Conflict with ASUS A8R-MVP review

[drofdarb]

I'm researching my next computer and found the Asus A8R-MVP ranked very high in the HL top 10 motherboard reveiws. I've used several Asus boards and always had great results from them. I decided to buy one.

When I started looking for prices, I found 2 buyer's reviews on the NexTag site that stopped me cold. Are these 2 kooks that don't know what they are talking about. Can anyone give me some reassurance on this product? I'm uncomfortable buying it now.

Here are the 2 reviews (copied, pasted, and irrelevant stuff removed).
===============

NexTag User Reviews


(1) Quality very poor Review From: Don, Mar 14, 2007
I own one of these boards and it worked well for a while, now the system locks up quite frequently, especially when I am doing a dvd burn, it freezes up in the middle of the burn. I WILL not own another Asus board.

------------------------

(2) Quality Excrement imprinted on a circuitboard Review From: danparker276, Aug 3, 2006
This worked ok for 1 month. Now it crashes every 5 min. I thought it was a video card at first, so I bought a second video card, but it does the same thing. Well at least I'll have crossfire when I get a new motherboard from a different company. Oh and their update update tool doesn't work. Not a big deal to go to the site and download the latest one. But why even include that software if it doesn't work. ASUS = Another Screwed Up Schematic

[gvblake22]

User reviews should really be taken with a grain of salt. They can be useful for getting a general overall feeling of a product, but when people post very negative reviews about a product like "it crashes every 5 min" and "the system locks up quite frequently", it's hard to immediately point the finger at the motherboard. There are A LOT of factors at play that can cause a system to be unstable and crash or freeze like those people are describing.

The bottom line is that in this day and age, there are really very few products (if any) that a company is going to put out on the market that don't perform. It is very unlikely that it was solely the motherboard's fault in those two people's experiences that was causing the problems. Most often it is a software issue where they didn't have a driver installed or installed correctly or they didn't uninstall the old drivers properly, etc. It could also be a wrong setting in the BIOS causing the memory to error out or something.

Overall, Asus is a very reputable company with a very good track record for producing quality products. If you get a board that won't run right, stop by a forum community like this one and we'll try and talk you through some troubleshooting steps. If all else fails, you can always complete a Return to Manufacturer Authorization (RMA) and get a replacement board from Asus or the vendor you bought it from.

[Panda Man]

Reviews for Asus A8R-MVP ATI Socket 939 ATX Motherboard Audio PCI Express Gigabit LAN SPDIF USB 2.0 & Firewire Serial ATA RAID at TigerDirect.com

Asus A8R-MVP - Reviews, Best Prices and Product Information at BizRate

They seem to like it. Go with actual reviews from reputable sites, such as hardwarelogic!! Just supplementing what blake said

[drofdarb]

Thanks for the comments. I understand all you are saying. I am a tech and I have used ASUS boards almost exclusively for several years. I always felt they were the best.

But this board seemed to be an exception. I only mentioned and copied 2 bad reviews from nextag.com in my earlier post. There were many more from other sites --- all very bad. I really need a confirmation that the board is not a lemon from somebody who owns and uses the board. This looks like the board for me (spec-wise), but I'm really goosey about buying it now without confirmation.

Here are 7 more reviews (6 of them very bad) from nerd.net site...

(1) Reviewed by: HookeyStreet on 23-Jul-06 Rating:
Summary: Very poor 2x sticks of RAM @ 1T support (which is very strange) Very bad at overclocking (which is even stranger as it was advertised as an 'overclockers dream') Random crashes, during gameplay and general use!

I feel totally cheated by ASUS and wont be using them in the future as they have just given up trying to fix these problems and dont respond to emails about this motherboards very poor functionality! AVOID! AVOID! AVOID! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!




(2) Reviewed by: ruze on 02-Feb-06 Rating:
Summary: Random crashes, only 2 USB headers of which if I connect both to ports it won't even boot. With 1 connected, it stays up for less than a day max. I'm using quality RAM and no overclocking. What would it take for ASUS to give everyone their money back? This sort of behavior from mfrs. really burns me up! And what about the professional reviewers? Not one of them had a problem? Makes me reevaluate all my buying criteria from now on.

(3) Reviewed by: aeon604 on 26-Feb-06 Rating:


Summary: Terrible. System powers on, but aside from not initializing or activating the VGA display,the board refuses to emit ANY kind of daignostic beep code which the manual refers to.

