Pros: Running this board with an i3-4370, Kingston KVR16LE11/8I memory, an ancient Antec EA380 PSU, and two WD Reds. The total system power consumption is 30 watts at idle. The BIOS says ECC is functioning, though I haven't tried throwing cosmic rays at it to be sure. After a bit of fiddling, I was able to route 1080p60 with audio through the HDMI output on Linux.

Cons: After a month or so, I noticed that the board would sometimes lock up after a loss of AC power, and the only way to recover it was to clear the CMOS (by shorting the CLRMOS2 contact points). The ASRock support guy had never seen this problem on the C226M before, so we decided to do an RMA swap. The new board appears to have solved that problem, though Linux initially failed to see one of the NICs: "e1000e 0000:00:19.0: The NVM Checksum Is Not Valid". After installing Windows 10 on a spare drive with the official PROSet driver, and running Intel's DIAGS.EXE tool from DOS, both NICs magically started working again in Linux; I'm not sure which actually fixed the problem.

Other Thoughts: I also noticed that on both boards, the HDMI output sometimes displays white static on my Samsung HL-S5679W, until I power cycle the TV. I cannot conclude whether Samsung, ASRock, or Intel is to blame for that.

Pros: Decent layout, reliable, plenty of internal fan headers.

Cons: Could use more sata ports.

Other Thoughts: This board has been the heart of my Freenas build for 6 months. I've never had an issue, everything was recognized right away by freebsd, uses intel nics. Couldn't ask for much more for the price.

Pros: Small board great design for a power workstation or small server. I am using the ASRock Thunderbolt 2 add in card and it works in Windows 7 x64 also the same driver tested working in Windows 10 x64. ECC ram works with the correct processor.

Cons: Intel network adapter I217-LM faulty on original board, exact same problem on first replacement. Everything works but the nvm flash rom is corrupt or somesuch thing. Internet searching reveals many different problems with the I217-LM in different manufacturer systems but mine just flat out refused to work both times.
Not a lot of pcie slots on this board but I knew that ahead of time.
Also - I hate the side mount SATA ports please stop doing that! The design is prone to breakage and impossible to get at in most cases.

Other Thoughts: ASRock support is very helpful and have approved rma replacement right away - not once but twice. I am hoping the new board will be free of problems. If you have problems with an ASRock board that is under warranty always contact them they are very helpful and quick too.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued ASRock Customer,

Both the Intel LAN ports – i210 & i217LM on the 2nd replacement board have been thoroughly tested for over an hour prior to sending out to customer for warranty RMA service.
We should cross our fingers now. We are sorry about the inconvenience and we fully stand behind our products.
If you have any technical support inquiry, please feel free to contact me at william@asrockamerica.com

Thank you

ASRock Support
Tech Support Email: http://www.ASRock.com/Support/tsd.asp

Pros: Wouldn't know, these boards refuse to work.

Cons: This is the second board I purchased from ASRock hoping that the first board I received was a hiccup. Unfortunately, it's a running theme with me and these motherboards as they refuse to work.

Other Thoughts: Stay away from purchasing this hardware. It definitely isn't worth the time and money to get something like this to work. Going to give SuperMicro boards a try as they seem to have it more together than ASRock's server boards do...

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Brett,

Thank you for purchase and review.
It is believed that your first C226M WS has been returned to us from Newegg.
The board is tested right away and proven to be able to POST right out of the box by using either Haswell and Haswell-R CPU and 4x8GB ECC UDIMM DDR3. Further benchmarking tests also reveal no error whatsoever.
The board is certified good as new.
Our email record also does not show if you have ever contacted us for support. Otherwise, we could have helped you with proper guidance of where to find the root cause be it components. If you have encountered a same problem with the 2nd replacement around, it clearly suggests the problem follows to the part(s) you were using, but not the board.

If you have any technical inquiry, please contact us with detail problem description at william@asrockamerica.com
We will assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock Rack Support
Email: http://event.asrock.com/tsd.asp?ln=en

Pros: None yet

Cons: I had high hopes for this board as I planned on building a NAS box tonight but that all went down the drain after I attached the PSU to the board and realized nothing was turning on. My initial thought was that it's a pin setting on the power panel of the board. Needless to say I tried every pin option and even tested the case power button as well as the PSU with another board which worked completely as expected. I've run into a DOA board way too many times lately and it's a sad state of quality assurance on the part of these MB makers. There's no such thing as a reliable motherboard vendor in my opinion. Either they skimp out on simple quality checks or the parts they use are too cheap to carry on with shipping. Whatever the case may be, I expected better from a "Server" grade motherboard and I definitely expected better from ASRock...

Other Thoughts: I plan to give this board another shot and will be ordering another. For the price, this board meets all my requirements:

- Supports ECC
- 6 - 6Gbp/s SATA ports
- 4 DIMM slots
- Low power consumption

I hope to receive a working board on the 2nd try and would like to update this review or create another. "Hope" is the key word though.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Brett,

Thank you for purchase and review.
It is believed that the 2nd board you returned to Newegg has been returned to us now.
This time we found three pins inside the CPU socket that are damaged.
The damages are two bent pins and one pin was folded away.
With such kind of damage in the critical area of the motherboard, there is no way the board would POST.

If you have any technical inquiry, please contact me with detail problem description at william@asrockamerica.com
I will assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock Rack Support
Email: http://event.asrock.com/tsd.asp?ln=en