ASUS Z8NA-D6C Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5500 ATX Dual Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series Server/Workstation Motherboard

Pros: Brand name support and documentation. Plenty of header connections for chassis fans.

Cons: Short on expansion (PCI slots and USB ports) as it is a server board. The ASUS sound board (MIO Audio) that compliments this board has a bracket that does not line up with a standard ATX box. That was a bit disappointing. I thought the headers for the chassis switches and LED indicators could have been a bit more clear.

Other Thoughts: You get what you pay for.

Pros: None, board was doa.

Cons: Dead board and had to fight with newegg to take the return. They finally approved my RMA and I've ordered a SuperMicro board instead.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize that the board you received was DOA.

In the future, if you have difficulty setting up the mtoherboard, using it, and would like assistance, please call call 1-812-282-2787, use the online case submittal form at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/usa_techserv.aspx, or contact me at cl-benson@asus.com. We'll be glad to help you in anyway we can.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: has a lot for the money

Cons: tried to install winserver x64 '08, no drivers for sata ctrlr on CD, despite labeled folder names. CD boots to FLOPPY writing utility to write a driver where it asks you to choose which chipset you have. then floppy utility fails. ridiculous, so stupid terrible process.

Pros: Great board. fits into small cases. lots of room for expansion!

Cons: processors extremly close. hard time trying to find CPU coolers (besides intel stock ones) that fit in. Memory chips also close to cpus.
pci slots seem to not be perfect. cant screw in pci cards except video one?
no usb 3.0 (but thats ok)

Other Thoughts: its a great board for the price!

Pros: Loaded with nearly every feature a PC/Server could want.

Cons: 1) The Tylersburg chipset runs EXTREMELY hot - leave it on long enough and you can't even touch the heat sink! I tried technical support and asked them if this was abnormal and what other customers were doing but they weren't very helpful. I ended up just screwing a little fan directly in to the heat sink just to be safe. Crude but effective.
2) There is a "feature" for chasis intrusion detection. Don't remove the jumper pins on that feature (refer to manual) or else you have to take the CMOS battery out to reset it. Otherwise your computer won't boot. Some feature.....

Other Thoughts: Overall you can't go wrong with dual CPU's and the loads of features.

Pros: This makes for a great workstation board -- finding a cheaper dual proc Xeon board in ATX form factor will not be easy. With two E5530's & 12GB DDR3, it runs pretty well over Server '08 R2. I like that the board has a legacy PCI slot as I use a scsi card for interfacing with a tape drive I use for backups.

Cons: Although I'm getting great performance out of the board, I have been unsuccessful in getting S3 standy to work (suspend-to-ram). Asus support has been completely unhelpful in even providing a concise answer as to whether the board even supports this power state -- the documentation is not clear. Tech support has basically given me one sentence answers that do not pertain to my questions. Very disappointing for a server product.

Other Thoughts: I do notice that, due to the compact layout of the board in ATX formfactor, the cpu's are quite close together. With Intel heatsinks on both processors, one cpu is pulling in hot air from the other cpu. So it is not uncommon for a 5-15C temp difference between the cpu's. I am considering other cooling options as the E5530 run fairly hot.

Although some have reported issues with memory I was able to run standard Crucial non-ecc/unbuffered desktop DDR3 that I had around the office without a hitch.

I would have preferred to have a few more usb ports, esata, and onboard sound as well. And it is somewhat of a drag that I had to shell out an extra $20 to buy an Asus specific sound card that only works with the Asus MIO slot. Of which looks a lot like an x1 PCIE slot but they adamantly insist is not. I'm really tempted to throw a x1 card into the slot just to see what happens.

Pros: supports 2 xeon 5600 cpus
supports lots of memory

Cons: none so far

Other Thoughts: i bought this mobo because it gives me the flexibility to upgrade my server. right now i'm using 1/2 cpu sockets and 3/6 memory

Pros: running (2) Xeon E5504 with 24G of RAM in 2 banks of 12G.
Dual Raid configuration (WD RE4 series) OS and Data with additional drive for Sharepoint data. Antec 900 series case.