Looking over past reviews, it looks like it might function for a single day if I unplugged some of the USB ports. Unfortunately, I require use of a computer for longer than a single day.

I'd assumed I could trust Asus as a brand... no longer. Back to Abit or MSI for me...




(4) Reviewed by: rokodoc on 17-Apr-06 Rating:
Summary: Been runnin stable for over a month now, no crashes uploaded all smooth. Did do the bios update manualy, didnt work with the automatic online one...kept getting no awailable.
no complaints with stability and performance, Multitasking good, been doin some Video and Audio encoding with excellent speeds. havent overclocked yet. Vcore voltage issue does occur but no problems unless u plannin to overclock.
Audio could be better, Front jacks even after callin asus support and connecting all different ways they recommended still can only get one speaker of my head phone to function. Also with encoding and viewing audio dies out , recovers after reboot though. probably need to get a creative sound card for that. You need to get gud ram for stability
My Config
Asus A8r-MVp
AMD 3700+
Ocz 1 Gb Ram
WD 160 JS SATA 2
ATI All in Wonder X800 XL





(5) Reviewed by: TechMage89 on 28-Mar-07 Rating:
Summary: One year is not an adequate lifespan for a motherboard, especially a $200 one. I never attempted extreme overclocking, but I now get random blue screens of death in windows and segfaults in linux. My memory is not at fault: it has been tested thoroughly and is good. The processor also shows no problems. But the frequent (and totally random, both in timing and in message) blue screens have led me to believe that there are problems in the chipset or hypertransport bus. My processor (a athlon64 X2 3800+) and memory are reported to be capable of a 20% overclock with few problems, but the computer wouldn't even start with a 13% overclock. A very poor quality motherboard.




(6) Reviewed by: jaytmoon on 04-Oct-06 Rating:
Summary: I bought this MB before (unfortunatly) I came across these reviews. I have built over 300 PC's professionally and have sworn by Asus for quality in the past. No More! Although this board LOOKS good on paper but, it does not deliver on any of the claims. Its unstable, buggy and not likely to last more than a week in service. No Overclocking of any kind but mine died after 3 days of attempting to de-bug and troubleshoot just to get it running. Sorry Asus, but you've just lost another customer...



(7) Reviewed by: danparker276 on 01-Aug-06 Rating:
Summary: This worked ok for 1 month. Now it crashes every 5 min. I thought it was a video card at first, so I bought a second video card, but it does the same thing. Well at least I'll have crossfire when I get a new motherboard from a different company.

Oh and their update update tool doesn't work. Not a big deal to go to the site and download the latest one. But why even include that software if it doesn't work. Just another example of their commitment to Excrement.

[gvblake22]

I have never owned or tested the A8R-MVP, but here are some links to real reviews...
Anandtech
TechReport
AMDZone
TrustedReviews
X-Bit Labs
PC Perspective
HardwareZone

[screwballl]

in most cases the reason a board dies is one of a few things:
User Error:
1) they didn't use a static wrist strap and zapped the board, memory or other part

2) they dropped it at one point and scratched one or more information paths on the board or broke a chip on it

3) they are using a cheapo power supply or too small of a power supply

4) they are reusing possible problematic parts (cables, broke a power connector by pushing too hard), or the memory they have is bad

5) many other possibilities

Defective board:
1) it was defective at some point between leaving the factory and getting to the user.

2) Could be cheap storage at any given facility, dropped or banged alot during shipping.

3) one or more bad cables (SATA, PATA, etc...) that could have shipped with the board
------------------------



I used used Asus almost exclusively for many years and just recently built using a Gigabyte, not because I dislike Asus but because after my research led me to this DS3 board. The other alternative was a P5W DH Deluxe (open box)

[drofdarb]

(NOTE) I'm not on a soapbox trying to torpedo ASUS. I am a staunch supporter and user. This issue is so out of character, I can't let go without discovering the truth myself.
...fab


These are not good reviews! One guy out of 7 in the Tiger Direct reviews loves the board. Everyone else has problems and lots of people have the worst kinds of problems --- erratic operation, hangups, and crashes!

The second link you gave (to Bizrate.com) has a good review on the store (Bizrate). But they link to the Tiger Direct site that has the same reviews as your first link.

I know these kinds of problems can be caused by software, viruses, bad installation (the guy with the hard drive whose light is always on, but the drive works normally!), etc. But this is way too many. I was going to buy the board anyway, just on my experience and belief in ASUS, but I've changed my mind. I've got all the problems I need. I don't need more.

