ASUS P8B-M LGA 1155 Intel C204 Micro ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server Motherboard

Pros: None

Cons: powered off during BIOS backup. Tore it down and rebuilt - board now POSTs without any error beeps - however no video whatsoever - either onboard or via HDMI/ATI card. Stripped out all components except necessities - tested all DIMMS - no video whatsoever. Clearly, this is not one of ASUS's better boards. I have been using ASUS boards for 15 years - this on is best avoided. Will get the SuperMicro MicroATX C204 board instead.

Other Thoughts: Sorry ASUS - this board needs to be re-engineered.

Pros: None

Cons: Since getting this board I have had nothing but problems I now I am getting 4 beeps I have tried diffrent ram and everything now Im figuring out that it's my bios not being up to date this is my second motherboard I have tried with the Xeon 1230 V2 and I Have ran into the same problem newegg and asus should be sending out updated bios chips

Other Thoughts: None

Pros: Nice Feature, working great so far, stable

Cons: n/a

Pros: Asus says they will ship out a new bios chip. Lets hope I get it asap.

Cons: Won't post. Specs said it's compatible with 1600 memory and v2 xeon processor, but according to serial # here it says my bios is too old for these items. Can't update it because it wont even post.

Other Thoughts: Newegg should include the new bios chip if your going to ship an old motherboard. Something should be thought of to prevent this from happening.

Pros: Dual NICs supported by ESXi. VT-d support. IPMI option (reasonably priced, even).

Cons: Integrated RAID not supported by ESXi, but that's hardly unexpected. Trouble with shorts in the fab process? -- see Other Thoughts. Also, the BIOS is a little weird -- e.g. you can't designate to boot off USB until you have a USB storage device plugged in. Could use more USB headers or built-in ports.

Other Thoughts: I bought this board for a home VM server, and the first one wouldn't POST. I RMA'ed it and the replacement arrived yesterday... and also wouldn't POST. Just before I gave up on it completely, I tested it outside the case and it worked perfectly. So I started reintegrating it step by step and it came down to one mounting screw in the interior of the board. Screw in, no POST. Screw out, everything fine. If you have trouble getting one of these to POST, try pulling half the screws, then the other half, and see if it boots with either half out.

Aside from that, this looks to be a good solid board.

Pros: None

Cons: Unit arrived DOA, it won't power up. The Diagnostic LED on the MOBO lights up green which shows it is getting sufficient power from the PSU and I've tested the power switch and have attempted a manual boot by jumping the pins for the power - NOTHING. This is DEAD!

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the motherboard being DOA.

Please try the following to verify that the motherboard was defective:

Ensure that both the 24-pin and 8-pin power connectors are are plugged in tight.

Make sure that only ECC UDIM 1066/1333 are used. To make sure that that memory are compatible and have been tested to work with the motherboard, please see the Qualifed Vendor's List (QVL) http://www.asus.com/Server_Workstation/Server_Motherboards/P8BM/#QVL

Not all XEON CPU's are capable of using onboard video with this motherboard and non-XEON CPU's cannot use this capability. Please check by going to our CPU support list: http://www.asus.com/Server_Workstation/Server_Motherboards/P8BM/#CPUS.

Lastly, try clearing CMOS. Turn off the computer. 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 contact me at cl-benson@asus.com reference #S1037-662 to continue troubleshooting. Please include system parts and specs when replying.

Regards,
Benson
Asus Customer Loyalty

Pros: No frills, lots of included cables. Solid construction. Jumper pins for everything ever. On-board speaker.

Cons: 24 & 8 Pin power connectors are at the top of the board, making some configurations weird. Anytime I changed the RAM type I had to reset the CMOS. Only 2 rear USB connections. RAM is practically touching the chip. The BIOS is almost insulting. CPU and RAM placement just feels off, the space is utilized poorly on the board. 1033 RAM.

No labels for FPANEL connectors, you gotta bust out the manual.

Other Thoughts: This board would probably be good for some bare bones servers with RAM that doesn't use heat sinks, but with a stock Xeon heat sink it was practically touching the RAM. The power connectors on the top might work for some racks, but the majority of server cases and racks I work with tend to have the PSU in an area more accessible by a side connector.

Two rear USB would probably be fine for some applications, but in a single server environment those slots are used fast.

I've had better times working with $60 entry level MATX than a $205 server board, which is kind of sad.

Overall I would recommend this board if it's just a large application of servers, but for a single-server office find something a bit beefier that you can tinker with.

Pros: Great features for a small SOHO basic File Server

Cons: Doesn't have eSata onboard

Other Thoughts: First board gave mem. error on POST (1L, 2SW beeps), had Kingston swap out memory thinking it was incompatible, thought memory was on both Asus and Kingston compatiblity list. Kingston RMA was great, early am fedex mem, paid return shipping with advaice exchange program. Put new mem in, board now gives blinking standby light, no POST. Called Asus tech, determined board DOA. Asus sent replacement board next day fedex, but didn't pay for return shipping. Replacement board has been working flawless and our expectation is that it was a fluke as we have had great success for many years with Asus products. Hats off to Asus for having quality tech support, though their RMA process took 2 days to process, was still faster than I would have gotten with NE return/replace. Needed to get this server online ASAP, otherwise time wouldn't have been as much of an issue. Would buy this board again.

Pros: Micro ATX, on-board SATA 3 connectors, supports the latest sandy bridge Xeon processors. Has the updated B3 revision that resolves the SATA degradation issue.

Cons: No USB3 support, cannot use PCI slot and on-board VGA at the same time, documentation does not mention this. I'll explain below.

Other Thoughts: Although this is a server board, I am using it as a workstation board as I wanted a Xeon processor for my workstation. I am using a PCI-E x16 video card now, but for my initial setup, I used the on-board VGA to get everything configured.

Now for the issues indicated in the Cons, the on-board VGA is controlled by a jumper beneath the PCI slot. I purchased a sound card to occupy the PCI slot.

During my setup, I thought either the sound card was DOA or the PCI slot was bad on the board. After testing an old PCI video card which required me to disable the on-board VGA, it turned out, I could not use the PCI slot and the on-board VGA at the same time. There was nothing in the documentation indicating this was the case. This may get corrected in a future BIOS update, but the BIOS version I tested this on was 0301.

So if you plan on purchasing this board and intend to use the PCI slot, be sure to get a separate video card and disable the on-board VGA.

Pros: Good basic server board with no bells or whistles. Using Windows 2008 Web server R2. Using 16 Gb's of ECC unregistered memory. Have two sets of mirrored drives running under Intel Rapid Storage Technology(RST). Primary boot set at 6 Gb's and secondary set at 3 Gb's. Works well with the two sets of mirrored drives and one DVD burner. That leaves only on SATA connection left.

Cons: Basic server board with no extras.