Pros: - Inexpensive, doesn't feel cheap, good feature set...

Cons: Terrible BIOS, in particular:
- The board never properly resets. It is necessary to remove power altogether and cold boot.
- Again: the board will only boot from cold boot!!! It will also never turn off.
- ME_FW when set to disable in order to update the BIOS, will not POST anymore until a hard reset is performed where ME_FW is enabled again.
- An overall excruciating experience...

Other Thoughts: - The issues above should be enough for anyone to stay away as usability is very questionable. It appears though that a partial BIOS update is possible with ME_FW enabled, but it certainly doesn't address any of the boot issues highlighted above. Sight- what a waste of time!

Pros: ECS is in the same performance league as Asus and Gigabyte. Their advantage is lower pricing. This board works as advertised

Cons: All thin mini ITX boards must accommodate their case limitations. On THIS board.. and NOT on previous thin mini ITX models, they moved the USB onboard connectors to a location that the InWin K2 case USB cable would not reach. Mind you, on other OEM boards and earlier ECS models, I do not have this issue. This oversight destroys functionality.. the fix is costly, nixing any savings of buying the board over competitors...and the parts to extend the wires must be ordered on another site, which takes another couple weeks to arrive. Finally,, some OCZ SSD hard drives can have Win 7 installation issues with ECS boards.

Other Thoughts: Before buying this board - enlarge the photos of the surface and locate all connectors. Determine if your case wires will reach the board connectors.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for your feedback. It is appreciated. We need your feedback in order to improve the quality of our products and service.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this or any ECS products, please contact us. We are here to help.

I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.
Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,
Andy
Phone# 1-510-456-9836
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

External Link(s):

LIVA|

Pros: Low price.

Cons: Motherboard runs a bit warm.

Other Thoughts: Please disregard my previous review. After calling ECS support I was told even though the CPU I was using (Pentium G3258) was not Haswell Refresh, it was released together with the Haswell Refresh chips recently much after the BIOS that originally shipped with the motherboard. So I updated the BIOS using an older Celeron processor and now everything works as it should.

Pros: Low Price, Mini PCIe Wifi/Bluetooth Card Included

Cons: Restart Issues, BIOS Update Issues

Other Thoughts: Seems like mostly everything is working, except 2 major issues:
1) Computer does not POST after "Restart". Whether I click "Restart" in Windows, or click "Save Changes and Reset" in BIOS, the computer does not POST after the reset. It only starts fine from a cold boot (Shut down, and then press power to turn on). Why doesn't automatic restart work?
2) BIOS update instructions for Haswell Refresh CPU support are not working for me. Instructions say to go to BIOS and disable ME Control. Whenever I do this, the computer will not boot at all, not even from a cold boot. The only way to get it to work is to clear CMOS battery, which re-enables ME Control. Why doesn't the BIOS work with ME Control disabled?

Also, although not a major issue, the included Mini PCIe Wifi/Bluetooth Card did not come with the antenna or wire, making it useless without buying those extras.

Manufacturer Response:

We are sorry to hear about the issue you are experiencing with your motherboard. If you haven't already, we would like for you to contact us. We would like to find out more about your configuration and work with you in finding a solution. I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.

Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,

Andy
Phone# 1-510-456-9836
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

External Link(s):

99 Hours Replacement Service|