Here are the reviews from Tiger Direct. Ignore the Star Ratings and read the comments. These reviewers are nuts. They give the board 3 and 4 stars, but then talk about all kinds of erratic operation. If I had these types of problems I would be rating them 0 or 1 star!

Reviewed by: elementska on Mar 29, 2007 Summary:
I've had this board for about 2 days now and it is the most unstable thing I've ever dealt with. Every time I restarted the system would hang, freeze or not even post. This is all stock clocks. I have an X2 4800+, 2 gig corsair ram, X1800XT and seagate 300 gb sata drive.

Rating: Reviewed by: foxman3 on Mar 14, 2007 Summary:
I purchased this board in 10/06 and it worked fine for a short period, it freezes up quite often, I've tried everything to aleviate this problem but no success. I am running an AMD X2 4600 w/1gig of Ultra 3200 memory Pny 256 meg video card, 2/Seagate sata hard drives. I am not very pleased with this board and would have to think long and hard about getting another Asus board. If anyone knows of or has any fixes for this freeze up problem I would appriciate the help. foxman3@aim.com

Rating: Reviewed by: lonestar36 on Mar 13, 2007 Summary:
I just bought an A8R-MVP MB and it takes forever to set up raid. It takes 2 min. to find the HD's, then it takes 2 min for the XP CD to start, then it takes 15 min. afer ''Setup is inspecting your hardware'' so you can press F6 to load the raid drivers. If you miss the F6 input you have to do the whole thing again. I understand Bios applications are slow but this is too slow. I'll bet the guy who wrote it never had to install one.

Rating: Reviewed by: gymfrk on Oct 23, 2006 Summary:
I believe the board has potential to be a really good board but it has alot of problems at the moment. I believe many people are experiencing usb problems even with updating the bios. I have a amd dual 4200 and it seems to really be running slow on this board. I believe I'll save up for the A8n 32 Sli deluxe. Just too many usb crashes with this one

Rating: Reviewed by: Tom on Sep 27, 2006 Summary:
I think this mobo is a good buy and has all the inputs I will ever need. The dual kingston 512 ram install ok but the board was dead. Removed the ram from 1st dimm slot and I had power up. Ram checked and reinstalled back in dimm 1st slot and the pwr up problem was Gone! The unknown question,is the dimm socket eractic or not. This is my first mobo purchased online. I also selected the ATI X1300pro pcie video card and the AMD athlon64 3700+ processor. All went well but discovered when turning off the system that some fans continue to run very slowly including the mad dog 550W p/s fans. The Q fan option in the bios had been disabled. I am not a game player so only one video card. Do I really need to up grade the bios and all drivers on my board. The H.D.LED stays on when power is turned off but it still works as usual. I normally use only Pentiums boards so this is all new and i am still a novice at this stuff. Any help appreciated tomradar@msn.com

Rating: Reviewed by: DakKatarr on Sep 14, 2006 Summary:
I love this mobo it is awsome i have an ati X1900XT not using sli but my options are open this thing it very compatible and you can't beat the price. it has all ports needed and it is great i love this mobo and would defenetly recommend it

[screwballl]

sounds like its time to step to the C2D's

[gvblake22]

Well, I can't actually think of anyone off the top of my head that has used that particular board. I've used several other boards based on that same chipset (DFI RS482 Infinity and ECS KA1 MVP) with absolutely no issues. Beyond how you already feel about Asus and the good experience I've had with similar boards from other manufacturers is about all the help/advice I can offer you in terms of my experience with such products. If you are so worried about the performance of the A8R-MVP, then maybe you should look into a different motherboard or chipset. What are your needs/wants in the motherboard, maybe we can put together some alternatives for you if you want...

[drofdarb]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

I have never owned or tested the A8R-MVP, but here are some links to real reviews...
Anandtech
TechReport
AMDZone
TrustedReviews
X-Bit Labs
PC Perspective
HardwareZone

These are excellent (especially the Anandtech review)! There is a little disagreement between some reviews, but overall this looks like an outstanding value board.

Probably the instability problems several users reported were due to their inexperienced tinkering with overclocking. I don't need this and will only use conservative settings. I'm comfortable now and am going ahead and ordering this intriguing motherboard.

Thanks to all who took the time to comment on this subject. I appreciate it.