ASUS P8B WS LGA 1155 Intel C206 ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server/Workstation Motherboard

Pros: No nonsense ATX board that worked right out of the box. I installed a E3-1225 and 16 GB of Crucial DDR3 (see below) and the board posted the first time. The BIOS was the most current version so that helped. No problem with drivers or installing Windows Server 2008 R2. Having two (2) native Sata 6 ports and dual Ethernet make this an ideal board for a low end but capable file server. Although we only use the onboard video it appears that you can run some really sweet multi-card setups on this board (for you gamers).

Cons: DVI only onboard video out is a pain. I had to buy a DVI-VGA adapter so I could use this with our KVM switch.

Other Thoughts: You can run 1600 Mhz memory on this board but you will need a 22nm Xeon processor. Setup summary:

Xeon E3-1225 (32 nm)
Crucial BLT2K4G3D1608ET3LX0
Seasonic X-Series 650w
Antec 1100

Pros: This board has worked very well for me over the past few months. I paired it with a E3-1275 and it works like a champ. I installed ESXi onto a 16GB flash drive in one of the on-board headers with no real problems. Had to switch around boot settings in the BIOS, but nothing extreme. I am using an Adaptec 6805 Raid card with 6 WD Red drives which have been giving me no problems at all. Running 32GB Corsair low profile memory (non-ECC) with no issues whatsoever. Booting up takes a while for me, but I am fairly certain that if I were to install Windows and run SATA from the board it would speed up the boot process.

Cons: Wish it had an HDMI port instead of a DVI port, or at least both. I have it sitting next to my TV and have to bring a monitor out to it if I need to access the BIOS.

Other Thoughts: Haven't tried updating the BIOS since everything works like it should now, but had a AM3+ Sabertooth that bricked when using the Asus Flash utility and had to buy another BIOS chip. I won't be trying anything like that with this as long as nothing is broken.

Pros: Configuration of this board was to be in best interest of company usage.

Cons: Well system is configured with 16gb of ram win server 2011 standard 2 raid 1 configurations. The issue is that 1 drive keeps dropping from controller on both raid volumes at different times. At first it sounded like bad hard drive or sata cable but drives and sata cables have been verified and tested fine with seagate tools as well as acronis drive monitor. Running 750 watt power supply which is more then minimum recommendations as specified by several power consumption tests. now after powering down server reseating cables to HDD the missing drive comes back to life with a raid rebuild. Now my natural concerns are one day a total system failure on controller and having employee downtime for a restore of data

Other Thoughts: As per Asus there recommendations
1. replace power supply -
2. replace sata cables
3. update BIOS (on version 0704 - dated 7/25/11)

well after doing first 2 options the 3rd option seems easy enough as i have done literally hundreds of BIOS mb flashes dating back to the 486 boards and reading reviews how the BIOS update crashed the board - this is in no way an option for a production server and to spend 3k on a new identical test lab server is all but out of the question. Any other options would be recommended outside a BIOS update and SATA driver uninstall and reinstall.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear that you keep getting one of your drives dropping.

Here is a link below that may help with the issue as to why one of your drives drop.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/251076-32-raid-issues-western-digital-hard-disk

You can also go to our support site and try updating the latest drivers for chipset and SATA.

http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=1&s=39&m=P8B%20WS&os=29&hashedid=XGLe7ZgHTPXJPu7N

If you have any questions or comments you can email me again at cl-jeffrey@asus.com which I reside in the U.S

ASUS strives to meet and exceeds our customer expectations within our warranty policy.

Regards,

Jeffrey

Pros: Pros??? Specifications look impressive??? It didn't explode and kill anyone??? Board only beeps, so I guess it would be perfect to tie to the back bumper of your car to warn people when you are backing up...

Cons: Asus tech support was completely worthless. I wrote telling them of my problem. I explained in detail that I had tried different CPUs, DIMMs, and PS options with no change in outcome. Four days later I received a reply asking me to try swapping memory and PS...

Other Thoughts: Returned the unit to neweggg and replaced with Intel.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear about your experience with the motherboard and customer service. Can you tell me what the beep codes are? How many long and short beeps? This could be used for troubleshooting. To continue support, please provide your hardware setup and configuration so we can have a better understanding of what the issue may be. My email is at the bottom of this message. Thank you.

