BIOSTAR Hi-Fi A85W FM2 AMD A85X (Hudson D4) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: -Lots of great and useful specs for me...
-8 90-degree SATA ports enabling 8-drive RAID 0/1/5/10 arrays.
-4 memory slots--allowing quick and cheap upgrades.
-PCI-E 2.0 x16 & x4 slot. Just in case, of course.
-PS/2 keyboard support and a decent set of USB 2.0 & USB 3.0 ports. Also, a decent set of USB headers in both flavors.
-VGA, DVI, or HDMI video output. Very cool.

Cons: -No S/PDIF outputs. While it does support an S/PDIF header, finding such hardware can be difficult indeed. Oh well. I'll just use USB for audio, I suppose.

Other Thoughts: -Came with a free 2x4GB DDR3-1600 RAM kit. I also added an AMD A8-5600K--to finish up a good APU-based system.
-Used some older hardware to get it running. A Corsair CX400, 160GB hard drive, and an old XClio 188AF chassis. I'm glad I kept those parts.

Pros: Easy to build. Works so far as long as the system isn't rebooted.

Cons: After installing Windows 7 Home Premium and OpenSuse 12.3, the system hangs when rebooting, displaying post code C5 which is not documented. The power supply needs to be turned off to stop the system and then turned back on to boot.

- Biostar has no listing of FM2 motherboards on the BIOS support page
- Biostar doesn't list FM2 motherboards on the page to request technical support
- The Windows utility eHOT Line to report problems doesn't work - all buttons disabled
- The Windows BIOS upgrade utility says "check your Internet connection" when attempting to download an update.
- BIOS documentation is poor

Pros: Inexpensive board, with a good chipset & 4 memory slots. Seems pretty well made

Cons: This is a full size board and will not fit in micro cases. There are connections for only 2 USB (USB2) front plugs. One internal header for USB3, but very few cases can take advantage of that

Pros: Marketing literature (price, feature list, etc)

Cons: Couldn't get this to work with an A6 5400K and the free memory supplied in the combo deal - beeping and error '54' on mobo LED.
Newegg support pointed out that compatibility of combo items is not guaranteed, so I ordered Kingston memory, which is claimed to be compatible in the mobo manual.
Same result with the new memory, so I returned the mobo for a replacement.
Replacement mobo arrived, same result with free and/or recommended memory.
I'm sending it all back - this is causing me to lose my temper 8-(

Other Thoughts: Why offer combo items that don't work together?
Mobo and memory seems like an ideal combo, but not if it doesn't work!

Pros: Awesome board so far has everything I wanted for my FM build with a 5800. I have had no problems or even a hiccup as of yet if I do I will be back.
As always newegg offered better deals after I bought mine always seems to happen to me frowns.

Cons: The only main con I can think of is I am not using the onboard vid which would be more then fine for some medium game playing for 90 percent of the people wanting a way into a cheaper build. But the USB 3.0 header or location sucks If you install a very big vid card such as I have a older but yet very fast radeon 5870 the card and the usb 3.0 header collide I had to bend down my cable in a angel to get it to bearly fit. Biostar should look into this other then that all is good. Thank you!

Other Thoughts: Why did I choose the amd A-10 5800? Well in a lot of tests they trade blows with the quad core fx quads in most times they succeed in besting the Fx chip.
My build
AMD A 10 5800K
THIS BOARD
2X4 GSKILL RIPJAWS RAM 1866
KINGSTON 120 GIG SSD MAIN DRIVE OS
1 TERRABYTE WESTERN DIGITAL BLUE
OLD SPARE 500 GIG SUMSUNG STILL GOING STRONG
24 X LITE ON DVD BURNER
24 X SUMSUNG DVD DRIVE
LOGITECH KEYBOARD AND MOUSE GAMING'
RADEON 5870 GRAPHICS CARD
ARTIC SILVER 5
REUSED A OLDER HEATSINK WITH COPPER PIPES FROM A FIRST GENERATION
Phenom
iT IS OK TO USE THE HEATSINK PROVIDED BUT I wanted extra cooling.
CASE COOLER MASTER HAF XB RC-902XB-KKN1 Black Steel tHE SIZE OF A MICROWAVE. Folks Biostar has been good to me for the most part I have systems from over 5 years ago still running strong using there boards don't hesitate to purchase. Hope this review helps.

