OEM BareBones refurb MB's.

Newegg sells refurb MB's and most are "OEM BareBones." OK, that means you get just the MB with no CD, manual or anything else, just the bare-nekid MB.

My question is:
If I buy one can I find the essential MB drivers at the MB manufacturers website? Be a heck of a note to buy one then not have drivers. I know how to search for drivers on the web. Thinking about trying one because they're a whole lot cheaper but don't want to buy a Pig in a poke. Not sure which one I'll go with and only familiar with ASUS & SOLTEK. Rest assured, which ever one I go with will be the high end model good for OC'ing.

Advice, suggestions, comments and cautions on refurbs muchly appreciated.
OldBird

Athalon 2100 OC'd 2.17GHz, EverCool cooler, SOLTEK SL75MRNL, 512Mb Crucial DDRRAM, 60Gig WD HDD, Fortron 350W PSU, LiteOn CDRW, Mitsumi CDROM, Internal 100Mb ZIP, APC 500 battery back up. Yeah, it's my Baby, built it my self and runs like a dream.

I've bought 6 refurbed mobo's from newegg. Out of the 6, 5 have come with everything in the box and 1 (MSI) hasn't. You can get all the drivers and manuals at the manufacturers website if necessary. You basically take a chance on:

a. A bad mobo
b. Missing parts (drive cables, adapters, etc.)

I've been very lucky with 6 of 6 working perfectly.

Chances we take.

I read the user reviews at newegg before I buy anything and see some had re'cd various kinds of defective RMA type MB's. First Soltek I got wouldn't boot and had to RMA it, next one they sent was a real honey and I love it. I've had six ASUS MB's die and henceforth I'll go with another brand. Nothing against ASUS, just lost my faith, so to speak, and tearing the box apart RMA'ing is a bummer plus the box is down and have to pay for freight to send it back.

Thanx for the info and I'm keeping my eye on the newegg refurbs.
OldBird

If you buy a MSI board and it is missing accessories you can call MSI's tech support and they will send the accessories out to you free.

I have done it twice with retail mobos that I bought that were missing cables or cards.

They did not ask if I bought it OEM or retail so you should be fine

I personally would be a bit wary of buying a refurb motherboard. The description of refurb mobos on Newegg's site is something along the lines of "previously returned by a customer." Now this is not to say that I think Newegg is going to ship you a dead board, I really, really doubt that...but still I wouldn't want to own something that someone else had returned for *whatever* reason. I bet your board will probably work, but maybe not to the level of performance you want.

Just my two cents, from someone who is a very cautious person

Since I have experienced nothing but sheer pleasure and reliability from my SL75MRNL I decided to go with a different Soltek board: Soltek NVIDIA nForce2 400, Model SL-NV400-L64 - Retail $76.00

Lot of Pepperoinis for $76. Newegg is out of them but expects new shipment today. I'll let you know how goes it when I get it fired off. Thanks for all the advice.

well looks like you made up your mind, but incaseyou change, or anyone else reads this after doing a search:
most customer reviews on refurb Asus boards came barebones. Most user reviews on Abit Nf7-s (best OC'ng board you can get) come with almost everything, maybe missing ide cables or something, but a lot of folks get the "retail pkg" from the refurbs. And people are getting 2.0's too.
Main point is I guess to read the buyer reviews to get an idea of what to expect

Chaos_Being said:

The description of refurb mobos on Newegg's site is something along the lines of "previously returned by a customer." Now this is not to say that I think Newegg is going to ship you a dead board, I really, really doubt that...but still I wouldn't want to own something that someone else had returned for *whatever* reason.

Click to expand...

Yeah there is the fact that it has been used and returned, but out there in numpty land, there are those that return boards because they can't figure out the 100/133 jumper and never get their CPU at full speed, or they blow a CPU in it due to expecting an intant 1Ghz overclock and return the board just in case, or that had this vague idea of building a computer and chickened out when they saw all the complicated little bits, or maybe they found their PC66 SDRAM from thier old compaq didn't work too well in it. Most of them were in fact "just sleeping" and are not nailed to the perch per the norwegian grey.

Road Warrior

...or they are unscrupulous, and rma their perfectly fine 1.1 just to get a 2.0

hehe true true

Refurb or just recycled?

I think u got it wired Road Warrior.
I see the user reviews at newegg saying "I got the board in the box with everything with it just like new." (Paraphrasing.)

I wondered, now how could that be? Well, using your analogy, when you RMA a board you have to send everything with it. They get it RMA, test it and it tests OK, so they simply put it back in the box with all the accessories and put it up for sale as refurb. If you buy refurb and only get the MB, so what? You go to the MB companys website and get the manual and software.

Would I be afraid of buying refurb? After gathering the info from you good folks, I don't think so because if it doesn't work or craps out during the warranty you can always RMA it. DDUUHH?

Saving five or ten bucks is nice, but saving 25% to 50% on ANYTHING certainly gets the atention of most hard working folks who throw down their hard earned cash for any product or service.

(Think I just talked myself into buying a refurb MB.) Lem'me go see what they gots ober dere at de newegger. ;-}
Shoot fire, for what I save I can buy me and the wife child a jug of T'Bird wine and some chaw'in terbakky.

Thanx for all the input, really enjoy hangin' with you good folks here. OldBird

Newegg provides a 15 day warranty (repair-rma) on refurb boards, with a 7-day return-rma period. Don't know what manufacture warranty is. The key to picking up a refurb board from newegg is to not need it right away, to check frequently, and JUMP fast when you see what you see they have what you want. And reading the refurb buyer reviews for the particular board that you want to get really helps alot too.