ASUS P5Q SE PLUS LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: worked great.. both times.. for about 2 months

Cons: I got my first one, with a fresh build, and it worked great. Then I started bluescreening, then it wouldnt post. I replaced my HDD's, power supply, Ram then deduced it to my mobo. I RMA'd it and received another. In the time it took for me to receive my "new" mobo, I had helped a friend of mine build a similar pc and suggested this mobo to him as I figured it was a fluke that mine was bad. His died 5 weeks later and my new mobo, when it finally arrived, was DOA. I called Asus to ask for yet another mobo and the customer service was terrible, they wouldnt offer a refund, they wouldnt let me upgrade and pay the difference and they were making it d*mn hard to get another saying it was my fault it wasnt working. So I went down to (Fry)'s and got 2 Gigabyte motherboards and both computers are still running swimmingly 15 months later. As a matter of fact the DOA board i received is back in its original packaging collecting dust in my closet.. which is about all it is good for.

Other Thoughts: I was a huge asus fanboy, after that nightmare I now only buy gigabyte and foxconn(<---makes most motherboards for other companies anyways). Yes this mobo worked great, if you want to blow money on a new mother board every 2-3 months.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear about the issues. Please contact us at Newegg_ASUS_MBSupport@asus.com stating all parts used and RMA case numbers, and we will look into this for you.

Regards
ASUS Customer Support

Pros: Very easy to install.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I'm not that computer savvy, so I was looking for a simple, motherboard to put in an old computer. The only suggestion I could make is to check with the memory manufacturers before buying. I installed Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AL1065, which I found out required more voltage than the motherboard could supply. The computer would crash until I finally replaced it with recommended memory by Crucial. It's worked perfectly since then.

Pros: Installation was fast and easy. No problems seem to be a stable motherboard. This my 5th build with Asus boards. Three build with Gigabyte motherboards and one with a Abit motherboards.

Cons: I am running a raid 10 with 4 hard and 2 DVD players. There is only 5 SATA ports hence I can’t use 2 DVD players. I called Asus and they said I would have to buy a board so I could use the 2nd DVD player. So I am a little discussed with the way Asus says there is 7 SATA ports on the board. I am not a happy camper with Asus motherboard I think it will be my last one. It takes a long time to post and come out of the sleep mode.

Other Thoughts: The motherboard is a replacement for an Abit IP 35 motherboard. I don’t think this motherboard is as fast as the Abit was. I am not a happy camper with Asus motherboard I think it will be my last one.

I am running:

QX6500 Extreme Edition
Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro
4 gigs Crucial Ballistix memory
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR2 Video Card
4 Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10000 RPM Hard drives
Antec TruePower 1000W Power supply

With the Abit motherboard build the computer was screamer.

Pros: Small - It fits in a mid-tower very nicely. I have an Antec 300 Illusion, and it has a nice fit and very little interference. Heatsink clearance is excellent on this board, and my Zalman CNS9200 still fits wonderfully.

Once all problems were rectified, im running DDR2-1066 @ 555MHz base speed, with no decrease of timings.

Despite the lack of tunable options in the BIOS, you can still tweak pretty hard on this board.

Cons: Initial boot requires DDR2-800 to be inserted. For some reason the motherboard fought me after installing my E6550. I own DDR2-1066 ram that was certified on that board, but it would fail POST. After hours of double-checking connections, cards and such, I popped in some DDR2-800 and it lit off in 10 seconds. I was able to configure the ram, etc.

Lack of goodies with a "plus" board. I got 2 SATA cables, 1 PATA and a backplane insert.

The bios features are quite lackluster, with very few options that are changeable.

This board looses 1 egg for lack of support for certified ram that they tested.
This board looses a second egg for making me rage unnecessarily and have to resort to dire troubleshooting steps.

This board lacks the ability to control 3-Pin CPU fans. ONLY PWM types. So my Zalman is running at full blast. Had to install the fan-mate to slow it down.

LACK OF RAID IS AGGRAVATING!!

Price is slightly high.

Express gate is rubbish. Turn it off.

Other Thoughts: Replacing an EVGA 680i Ultra board.

Very fast response compared to the nvidia 680i series. This gets it 1 egg back. Nvidia hasn't done much to improve their storage subsystem and its very high latency.

When opening the box you will notice right off the bat, that this board is missing something. You guessed it. S/P-DIF output bracket. Those with HDMI output are going to have a bit of fun with this board.

I really only bought this board because I need quad-core support. The 680i series supported only the Q6xxx's and now I need a bit more fire power.

Pros: Good Performance, & Features for the Price

Cons: Hey all, I think I may have stumbled upon an issue which seems to affect pci boards from various manufacturers including asus.

Basic Symptom: a blank display screen, after powering up machine - regardless of being completely off (prior), or in sleep mode/state. Progressively occurring more often over time.

Possible Solution: unscrew the metal pci slot bracket (preattached to all videocards); *gently & firmly* installing the card back into place (motherboard); connect monitor; power system on/off until satisfied with results.

Contributing factors seem to be: insufficient 'cumulative' height (horizontal view on table) of a motherboard's circuit board, and or plastic pci input slots used on motherboards; and least likely - radical case design interfering with sitting height of the pci cards.

Other Thoughts: Overall a very good board, at a decent price - brought down by sloppy quality assurance.

Pros: motherboard works great without problems, overclocks well

Cons: lack of raid

Other Thoughts: I have been using ASUS motherboards for about 5 years, very happy with them.

Pros: Seems to work reasonably well once it's booted.

Cons: It thinks it has a new processor installed that needs to be configured in BIOS each and every time it's started. Two beeps to boot it and setting the BIOS to ignore errors to complete POST is annoying at best. It seems to work ok once it starts, but the board is definitely defective. Clearing the CMOS and configuring the CPU is ineffective.

Other Thoughts: I have used Asus boards for years and never had a problem. I'd return this one in a heartbeat, but had to put it in service because of critical time constraints. The board is flawed but for now it's working in a 24/7 environment with a Q9550 CPU and 2 gb dual channel 1066 GSkill RAM. We'll see how long it lasts and deal with it when it dies. By the way, it has the latest BIOS update available, 2204. There's no way I'd recommend this board to anyone.

Pros: I upgraded my mobo from a P5n-e SLI to this because I couldnt overclock my CPU very well in my old board. In this board I can run my CPU at about 3.45 stable (with a q6600). I was honestly hoping to get some better overclocking performance out of this board but the CPU voltage only goes up to 1.5 which is my main problem with this board.

Cons: CPU voltage only goes up to 1.5. Good for overclocking but not great.

Memory speed linked to FSB at all times so you can not set memory speed independent of FSB.

Other Thoughts: I got this board open box and it works great. Wish it OCed better but still a lot better at OCing than my old board.

Pros: good quality /versus price
does what it supposed to do

Cons: none so far

Pros: Board works great. Overclocks like a champ. Had to add more voltage to get the CPU (Q6600 rev G0) over 2.81 and keep a stable system. This board makes an excellent budget gaming rig. I would use it again to build another system. I highly recommend it.

Cons: No RAID. But I knew that when buying it.

Other Thoughts: When I built the system on 1-25-2009 I used an Evga 8800 GTS 320. 3 months later I upgraded to an Evga GTX 260 core 216. That ramped up the system a lot. Currently running the CPU described above with the aforementioned GPU. Also running 8 GB of Corsair XMS2. I am using Windows 7 as well.