For support information, please visit http://support.asus.com. For service, visit http://service.asus.com. For motherboard warranty, visit http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!Motherboard%20Warranty/c1c20; Refurbished products/accessories: http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!refurbished-warranty/c16us. For RMA status, visit: http://am.eservice.asus.com/rmaweb/search/rmCustomerQueryAction.do?.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty
cl-benson@asus.com

Pros: In my case, the endless reboot was repairable by a clean install of Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.

Cons: ASUS tech support was no help. When I explained the problem, they said they would RMA the board shipping at my expense, or I could spend the $15 on a replacement BIOS chip from them to get the latest BIOS version. I was also told that the ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 did not apply to the board, even though it was discussed in the manual. I had no option to go back to version 904.

Other Thoughts: The BIOS indicated that it had been updated to 2106 from 904. I figured why waste time and money to end up with what I already had, and decided to try a clean install to see if the board was serviceable. It worked. Not only did the new install work, but when I put the old boot drive in the machine to transfer files off of it to the new installation, I found out that it would now boot also. Go figure. I have uninstalled the AI suite, and I will never use Windows utilities to flash a BIOS again.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us on this motherboard. We're sorry for the confusion regarding CrashFree BIOS 3 communicated to you. To clarify, CrashFree BIOS 3 is an included feature of this board (http://www.asus.com/Motherboard/P8B_WS/#specifications)used to recover the BIOS in the event that it becomes corrupted. It activates automatically and will prompt for a BIOS file in a USB drive. Please let us know if you have any questions after OS install or BIOS update by contacting me at cl-benson@asus.com (reference #C1037-8920 in the subject line). Thank you.

For support information, please visit http://support.asus.com. For service, visit http://service.asus.com. For motherboard warranty, visit http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!Motherboard%20Warranty/c1c20; Refurbished products/accessories: http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!refurbished-warranty/c16us. For RMA status, visit: http://am.eservice.asus.com/rmaweb/search/rmCustomerQueryAction.do?.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: I had no problems with it for almost a year.

Cons: Today, after using the AI suite II software to update the BIOS, the board has acquired the endless reboot syndrome. I re-flashed the BIOS from a USB thumb drive, and using the utility in the BIOS. Nothing changed. I had backed up the old BIOS, but the utilities do not permit flashing to an older release. There is a mention in the manual of ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 utility for BIOS recovery, but I cannot find it anywhere.

I have a Xeon E3-1275 CPU and four sticks of Kingston KVR1333D3E9S/4G memory. I disconnected all drives but the boot drive, and then replaced the boot drive with a backup clone, to no avail.

Well, I'll be on the phone tomorrow to resolve this, or get it replaced....

Other Thoughts: I just bought a new motherboard, CPU, and memory two days ago to upgrade my wife's machine. In going through the reviews I was surprised at the number of boards with a considerable percentage of one egg reviews. Now I see that the P8B-WS is at 20%. All but one of the 1 & 2 egg reviews have been posted after I got the board. If I knew then what I know now, I would get a different board.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We're sorry for the issue you had with the motherboard.

Was the motherboard able to POST after BIOS update? Did you see any error message on-screen such as not detecting a drive before it started to reboot endlessly?

The CrashFree BIOS 3 feature will only activate when there is an issue with the BIOS itself. This is automatically triggered and allows you to flash a new BIOS for recovery.

Please contact me at cl-benson@asus.com (reference #C1037-8919 in the subject line) for continued support. Thank you.

For support information, please visit http://support.asus.com. For service, visit http://service.asus.com. For motherboard warranty, visit http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!Motherboard%20Warranty/c1c20; Refurbished products/accessories: http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!refurbished-warranty/c16us. For RMA status, visit: http://am.eservice.asus.com/rmaweb/search/rmCustomerQueryAction.do?.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: Most Stable build I 've done. Paired with a 1260L.
PCI slots
cool running.
Had PC on for 4 months at the time. no reboots. very stable.

Cons: A picky Mobo. I had 1333Kingston ECC 8 RAM in this mobo.
Decided to upgrade to 16G and an SSD at same time. No ECC memory. Hell ensued. Only way I was able to get the build stable was to disable HT. Wasted a week in trouble shooting. Finally decide to go back to the ECC sticks. VERY STABLE. love it.

Other Thoughts: I recommend to use ECC sticks in this mobo. Normal mem stick caused me a ton of grief. I have seen the HT issue mentioned here before.
Please be careful.

