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there is no exact answer to this question, but alot of general rules that you can be 90% sure that refurbished items follow.
first, some items are easily repairable and have common failing parts, so that it is in the best interest of an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to recoup lost revenue on an RMA item.
other items, on the other hand, can either be nearly impossable to repair, or the repair cost is greater than what the item sells for as a refurbished item. items like hard drives (hard to fix cheaply) and USB keychain memory sticks (cheaper to produce than to fix)
usually an item marked "refurbished" has passed through a thorough quality controll check to verify serviceability (especially if the item had to be repaired). other times it is merely tested as far as turning it on/plugging it in to see if it passes the basic function test (ie, the lights come on, the motherboard passes POST). whatever the case may be, the only thing required bu the technician is to be able to reproduce the problem that the item was returned for. if the part prevented booting into windows, then that part needs to be tested for that, however if the part merely would not power on, that is all it needs to be tested for.
so, this is the delema with refurbished items.... was the original purchaser a complete knucklehead who couldn't read a manual properly, or got in over their head technically and just couldn't figure out how to make the part work properly? or did the original purchaser have an entire lab set up hwere no combination of hardware would let his item work because of a yet-to-be-discovered bug in the part that could not be reproduced on the manufacturer's test bench?
yet another possibility for refurbished items is that the customer returned a perfectly good part before the warrenty was up so that they could get a brand new part at no cost. whatever the case may be, a refurbished item carries a limited warrenty, however, IT IS NOT NEW, and that is the most important thing to consider.
with electronics, and especially computer parts, user items tend to be very, very sketchy. the nature of the silicon integrated circuit is that as soon as it has power running through it, it begins to fade. now, this is nowhere close to, for example, how the spark plugs in an automobile wear down, where you can actually measure it with your naked eye, nor does the silicon's ability to switch current back and forth between its gates change while it "fades". usually when an IC stops working, it just stops working and lets you know very quickly. usually, however, an IC under ideal conditions is capeable of operating flawlessly for upwards of 10 years. i personally have a pentium 3 866Mhz chip that is 4 years old and has been overclocked heavily, and it still runs fine as an always on server, 24/7.
since the manufacturer/retailer/wholesaler selling the refurbished item does not have to tell you what exactly the item was refurbished for, you may never know. in the case of your motherboard, was it a failed BIOS flash, and they simply replaced the BIOS chip? or was the item returned because it didn't have all the cables in it? or did a capacitor break off and a technician have to solder it back on? i will assume that its advertisement says nothing to the nature of the items return.
personally, i wouldn't buy a refurbished motherboard, unless the price was right. that price would have to make me not feel bad about purchasing it if it ended up not being entirely stable. remember that your motherboard is probably the single most important piece of hardware in your system, because EVERYTHING runs through it and it calls the shos for how all the other hardware will communicate together. considering that, the price i would pay is 30 dollars max.
just a suggestion, hope this helps your decision!
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