The only board I've had fail on me so far (after using it for a while) was my old EPoX 8K7A. It did last me about 2 years though, until I replaced it with an ASUS A7N8X-VM/400. Since then I've primarily been in the ASUS camp.
Other boards I am using and used in the past:
Unknown 486 motherboard (SiS chipset) - I can't remember the make and model of this one, but I used this with my first PC, a 486DX/66. It had an SiS chipset and multiple VLB as well as ISA slots. I recall using a VLB hard disk controller card and hard drive data corruption was very commonplace (and frustrating). This one didn't last too long afterward as I shortly upgraded to a Pentium.
Gemlight GMB-P54SPS (Socket 5, SiS 501? chipset) - I don't know very much about this manufacturer (or if they're even still around), but I used this board for my first Pentium system. Very stable and worked with the rest of my hardware for playing Windows and DOS games. No more of that hard drive corruption BS that I experienced with my 486 system. When I upgraded to a Socket 7 system sometime in early 1997, I donated this to my old workplace, and it went through some good usage afterwards. Sent it to e-waste last year.
Intel TC430HX (Socket 7, i430HX chipset) - Great board, came with an integrated S3 ViRGE/DX graphics controller with 2 MB RAM. Was used for several years until I junked it.
Intel AN430TX (Socket 7, i430TX chipset) - Another great, stable Intel board. Came with an integrated ATI 3D Rage II graphics controller with 2 MB SGRAM. Used for several years as well until I junked it.
Intel SE440BX-2 (Slot 1, i440BX chipset) - Very nice, stable i440BX-based board, but also very boring (no overclocking options, as is usual with Intel's boards). Used with a PIII-600E Coppermine for a few years, and it is still sitting in my closet.
ABIT VH6 (Socket 370, VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset) - My first board from ABIT - used with a Celeron 700. It was OK, though not quite as stable and high performance as i440BX-based boards. It did have a bunch of features that my i440BX board lacked though, such as PC133 SDRAM and AGP 4x support. When I last used it though, it was starting to have some stability issues (i.e. system randomly resets for no reason, even though there were no problems with my CPU. might have been my RAM though, but I'll never know). This one is sitting in my closet for now.
EPoX 8K7A (Socket A, AMD 761 chipset) - Used with an Athlon XP 2000+. Was a nice, stable board for about 2 years, then crap started happening. First my system began to randomly reset for no reason (again, despite the fact that there were no problems with my CPU or RAM), and then the AGP slot crapped out (i.e. my AGP graphics cards would no longer boot correctly with it, then the problem got worse and I couldn't POST with an AGP graphics card). Eventually I got frustrated and replaced it with an ASUS board. I probably won't buy an EPoX board again, but I hear that their later boards are much better quality.
ASUS A7N8X-VM/400 (Socket A, nForce2 IGP chipset) - I replaced my EPoX board with this. Much better quality IMO and very feature-rich (audio, LAN built in, as well as a very nice integrated GeForce4 MX-based IGP). This started my addiction of purchasing uATX motherboards. Was used for many years until I retired it a couple years ago. Now it's just sitting in my drawer.
ASUS P4P800-VM (Socket 478, i865G chipset) - Awesome P4 board, I used this to build my "Hackintosh" system (paired with a P4 3.0 GHz Prescott), and much to my chagrin everything in OSX86 worked out of the box (the integrated audio, LAN, USB, and everything else). The onboard IGP is pretty crappy though (I had to use it for about a week after I had to send in my Radeon 9800 Pro card for exchange due to a broken fan), but there's always the AGP slot to put in a more powerful graphics card. Still using it to this day.
ASUS A8N-VM CSM (Socket 939, nForce 430/GeForce 6150 chipset) - Best uATX Socket 939 board ever. Currently using this with an Athlon 64 3200+ and GeForce 9500GT graphics card. The onboard IGP (GeForce 6150) even comes with a DVI-I port (older revisions, however, used DVI-D ports) right on the board, which was pretty uncommon back in this era. Very feature-rich and Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit works nicely on it without any hiccups. Still using it for my primary system; 5 years and still kicking. By far the best mobo I've ever owned.
MSI P6NGM-L (LGA775, nForce 610i/GeForce 7050 chipset) - Currently using in my sibling's machine, paired with a Core 2 Duo E7200 (Wolfdale) CPU and GeForce 8600GT graphics card. The first non-ASUS board that I had purchased in a while. Very stable and feature-rich for a uATX board. Installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit was kind of a hassle though, as the earliest retail version of the OS DVD had an old nForce driver that wouldn't work with this board (I would receive a BSOD during installation/hardware detection), and I ended up having to manually copy updated driver files from a thumb drive during the installation process in order to correct that problem - very frustrating if you can't type fast enough). Other than that little hiccup, I would say that MSI would be my other choice for boards. Also my other gripe is that there is no ability on this board to set a boot password (like I set with all my other machines). The board is also very nice-looking and colorful too.
ASUS P2B-VE (Slot 1, i440ZX chipset) - Based on the i440ZX (a cost-reduced 440BX) chipset, comes with an onboard ATI Rage Pro Turbo graphics controller with 8 MB SDRAM, as well as an AGP slot. This board was custom-designed for HP's Pavilion line of computers and thus the only documentation I could find was on HP's site. It has a 256 MB RAM limit, but since I'm using this for a retro rig running Win95C/WfWG 3.11 anyway it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Very high quality typical of ASUS boards.
Stuff I got for free:
Gigabyte GA-K8U-939 (Socket 939, ULi M1689 chipset) - Tried to use this to build my initial Hackintosh system, but it was for the most part incompatible. Instead, I installed Windows XP x64 and it seems to have no problems with it, along with my Radeon 9550 graphics card. Very nice Socket 939 board and a cheap alternative to nForce boards (this board utilizes the ULi M1689 chipset). Very nice-looking and colorful board too.
VIA P4XB-S (Socket 478, VIA P4X266 chipset) - Yes, when VIA couldn't get anyone to put their P4X266 chipset on motherboards (due to a legal squabble with Intel at the time), they resorted to making THEIR OWN motherboards. Currently using it with a P4 1.8 GHz (Willamette) and GeForce2 MX AGP in one of my retro rigs. The board's performance and stability easily rivals that of its main competitor, the Intel i845D chipset, and performance can be higher than Intel's chipset in some benchmarks. Also there is a BabyAT version of this board floating around somewhere (http://www.ad-promotion-gift.com/promotional- … oard_36164.html) but I'm guessing it's VERY HARD to find, seeing as it may be one of the couple (if not only) BabyAT P4 boards ever manufactured. Like Intel's own manufactured boards though, it's for the most part plain and doesn't offer many overclocking options. This chipset did not garner very widespread support though, oh well.
Biostar K8M800-M7A (Socket 754, VIA K8M800 chipset) - Currently use this with my parents' machine, paired with a Mobile Sempron 2800+. Unfortunately, I later found out that my Sempron wasn't one of the 64-bit ones, so I couldn't install XP x64 on it. Oh well, it's a nice, feature-rich and stable board nonetheless. Some issues with certain graphics cards, but nothing too problematic. It seems to work pretty well with my Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro AGP card, though. Been using it for 2 years so far and not a single major problem yet, though I constantly hear of issues with Biostar products.
P.S. The board is very colorful too (even more so than my MSI and Gigabyte boards above). I'd have to say this one has the best physical aesthetics out of all the boards I own.