Pros: Well it has ran fine for me so far The hardware temps people are talking about hasnt bothered me yet. I took a older am3+ heatsink and used it with my AMD A 10 - 5800 K instead of the factory heatsink. That heatsink I used has copper plate and heat pipes all is good also I used artic silver 5 or 6 cant remember. So as of now everything is running sweet and cool in my case specs to follow. As far as the board I have used Biostar for the past 5 years yes theres better but I have had luck with them.

Cons: Only thing I can think of a con is the usb 3 header is in the way of really big card like my older 5870 radeon I had to unplug it . Since I have no usb 3.0 stuff right now it dont matter in the future it may placement for this is horrible so if you got a big card in there it wont fit if the usb 3.0 is plugged in just keep that in mind I figure biostar figured you wasnt going to use a big fat monster card like I have if I ever upgrade in the future will see what happens if it works or not.

Other Thoughts: My system is
AMD A-10 K5800
8 GIGS od Gskill 1866 ram 2x4
120 SSD drive kingston not the fastest but reliable 7.2 on WIE
Graphics radeon 5870 1 GIG
2 X DVD PLAYERS BURNERS LG AND LITE ON
SECOND DRIVE 500 GIG SAMSUMG SPIN POINT
ON THE WAY CAV WEATERN DIG BLUE 1 TERRABYTE NEWEGGS SLOW SHIPPER I WILL BE 60 BY THE TIME IT GETS HERE.
CASE.....COOLER MASTER HAF XB RC-902XB-KKN1 Black Steel body, Front Mesh, Plastic bezel ATX Desktop Computer Case
Awesome case kudos to them big the size of a microwave good air flow
Power suppy a Raidmax 530 modular
fans 200 mm collermaster red
Win 7
keyboard and mouse
logitech
All is well running good so far as I write this.

Pros: Connectors and all on board are laid out good and it is running ..

Cons: here we go Customer Service is worthless everytime u call they aint available I got 2 issues 1) Motherboard temps in Bio's are not temps when running HWMonitor or anything else so its kinda hard to tell if your parts are cooling right I upgraded to the newest bios and the same issue and my 2nd issue is I bought a pc case and this board is full atx but don't line up as a full atx and I got a corsair 200r so I cant imagine it lining up to any other case right my usb ports in the back at the top u can only us one since it don't line up and half the spots for screws u gotta leave screws out This motherboard is not TRUE FULL ATX & HAS ISSUES WITH TEMPS

Other Thoughts: My thoughts is save your money and buy something better and I know theres plenty of other boards that are nice if I wasn't past my 30 days id be shipping it back

Pros: Love it

Cons: none

Pros: Nice array of on-board ports. Easy install. Runs like a champ.

Cons: There are a couple fan connections in odd places, but you only plug them once. Likewise with the side-facing SATA ports, but again, it only is a problem on initial setup.

Pros: Has good amount of I/O ports.
Cost (I see that it's $25 cheaper 3 weeks after I bought it.)
Didn't have it overheat at all.

Cons: Worked fine for a couple days, then failed to boot/post/get to bios screen. Error code was C5 (which was not in the manual). Fans and lights were on. Exhausted all troubleshooting steps, (I'm a system administrator - I've built/repaired literally 100's of PC's). Tried everything...flashing bios, re-seating and different cpu/ram, running with minimal components/no peripherals.

Found that it would only boot/post if I reset the CMOS jumper. Once it booted up into Windows I could use it normally. I even restarted it a couple times and it came right back up.

Shut it down and it would not post again on next start up, required CMOS reset again w/ jumper (battery removal did not work). It consistently fails to boot and will not until I move the CMOS jumper to 2-3 then back to 1-2.

Sending out for RMA.

Biostar support never responded to my email.

Other Thoughts: Bought this as a combo with an A10-5800k, Ripjaws 8GB 1600 and a head set for $200. Not a bad deal, but sucks that I have to RMA it.