Newegg open box mobos?

Hey i was wondering if you guys have had decent luck with newegg open box mobos... i need a new one for my htpc and right now the egg has a gigabyte GA-p35-ds3l for 70 bucks which is a steel!

Anyways just thought id get some input.

Ben

Quote from my sig is actually from a thread where someone got an open box mobo and case-combo generic PSU and so far has managed to let the magic smoke out twice.

i trust very little that is "open box"

I've never personally bought an open box MB. From what I've read it can be hit or miss. They do not guarantee any accessories but you do sometimes get them. So you might get a full retail package, or close to it, or you might get a bare board without even an I/O backplate. I'd make sure you will still get some sort of warranty and if you do, give it a shot. Worst that happens is that you get a bare board and have to spend a few $$ for a backplate. Could be worth the saved money. But then again it could just not be worth the hassle.

I've bought lots of open box boards, most from newegg don't come with accesories, but from mwave on the other hand, every board I've gotten from them has come almost full retail, and they had one of those boards for like 43 last week fyi

I used to say "go with it" but after the last one I got...I will never buy open box again. The motherboard I got had NUMEROUS pins inside the 775 board bent over...don't know how that was done...but it was. So I got insanely upset and posted it on these forums.

haha ok... guess i wont go... uhh cheap... was gonna say something else but i cant any more cus oni has no sence of humor... read disclosure in sig haha

Ive been rather curious about open box mobos myself. Are they guaranteed to function?

AngryArtichoke said:

Ive been rather curious about open box mobos myself. Are they guaranteed to function?

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No they arent.

i would never do the open box. they dont even come with the back plate...

Sentential said:

No they arent.

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well if it doesn't newegg pays shipping back to them(just call and explain and they'll send a label and typically another product if avail), and everyone I've ever gotten has been rma'able to the manufacturer

imposter said:

i would never do the open box. they dont even come with the back plate...

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you've got to figure though, some of these open box boards are less than half off the retail price, I'd def live without or spend a few bucks more(typically 5 or less) for a back plate from the manufacturer, and not all come without accessories, some come retail box and all accessories, but you're not guaranteed it

i think you have a week to rma it to newegg. so you really have to have the time to put it through its paces, as they say. mobo defects can sometimes show up later. having said that, i have twice bought open-box mobos from newegg.

the first board I bought open-box from newegg was in august of 2003, an Asus p4pe board, which I still have to this day, no, that's not true, i just sold it as part of a a complete computer.
the only thing i ever found wrong with it, and this was much later, was that the on-board giga-LAN, although used as internet connector was fine, made transfers between comps super-slow, for which i just placed a nic card in a pci slot. but i'm not sure if this was a generalized defect on these boards.

anyway, i was happy enough with this board to have purchased a second open box board, the same model actually. this was in november of the same year. now this is where the adventure begins. your mileage may vary:

the board wouldn't boot, some kind of bios problem. continually having to reload it. now here's the thing. i live in europe, and so by the time I had gone on a visit to pick up the board in the USA at my parents' house, brought it home, bench tested it, the rma period had expired.

so i RMA-ed this board to asus in the USA. fine, they sent me back a p4p800 board as replacement. wowie zowie, right?

except this board was defective also.

so i inquire as to the possibility of rma-ing this board here in europe for which i receive a special dispensation from the Pope in China to send it to Holland. I trade some nice emails with the director of the Asus Holland facility and i send the board along.

After about a month i think it was i receive the board back and it's an Asus P4P800-E deluxe retail pack. couldn't believe it. Now this is about 1 year already since my original purchase. so i mount this board and this is the board i am currently using with a PIV o'clocked to 3.0ghz.

now at the moment, i am in the usa and have just picked up a new board (read NEW) from newegg, a gigabyte p35 d3sl mobo to work with on return home. so as you can see, I did not buy an open-box mobo this time. i guess i am getting less skimpy with spending and hope to avoid recurring mobo headaches.

gl

i got my p5k premium for 130, and no problems here


sometimes you just get a "open box" because it was a retrun, but like others (mangled up lga socket, etc) its hit or miss.


as someone stated in a thread newegg support said they dont even check RMA'd items???? WTF? way to go CS

gangaskan said:

i got my p5k premium for 130, and no problems here


sometimes you just get a "open box" because it was a retrun, but like others (mangled up lga socket, etc) its hit or miss.


as someone stated in a thread newegg support said they dont even check RMA'd items???? WTF? way to go CS

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This is kind of a different topic but, how can you possibly expect them to check all of those items? They are a vendor, not a tech shop. They would have to have all different types of CPu's, RAM, etc available and THEN pay several knowledgeable people to test all this stuff. I'm sure they get TONS of returns because of the volume they deal. I'd rather get lower prices then knowing an "open box" isn't going to have to be returned.

jivetrky said:

This is kind of a different topic but, how can you possibly expect them to check all of those items? They are a vendor, not a tech shop. They would have to have all different types of CPu's, RAM, etc available and THEN pay several knowledgeable people to test all this stuff. I'm sure they get TONS of returns because of the volume they deal. I'd rather get lower prices then knowing an "open box" isn't going to have to be returned.

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i agree, but still, there should be some level of knowing if the board is workable or not. would you want to get something that was screwed up by some un ethical person? it only delays your upgrades by 2 weeks or so.

I do not have enough "open-box" experience to be an expert on the subject, but I can say this: You get what you pay for. The few experiences I have had with newegg concerning open-box items has been a 50/50 split. Just my 2 cents...

i think there needs to be a poll about this topic that is a sticky... it comes up alot

gangaskan said:

i agree, but still, there should be some level of knowing if the board is workable or not. would you want to get something that was screwed up by some un ethical person? it only delays your upgrades by 2 weeks or so.

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But if that is the case, you should be buying the retail board. The open box board is for someone wanting to take a chance in getting a deal or possibly getting a big hassle. And as i said, they can't really test these things unless they ahve all the equipment and people to do so. There's really no "half way" testing it, either they would or wouldn't. And to do so would be a big undertaking. I wish the newegg rep could come in here and give us an idea of how many returns they do per week.

I've bought tons of open box motherboards from Newegg, never had a single issue. I asked ahead of time before ordering my first one and you can exchange it through Newegg if it's DOA, just like any other retail product, or it's under the standard manufacturer warranty as well. Sometimes it works out to be a much better deal, you can save a ton of money if you don't need some SATA/IDE cables, a driver disc, and the back I/O panel.

I have purchased dozens of open box items from the Egg, most of which have been mobos. All that I can think of came with all the accessories and have worked great. I did have to exchange one board due to a bad i/o and it was returned with a NIB.

Linkage -> http://www.newegg.com/Info/ReturnPolicy.aspx#8