ASUS Nightmare

[webtekie]

This is more on what to do rather than how to fix. My motherboard (ASUS CUSL2 FSB 133 mhz) got fried couple of months ago. I called ASUS and they told me to send it, that I did, not knowing what awaits me ahead. I got the motherboard back 2 weeks later and guess what the floppy did not work. Turned out to be faulty floppy disk cotroller. I sent mobo mack thinking that this time I will be home free. Nope! I got the board and the first thing I see is a message "Keyboard error or no keyboard present, press F1 to continue | DEL to enter BIOS." Question: How can press F1 or DEL if there is not keybaord? Well I did and keyboard worked right to the point when I was installing W2k. When I got to the prompt 'press ENTER to install W2K', pressing ENTER did not register, neither any other buttons. I tried keyboard on my laptop and it worked flawlessly there. I rebooted, went through installation of W2K again -- same problem. I finally got a USB keyboard in order to end my problems with PS/2. That solved the problem, and I thought: fine, as long as nothing else goes wrong I'll just be a happy camper. Another question though: ASUS states that they did 3 hours of tesing under Windows NT, but how could they have tested mobo if PS/2 was not working, besides if they realized that PS/2 went south and used USB as well, that must have registered a thought about may be fixing the damn PS/2?
When I finally installed W2K with USB keyboard, and tried to run some of my programs and games they would complain about video card not being set to 16 bits when in fact it was. Plus my CD-ROM and CD burned would take about a minute to read the CDs. I was pissed, but did not pay much attention to that just yet. Then, when I turned off my computer and wanted to start it up again here is what happened. The power supply fan would start spinning and my cd burner's led would come on, but computer would not start/boot, even the lights for HD/POWER would not come on. I thougt 'blank' ASUS 'blanked' me again! But then after taking a smoke and bitching to my girlfriend about this I came and...the computer booted! 'Blank' I thought! So I turned off the computer again, tried to boot it up again...nothing. Waited 10 minutes...turned on again.
I called ASUS and really gave it to one of the tech guys. I mean how can they say that mobo had been tested under Windows NT for 3 hours and not being bothered by the fact that keyboard does not work. So he told me to send back again and he will personally inspect it. Yeah, right!
So here is my question should I follow the saying, 'third time is a charmer' and send the mobo back or just buy a new one? New ASUS CUSL2 costs about $80, but I don't want to spend this much money because I want to build a new pc in six months or so and leave this one for testing. If I would go for another mobo that would be similar to CUSL2 like PIII socket 370 800 Mhz, 133 FSB, 815e chip, but cost cheaper which one would you recommend?

thanks a lot,
webtekie

[ktkendall]

I don't have a MOBO recommendation for you but after recently dealing direct with a manufacturer on my digital MP3 player, because it was past 30 days, so BestBuy wouldn't take it back, I am now buying that extended warranty service plan on anything of value that I get from stores like BB. Just bought DVD/VCR combo and bought the 2 year plan and a new CD changer stereo for daughter and also bought the 2 year plan. I didn't realize in the past what that meant to buy those plans but My car stereo also went after about 6 months and I had bought the 4year plan, just took it back to BB and instant new stereo no questions asked. If I were you and was planning new sys that soon, I would just hang in there with what you have, or send it back the 3rd time, and save that money towards that killer new sys in 6 mos. Just my opinion!! Actually sounds to me like your getting pretty decent service from them, did you try new ps2 keyboard??

[webtekie]

Hmm...decent service? If sending my mobo back and forth three times and realizing that the problem was their lack of checking if everything works, I want to see the horrible service that awaits me some day.
Instead of PS/2 I used USB port, which as I said partially solved my problem.

[ktkendall]

The reason I think you are getting good service is cause they are working on it and seem to want to fix you, although I don't understand why they don't just give you anew one! If they can not find anything wrong and your having keyboard errors then I wonder if it's your keyboard. I just replaced the PS, and HD, FD, and CDROM on my mom's PC. Had it over my house reloaded windows and programs, and had it all working A1 shape. Took it over her house plugged everything in, turned it on and nothing. Turned out keyboard was also shot, and I almost started frying things out again, as the primary ide was now out in the device manager.

[RobH]

I had some dealings with Asus a while back on a CUV4X,sent it back 3times as well,till I "expressed" my feelings about the board-then they sent a new one. I know a lot of folks have had good luck with Asus and I have on many boards-but I did have two that just seemed to be jinxed.