Advantech
Advantech
(OP)
Has anyone here had any experience with Advantech? I ordered some motherboards from them and it's been hell. I ordered a motherboard from them over a year ago, tested the hell out of it, found some bugs, worked with their engineers on some bios changes and finally put it out in the field and it works great. So I ordered 4 more, after a month delay they sent 1, after a while they sent the rest and it turns out they're all defective so now it's RMA time...... Has anyone had similar experience? It just seems they're so sluggish when something goes wrong. And more than one thing went wrong and it's been dragging out forever....
Chris Krug http://krugtech.com/
Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS





RE: Advantech
... which is why you bought 'industrial' motherboards.
I wasn't aware that Advantech made those. I've been aware of their instrument modules for a long time, and I think I've bought a few and am aware of no issues with them.
Maybe they are reselling generic motherboards as industrial, in which case they are as doomed as any generic vendor. Maybe they are just having teething troubles with a product that's new to them. Either explanation would account for sluggish response. If it continues, one explanation becomes more likely.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Advantech
Chris Krug http://krugtech.com/
Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS
RE: Advantech
Chris Krug http://krugtech.com/
Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS
RE: Advantech
A long time ago, I led part of a project that involved an embedded PC.
Here is what I learned.
<boring story> <somewhat abbreviated>
We needed a motherboard. Generic/commodity motherboards were available at very attractive prices. Management would not hear of using 'industrial' boards because of their higher prices.
It turns out that virtually all motherboards start out as reference designs from a chipset vendor, e.g. Intel.
Low-overhead outfits buy the design, artwork, etc., and add and remove features to differentiate their particular version.
Invariably, the work is done by inexpensive self-educated folks who have only a marginal understanding of things like bus timing. ... which they invariably screw up in their efforts to save nickels and be heroes.
In the typical six months that it took for our meticulous EE to measure the chip timing, find all the mistakes, and qualify at least one of a sample of half a dozen different brands of motherboards, the going price for said motherboard would rocket down from $300 to $50, at which time the motherboard vendor could no longer make money on it and would go out of business. ... and we would start the qualifying cycle over again with a whole new set of cutthroat optimistic startup motherboard 'vendors'.
Our core functional requirements could then, and today, be satisfied by an 8088. But the bottom fell out of the market in a year, and in turn we were forced to go to 286, 386, 486, Pentium, etc. ... at which time I was asked to leave for unrelated reasons. I have no idea what they embed now...
</boring story>
I'm guessing that a similar bottom-falling-out cycle may occur in industrial motherboards, too, hopefully with a longer period.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Advantech
Chris Krug http://krugtech.com/
Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS
RE: Advantech
RE: Advantech
Chris Krug http://krugtech.com/
Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS
RE: Advantech
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Advantech
Chris Krug http://krugtech.com/
Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS
RE: Advantech
I'm surprised you're having such a time of it. The PC104 is an industrial comp line too. That's depressing.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com