BIOSTAR A740G M2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 740G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Supports up to 16GBs of DDR2 800, Has 6 SATA slots, Supports Quad core CPUs, Plays most games even up to date with no problems, runs well even after more then 3+ years now.

Cons: My main dislike about this board was the lack of PCI slots which in most cases I don't buy boards with less this 5-6 slots on them which I mainly used for adding more Ethernet cards or 5-6 slot USB 2.0 cards.

Other Thoughts: I mainly bought this board as it came with a core 2 quad AMD 9550 CPU & I thought I couldn't go wrong being they were both retail box. Little did I know the CPU that came with it had missing pins & both the shop & AMD refused to replace them. I ended up putting an X2 cpu on it which worked great back when I was using it. Now its in my roommates old eMachine which now runs like a real computer should.

Pros: I bought this board because it can support up to 16GBs of memory, its upgradeable for future upgrades in the since I doubt anyone will need 16GBs of memory any time soon. Works great for gaming on Windows XP Pro (32-bit). I am running an AMD 9550 Quad on mine no problems so far.

Cons: Wish it had more PCI slots, and wish I bought mine on NewEgg lol got both my board & CPU in a bundle for 209.00 free shipping.

Pros: Nice features for such a cheap board...6 sata, 4 DIMM slots, 1066 ram support with am2+, pcie X1 and X16, 3 USB headers for up to 6 external ports.

Cons: Yes it can only support a 95w cpu, but who is going to be running more than a 95w CPU with a $60 board? Are you serious? Why the complaining? Who runs less than *atleast* a 780G board with a phenom II?

Other Thoughts: Bought this locally used for $40, great deal for these features. Using it to upgrade my brothers PC, I have an ASROCK 780G board with an AM3 710 phenom II CPU and love them both, but the Bios with the Biostar's boards are easier to navigate IMO.
With this board I'm putting a 4600+ dual core and 2X2gb of ddr2-800 ram in it. Should make for a decently fast system for really cheap.

Pros: none now

Cons: posted January 28, 2009 05:24 AM
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Biostar Implements 95Watt CPU Lock-out!

In an effort to curtail Power FET failures on certain Motherboards, Biostar has implemented an above 95Watt Lock-out in latest BIOS of those motherboards.

What this means is that if you have a CPU that has a higher then 95Watt Power rating, and flash one of the newer BIOS, the system will shutdown after the CPU is detected. There appears to be no easy way to recover and flash back to an older BIOS once the BIOS has been flashed, other the the 2 methods listed below.

To date, the following Motherboards have the 95Watt Lock-out:

TA780G M2+ starting with the A78GM114.BST BIOS.

TA770 A2+SE starting with the A78BA114.BST BIOS.

TA760G M2+ starting with the A76GM113.BST BIOS.

A740 M2+ starting with the A74GMB18.BFS BIOS.

TF720 A2+ starting with the N78VA114.BST BIOS.

IF YOU KNOW OF O

Other Thoughts: none

Pros: A good MB for the money. Fit perfectly in an old beater case I was given by a friend. Case had all working components though. Replaced the existing motherboard and CPU and away we went. Added a front case fan for extra air just in case it ran hot. It has not. Easy to work with.

Cons: Would like a little more flexible BIOS but this one was adequate for the job.

Other Thoughts: Overclocked the CPU from 2.8 to 3.29 gig according to CPU-Z. Still running very cool on the oem cpu fan.

Pros: It sorta works

Cons: Board does not support full wattage range of AM2+ processors. This is not advertised anywhere. Find a board that complies with specification.

Other Thoughts: the f10 key is your friend.

Pros: Good motherboard. My Gskill 4GB RAM was correctly recognized even though it wasn't on the "approved" memory list from Biostar. I put a huge CPU cooler on (Thermaltake TMG A3) and it fit just fine with the room to spare - so a decent amout of room for a Micro ATX MB

Cons: It had trouble recognizing my IDE hard drive and SATA DVD burner - both were hooked up correctly, but after a some tinkering, the MB noticed them and work fine now. Onboard NIC is only 10/100Mbps, but can't tell the difference between 10/100/1000Mbps anyway.

Other Thoughts: On some documents it says it supports 16 MB ram, but on others say only 8 MB so not sure where the confusion is. I don't intend to put more than 8 so no biggie to me. I would buy again.

Pros: Let me start by saying that I have built at least 5 machines over the past year with this board. I have not had a single issue with any of them. I am actually getting ready to buy another one right now. The price is right.

OK Pros - plenty of USB ports on front and back - BIOS works out of the box on a range of processors - issue free so far

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Quality board at a decent price

Pros: -Pretty good video card for being on-board for this price, runs well no problems yet!

Cons: Will not support over 95W processors. I have a Phenom 9850 BE Processor that runs at 125W and the computer at boot displays an error "Processor too high wattage" and shuts off. Have to press F10 everytime and then it boots correctly.

Other Thoughts: Not the best board to over clock. If you want a good biostar overclocking board i would recommend the T series boards.

Pros: Bought this for a small office mail, web, and file server. Stuck it with an AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor, and 4 gigs of ram.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103255

Cons: None so far. The video is a bit weak, but I am running it as a headless server most of the time, so what do I care. You will want a video card for this as a desktop.

Other Thoughts: running pclinuxos 2008, with a 2.26 kernel. Had trouble detecting certain SATA drives with earlier kernels, but I believe that was an issue with pclos kernel not the hardware so much. There are some known flaky issues with certain chipsets and older kernels before 2.24. Now running three drives and raid 1. Solid as could be. Cruzes along with something around 20% of resources used, and something like 50% when under stress such as running file snapshots.