Pros: Board working 24/7 since I bought it. All in all, I think this is a great MB. It is certainly better than the AsRock board that never worked and is still sitting next to me in a cardboard box after nearly a year. I am sticking with Asus.

Cons: I seem to be having some problems with the USB 2.0 ports, i.e., some seem to have quit working. I suppose an internal connector could have vibrated loose. I have lots of ports, so not that big of a problem. Everything else is working fine!

Other Thoughts: As for NewEgg being a decent retailer, the problem is they sell TOO MANY defective products. For example, I was going to buy a WD 2TB HDD today (on sale for 89), but the return rate is just too high. It's a hard drive and I need it to work - is that asking too much? Nearly a third of buyers gave it one star (73 NewEgg customers).

Even this MB by Asus that I like a lot has 20% of buyers providing a one star review.

My point: even if you do have a good return experience - I did not - we should not have to return anything (certainly not 1 out of 3 for a hard drive).

Further, if whatever we buy does not work, NewEgg should take it back regardless of how much original packaging is still around.

I just do not understand a business model based on selling defective products. Do you?

Pros: This board is great. The supported Raid and quality is a pulse. I have had it up and running with Windows Server 2008 64 bit for about 6 months. I have a Intel Xeon E3-1245 Processor with 2 Seagate 500gb drives in a mirror for the operating system. I have 3 seagate 3tb drives running in a raid 5 off this board. All are running off the boards configuration raid. I have 32 gig of memory on the system. Works flawlessly.
I am running VMWare Workstation 8.0.5 with 9 VM's running constantly. Total memory used while untasked is 16.3, with an average of 1 to 1.5gb per machine. Tasking the machine it handles memory and cpu very well.

Cons: Lost a Star because it will not support 64 Bit VM's. All that I have read has to do with the board and processor settings. The board settings are the first things to check and they don't even have them available.

Other Thoughts: Those who talk about how newegg won't stand behind there customers, not. I had issues when i first bought this board. I bought the recommended memory that is in the specs on the sight and it didn't work. I did an RMA and I had to pay the return stocking fee and yes I was Up Set it was about 50.00. So I ordered what they recommended again and it still didn't work. Now I called ASUS direct. Well that was a joke. He said go to the QVL and that is what you should buy. I said ok and when I look at it there is no memory that is supported for 32gb. You state that the board will handle 32gb. He said yes it will and you need to use this memory on the list. I said ok but when i looked the memory only comes in 4gb sticks. Do the math there is 4 slots that equals 16gb. So I contacted Newegg and talked with a rep and she was excellent to work with she even tried to let me talk to there tech department. I said have them look into it and let me know what they recommend. She said ok and refunded the restocking fee and the other memory that I purchased with shipping. Later she called ME BACK and said they don't have a recommendation because the memory that I purchased should have worked. I thought this is great they are completely honest and true. So now what do I do. Well I called Her back but didn't actually talk to her, and left a message for her with another Rep. I said that she was absolutely wonderful to work with and thanked her.
After all this I had to contact a local computer company and I game them all the specs and they recommended the memory that I have now. They had to order it and they said it'll work or we'll take it back at no charge. The Memory is Mushkin. I'm Sold.

Thanks so much NewEgg. We all can't know everything!!

Pros: Tons of features, good performance, *can be* very stable *IF* you don't update the BIOS, don't need any Asus software, or don't use any storage controller (really, on a "workstation" board???).

Cons: BIOS updates 2009 and 2106 bricked booting, initially from LSI 9260-4i controller w/ 2009, now with 2106 BIOS pressing F1 to enter BIOS, even with external devices disconnected and BIOS cleared, *causes* a reboot!

The BIOS updater will not allow a "downgrade" of BIOS from a newer version, so you're stuck ordering a new BIOS chip with BIOS 0904 or earlier!

Latest version of the AI Suite of software utterly fail to install on Windows 7 (x64) but install fine on Windows Server 2008 R2.

Other Thoughts: My initial review was five eggs, I'm having to drop to only two based on the BIOS and software updates.

The hardware seems solid, but disappointing BIOS and software updates really cripple an otherwise great board.

Would I buy again? No, I'd head back to SuperMicro...

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for your feedback. We're sorry to hear about the experience you had with the motherboard after updating the BIOS. Please contact me at cl-benson@asus.com (reference #C1037-6777) so we can attempt to find a solution for you.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty