and thrown them away.

I guess I've been fairly lucky, as I haven't had many fail
and those that did seemed to have same issues as a
full-priced retail board. I seldom send in boards for RMA
though, usually only buy refurbs if they're discounted a lot
then just toss them if they fail, which so far seems to have
been a good value (but then again, I don't have the kind of
shipping fees you do).

 

[kony]

Call Asus. With my ASUS nforce2 a while ago all the people were
posting they got it FREE - a bag with a manual , cables and backplate
etc. I wasnt so lucky and had to pay but even i way out in Cucamonga
only paid $20 for the whole thing and the shipping is usually $15-20
here. I would call. THey night sell you the whole pack for $10-20 or
if you are lucky free. Dont say refurb say you didnt get the
accessories with the board. If they press you , say refurb dont lie of
course.

I called them for a backplate a couple times, vaguely recall
being told that they had a one-free-thing per customer
(ever), or $5 per item, or $25 for the whole accessory kit.
Come to think of it they never did send me the last one I
ordered from them... gotta go find out what happened.

 

[John]

By "quirk", you mean the Biostar nForce2 board failed?
I don't recall when I bought it, but I too have one of those
(M7NCG-400), mATX. Only quirk I"ve observed so far with it
is that it's more stable at CAS2.5 than CAS even with CAS3
memory in it! Odd thing is, fine through 400FSB/Mem, it's
not that it's instable but rather it seems to be some kind
of CAS3 timing bug. Newer bios didn't make a difference and
I dismissed it since CAS2/2.5 memory is common.

No is working but its weird. Theres a blurb about the latest bios -
its supposed to make ot more compatible to some Athlons. Its using an
old AMD 2000 athlon.

The thing is when I first got it - had the classic no video , beeping.
It kept setting the bios FSB etc over and over and over and resetting
the CMOS etc. Nothing. Then as I said suddenly it worked after a
zillion tries and I just left it like that. It worked for a year like
that. Then I got it back to reinstall WIN XP - its a neighbors PC.

I thought it might be interesting after seeing a newer bios at the
site which said it made it more compatible to some athlons , to try to
OC it a little. DUHHHH. Well I thought the old bios must be the cause
of the past quirkyness - problems. I flashed to the new bios and it
immediately autodetected the CPU and worked. I thought thats it, its
fixed. All my problems are gone. Ill try to OC it a bit. After
changing the bios settings ---- same problem. No video , beeping.
NOTHING fixes it. Tried clearing the CMOS over and over again and
taking the battery out as well as the jumper thing. I was starting to
pull my hair out again in a panic and decided to try to reflash. After
some experiments its clear you cant change the bios settings even with
the new bios. It will now autodetect ONCE. If you mess with the
settings after that itll meltdown as if its stuck on some incompatible
settings and wont go back unless you reflash . What you have to do is
clear the CMOS which at least gets you into the bios screen but will
immediately hang aftter. But whats great in this case is this MB has a
flashing option right in the bios so all you need to do is put the
floppy in and let it flash.

I just left it like that and wont touch it from now on. Theres
obviously something wacky with it as I dont see this posted about this
board at NEWEGG in their reviews.

I guess I've been fairly lucky, as I haven't had many fail
and those that did seemed to have same issues as a
full-priced retail board. I seldom send in boards for RMA
though, usually only buy refurbs if they're discounted a lot
then just toss them if they fail, which so far seems to have
been a good value (but then again, I don't have the kind of
shipping fees you do).

Actually I was thinking about it and I have no proof that refurbed
MBs have higher failure rates in terms of bad caps then new so I may
be exaggerating though that might or might not be a factor as bad caps
may or may not have some quirkyness even new boards I suppose so they
might have been returned in higher numbers only to fail later. But for
all I know I could have bought those nforce2 boards new with no signs
of problems and they still could have all failed.a year or so later.

 

[gbozovic11]

Ok, it's confirmed, the refurbished Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard I
just recieved from newegg does not come with anything other than the
motherboard itself. I guess I need to call Asus and order a I/O shield.
Real pain in the ass.

On the other hand, the refurbished MSI video card came with everything
- cables, manuals, even the MSI logo to put on the computer box.

 

[kony]

Ok, it's confirmed, the refurbished Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard I
just recieved from newegg does not come with anything other than the
motherboard itself. I guess I need to call Asus and order a I/O shield.
Real pain in the ass.

What's the big deal?
You saved a bunch (presumably) on the board and all you have
to do is call and have the plate sent. It's relatively
painless, imo. I used to have the phone # handy but can't
find it at the moment so try the one on their support page,
http://usa.asus.com/aboutasus.aspx?show=3