What is your opinions

[photolady]

on Open Box motherboards? Just curious what you guys think about these. I assume they are returned items been refurbished, or ?? I see them at Newegg a lot.

[mylanta]

PL I have never "imbibed" on these and the main reason is not having the IO shield is a "show stopper" as in many cases the manual with the jumper placement can be as well. Yes you can go to sites for jumpers, but not all the time, depends on the motherboard and some of these sites are really bad.
It never even ocurred to me they could be refurbs, because while I do many things refurbed. Mobo is one I would never do.

[casey]

I have purchased many refurb or open box from Newegg. Some have worked flawlessly and others have had problems.The last refurb board I had worked fine until I shut it down and found when starting it up it would not hold cmos settings. After trying a bunch of new batteries I finally sent it back for exchange. As for the I/o shield and manual, that seems to be hit and miss. I have received some boards with everything in tact and others where you just get the motherboard. Since I just buy Abit or Asus refurb boards I am able to get manual and drivers from Internet. In that case I just don't install I/O shield. I have read where you can purchase from Asus the I/O shield separately. Like I said it's hit and miss on what you will receive,,

[photolady]

Thanks for the input. I have never bought either refurb or open box. Wasn't sure what these are on newegg, just looking around today and saw them. As for I/O shields I have several (read drawer full) :D, that I could probably match to mb if I bought one of these.

[mylanta]

Thanks for the input. I have never bought either refurb or open box. Wasn't sure what these are on newegg, just looking around today and saw them. As for I/O shields I have several (read drawer full) :D, that I could probably match to mb if I bought one of these.

\Don't count on the match PL I have had a few boards I could not match where I accidentally bought OEM without them, now if I am nto sure I pass.

[casey]

Just looking in my notes and found the last problem I had with a refurb was with the Northbridge fan. It would work sometimes and sometimes it wouldn't. I called Asus and they sent me a new fan..I found out that sometimes the problem with the boards are not necessarily easy to see. The fan took me a couple of days until I found out it wasn't working...

[photolady]

The ones I have in the drawer Rich are from Asus boards. I wasn't planning on using them randomly. I meant if I bought a board, particularly Asus, I probably have the I/O for it. But I still don't think I trust refurbished boards. Now if they aren't refurbished, what else would they be in an open box?

[mylanta]

The ones I have in the drawer Rich are from Asus boards. I wasn't planning on using them randomly. I meant if I bought a board, particularly Asus, I probably have the I/O for it. But I still don't think I trust refurbished boards. Now if they aren't refurbished, what else would they be in an open box?

I think they are either refurbs or returns of some kind that are not complete.

[Dan18960]

I agree with Rich and others here that the Open Box venue is a hit or foul ball game.

They are going to probably break down the percentages as 80% refurbs and 20% rma for the wrong part ordered.

Now if I was looking at a pci card or case - that would be fine. Usually a PCI card is someone not knowing how to configure it or load the drivers and a case (as in my "case") is usually just the wrong one ordered. I ordered at case and while I was LOOKING at the ATX case, I ordered the Matx case.

Nothing wrong with the case physically - but an ATX mb just doesn't squeeze into an mATX case.

I think again it comes down to if you have the TIME and the MONEY to play and fight with these adventures it can be either a SUPER DEAL or a really sucking week :cool: .

[dbarrow]

Newegg has their own repair shop for returns.
I just RMA'd an Asus board that had a problem.
They said it had a bent pin in the CPU socket and even sent a picture. For $40 repair fee, they are sending back a new board and tested the CPU and mobo together. I didn't see that even after three days of fighting with it.

That mobo, with a replaced CPU socket, will become your "white box" special.

I have to say Newegg has an excellent RMA department, very nice people to deal with, in-house repair and testing technical dept. They do strive for customer satisfaction.

Much faster than dealing with Asus. Although they were also nice people to deal with, daughter's RMA process took over six weeks to get a new board that worked right.

Given the overall "quality" of the experience, I would trust Newegg, but keep in mind that "white box" items are not returnable.

[casey]

Newegg.com guarantees all Open Box product for 15 days only.
All Open Box parts are considered OEM BAREBONE!.

The Northbridge fan that was bad on the Asus MB that I got from Newegg would not be replaced but Newegg gave me a credit for buying another fan. It was more then I expected..

[mylanta]

One time I requested a return on something and when they checked my account, they sent me a box of freebies, some of which were really neat, along with a letter apologizing for not recognizing me as a big customer, and thanking me for past purchases. They have the best customer service going whereas ZipZoom has none at all, which is why they will never get close to Newegg. ZipZoomFly lowered a price on something I bought in the AM, that afternoon, and when I asked for credit, they said that was not their policy, not even an "I'm sorry, this is not our policy". That was the last time I bought anything there.

[casey]

That's my one big complaint about Fry's. Many times they will change the price during the day and when you call them they say they can't do anything because the product has already shipped and you cc has been charged. They did give me the difference off my credit card but that only happened once. Otherwise they are easy to do business with.

I'm not sure but it is rumored that the people that own Newegg also own Chief Value and I have been please with their service to.Anybody els hear that Newegg people own CV?

[mylanta]

Funny I have spent tons with Newegg, and every time I tried to buy from Chief Value, something always goes wrong where they cannot ship to a different address thaqn credit card billing address, so the sale dies. I guess no one at CV realized poeple don't live inside post office boxes.

[photolady]

I bought my LiteOn DVD burner from newegg, at the same time they had an offer for 5 free dvds but I neglected to mention this when ordering that I wanted them. Called the next day and they sent them to me, no shipping. I trust newegg, I order all my parts from them for personal use. And I've never had a problem on returns.

[Pi rules]

I'm not sure I would trust a refurb motherboard even from Newegg. You never know what does and doesn't come with them.

I created a new topic about online retailers (http://kickenhardware.net/forum/showthread.php?p=5844) after I nearly posted my Newegg experiences here.

[dale@fcg]

Rich says:

I guess no one at CV realized poeple don't live inside post office boxes.

Hilarious, Rich :D:bounce::music::rofl: