After the board is manufactured, the next step is to test it, in a process called functionality testing. In this testing the motherboard is turned on and all its components are tested. This is a compulsory test and all boards are tested.
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Figure 10: Bays were the motherboards are tested one by one.
What happens after the functionality test depends on the manufacturer. It is very interesting what occurs in ABIT.
We have visited several motherboard factories, including MSI, Gigabyte and ECS, just to name the most important ones. Generally speaking, all factories are similar, since the manufacturing process is basically the same. What can eventually change depending on the manufacturer is the quantity of visual inspections for quality control that are done during the whole manufacturing process.
What ABIT brings as an advantage over the other manufacturers is the quantity of tests done thru the manufacturing process. Normally manufacturers perform only one functionality testing (they check if the board turns on and run a hardware testing program to check if all motherboard features are operational) and, eventually, a burn-in test (they keep the board turned on 24 hours). Because of the time taken by the burn-in testing, a lot of manufacturers are simply not performing this kind of test anymore and those who still perform it, do it by sampling, i.e. only some motherboards randomly chosen are tested, since it is very hard to do a burn-in test in all motherboards when 1 million motherboards are manufactured per month.
So, in almost all factories it goes like this: after functionality testing, some boards are drawn for a 24-hour burn-in testing and the rest of the boards are immediatly packed. And c'est fini.
Inside ABIT's process, however, six tests are performed after the functionality testing: compability, burn-in, environmental, reliability, vibration and shock. These tests are performed by sampling, i.e. only some motherboards are tested. According to ABIT, this is enought to find out flaws on the manufacturing process. Frankly we've never seen a factory with so many testings.
