Ongoing Issues with PowerSpec PCs

I have been using PowerSpec PCs for years for home and business use and never had any issues until at least a couple years in. It's like a car or TV, etc. - stuff happens. I don't buy a car and expect to never change the oil. The computer could have Dell or HP slapped on it and have the same issues over time. My experience or expectations with PowerSpecs differ from this poster's

Welcome to the forum John, and thank you for taking the time to share your experience. I happen to work with the PowerSpec engineering team so I might be able to answer some of these questions for you or at the very least, help provide my thoughts on what may have happened with these systems.

First things first, most of our customers probably know by now that the configurations of our PowerSpec systems vary widely based on the designed intent of the system. You won't see a high-end, overclockable gaming motherboard in a value-based business system as those features would simply go unused and the increase in price would be less appealing towards that particular customer. That said, it doesn't mean the component selection used in our business models (denoted by the B in the beginning portion of the model name) are "cheaper" in terms of quality. We don't use boards where VRM quality is a concern for the workload of the system. We design the systems not only to the standards of their intended use, but we also subject them to testing conditions that go beyond what it's shipping configuration would accommodate. This includes testing business systems in gaming/high-computational environments despite the systems not being designed for those specific workloads. We like to anticipate how our customers may use these systems and to do so, we need to subject them to as many different use scenarios as possible. If the components do not survive our testing, they do not make it into our systems nor will they reach the hands of our customers.

On this subject, we also test upgrade configurations beyond their original shipping configuration. You've noted issues after upgrading memory in the B246 (ASRock A320M-HDV R4.0 board), though I am not entirely sure what would cause this board to behave as you've described. My only logical guesses would be either mixing memory of different internal IC's (Samsung, Hynix, Micron, etc) with one another or using DIMM's that are outright incompatible with the board. For that board in particular, it's picky with memory speed and the number of ranks on your DIMM's:

With this chart, you can see the 3400G (Picasso series APU) only accepts single rank DIMM's up to 2933mhz in both slots, but if you use dual rank DIMM's, you have to use 2667mhz DIMM's. If you can let me know the model of memory you tested in this system, I'd like to mock this model back up and test it to rule out any potential compatibility issues.

Every PowerSpec system is tested with a memory configuration beyond how we ship them. We don't just validate how we want to ship the system, we also validate that the advertised specifications of the components are accurate and that you, as a customer, can throw that memory or processor in without an issue if you choose to do so.

As for the failures of the B335 and B361, I'd have to know the environments in which they failed, the test/use conditions under which they failed and any errors/issues leading up to the failures in order to provide any objective insight here. As odd and as unlikely as it sounds, their use of an ASRock board might be entirely coincidental, given we use many ASRock boards across our entire product stacks (even in our highest-end gaming systems, such as the PowerSpec G466). We have quite a few of the B361's here in our office that are still around. I've even purchased that particular motherboard for my fathers Plex server and that thing is on 24/7 and has yet to fail me, so it's difficult to say why two different PowerSpec's with different system configurations (with that particular motherboard) failed. I'd be happy to take whatever information you have on how those systems were deployed and how they were used leading up to their failures in the field to help make that determination.

My personal (non-Microcenter affiliated) experience with ASRock has been pretty solid. I've used their boards almost exclusively back when I used Intel and have competed in several overclocking competitions with their boards simply because of their board trace topology and overall VRM quality. I also like the simplicity of their BIOS, though others prefer having more features in the BIOS than I personally like. I've not had any issues in my personal systems though I understand me not having issues doesn't discount the fact that others may very well encounter issues.

At the end of the day, I understand your reasoning and hesitance to use our ASRock-based systems given your personal experience with them. I'd simply ask that you give our systems another shot as not only am I confident you and your clients will be satisfied with their quality, we always take care of our products when it comes to warranty support. This includes over the phone or on this very community forum, should you or your clients find yourself too far away from our stores.