Cons: None. Flawless from the start.

Other Thoughts: Box has been up and running 24/7 since Dec. 09 without an issue. Could not be more satisfied.

Pros: Serial Port, 2 NICs and Wake on Lan means it's fully remotely-controllable, perfect for workstations that also need remote access or to act as servers.

Performance is as good as you would expect.

No unnecessary features getting in the way. BIOS is full of useful options, and can be accessed from serial port for fully headless operation.

Cons: No sound, which is slightly annoying if you're using it as a workstation. Has an expansion slot for a soundcard which is apparently sold separately.

Pros: If you are lucky enough to get RAM modules that are accepted by this board (dispite the specs), then it's worth the money. I installed this specific board for the first time 8 months ago for a server and it's been working flawlessly (little did I know that I had gotten lucky). 10 days ago I ordered 2 of these units for 2 new servers, and that's when the real trouble started. Unfortunately the specs posted by ASUS are FAR from correct or accurate. Most memory modules will NOT work on this board even though the specs (and tech support too) claim that they are. BE READY TO GAMBLE if you buy this board.

Cons: Ordered 2 of these for 2 servers. Ordered same CPU “Intel Xeon E5520 Nehalem 2.26GHz LGA 1366 80W Quad-Core” (fully compatible with this model motherboard as per ASUS specs) and different RAM: first had Patriot Signature 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) SDRAM ECC Registered; latter had Crucial 6GB (3 x 2GB) SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) ECC Registered. Again all this specs are confirmed by ASUS. NEITHER BOARD would boot up or POST! I swapped CPU sockets, memory sticks, memory slots, both processors, and power supply. NOTHING would make these 2 boards POST or boot. Called ASUS and asked for their opinion. First they said both boards were busted! Then they acknowledged that they both needed a BIOS upgrade to accept those memories EVEN THOUGH THEY BOTH ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH THE RAM I GOT! Problem: can’t do a BIOS upgrade if you can’t even POST. They asked that I ship the new boards to them to get it done. UNBELIEVABLE! I RMA’d the 2 boards for full refund

Other Thoughts: One more thing: before I RMA's borh boards back, I even borrowed from a nother server 3 sticks of Wintek 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) SDRAM ECC Registered just to make sure there was no way I could prevent this RMA from happening and having to wait for 2 new boards to come in; even this third set of memory got rejected. I have always been an ASUS guy; I've been building high-performance PCS and server for over 20 years and I hate to admit that ASUS products are not always worth the money and time.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issue you had with memory on this motherboard and difficulty getting it to POST.

When choosing memory, be sure to use memory on the Qualified Vendors List (QVL). These are memory that have been tested to work specifically with this motherboard. The Patriot Signature 12GB kit and Wintek 12GB kit are not on the QVL and we cannot be certain that they will work with the motherboard. The Crucial 6GB kit may work but we cannot confirm without knowing the part number. In our QVL, only Crucial 2GB modules memory with part numbers CT25672BB1339.18SFD1 and CT25672BQ1339.18FF1 are certain to work with the motherboard. Please refer to the QVL http://www.asus.com/Server_Workstation/Server_Motherboards/Z8NAD6C/#QVL for more details.

If you have difficulty getting the system to POST, please try the following:

Please try to clear CMOS after installing new memory. Turn off the system. Turn the switch on the back of the power supply to OFF. On the lower right corner of the motherboard is a jumper marked "CLRTC", move the jumper from positions 1 and 2 to 2 and 3. Wait about 30 seconds, and move the jumper back to positions 1 and 2. Power on the computer. Are you able to POST?

Please also try plugging a 4-pin speaker to the motherboard. As you power on the system, were any beeps heard?

Was the jumper for the 3-pin VGA_SW1--to enable onboard video set to Enable or Disable?

Please contact me at cl-benson@asus.com reference #S1037-672 to continue troubleshooting. When replying, please include system parts and specs.

Regards,
Benson
Asus Customer Loyalty