- Intel Z77
- Core i7 / i5 / i3 (LGA1155)
- DDR3 2800+(OC)/2400(OC)
After a few months of use...
11/30/2013
This review is from: ASRock Z77 Fatal1ty Professional LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Pros:
I wrote a review below, a few months ago. This one takes place after using it for a while.
IDE and RAID work just jim-dandy fine. Network ports, USB, all seem functional. No CPU (i5-3570) or RAM issues - after BIOS flash, of course. We won't go there.
Plenty of expandability - and I've loaded mine up completely.
Cons:
I'm about sick of this thing. As stated previously, who needs 20 USB ports? And the BIOS flashing nuisance. But there are other port issues.
The back-panel port cluster is too far back on the board. All rear ports are too far in for some of them to connect with. Namely, the eSATA port is unusable, as are some of the USB ports. Even without the I/O plate, the eSATA port does NOT work. At all. Yes, the internal port 4 is unused because it's supposed to be "shared". Internal port 4 works, external does not.
Floppy controller does not work. Partial at best. You might be able to read some, and it goes thru the motions while formatting, but don't expect to be able to boot to it. But I can tell you that, if you use floppy, it'll only recognize a 3½" 1.44MB, no other floppy is recognized. Stupidity, there.
The "standard" SATA-III ports are eating up my hard drives. I've lost two already, and I'm on my third drive. I am VERY thankful for hard drive imaging software. RAID ports work just fine, however.
The #1 PCI-Express x1 (topmost) slot is unusable. Heat sink is in the way, and no card will fit. And I've tried dozens.
I only use one video card. The PCIe-x16 video slot only runs cards at x8. Don't bother trying x16, because it won't do it. Tried with 3 different cards. No go. The good side of that is at least it's still PCI-Express 3.0, so it kinda makes up for it, for what I'm used to.
Right-angle SATA ports are a nightmare. The idiot that thought of that particular bit needs to be flayed. And mine is built into a case that has PLENTY of room (Cooler Master Centurion 590) and still it's a nightmare to connect cables.
I could go on, but I'm sick of this thing. I've dropped the rating down to 1 egg. Save yourselves the hassle.
Overall Review:
After my first review, you can see the response to contact them if I had any issues. Well, about a week after that, I tried. My emails might as well have been sent underground, for all the good they did. I find it funny how companies will bend over backward to make a sale, but after the sale, they drag their heels - if they pay any attention to you at all.
My config:
700W CoolMax PSU
i5-3570 3.4GHz
4x G.Skill 1GB DDR3-1600 (4GB total)
XP-Pro 32-Bit
SLOTS:
PCIEx1: Unusable (heat sink)
PCIEx16: Nvidia GeForce 640GT 2GB CSVGA video card
PCI1: Agere 56kbps V.92 fax.modem card
PCIEx1: Generic DB25F Parallel Printer port card
PCIEx16: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 TV & FM tuner card
PCI2: Adaptec AHA-29160UW 14-device SCSI Host adapter
PCIEx16: Syba Firewire 1394a/b interface card
DRIVES:
A: drive won't work, but it's a standard floppy.
C & D: Samsung 160GB SATA-300 (Multiboot)
E: WD 500GB SATA-600 Raptor (Documents)
F: (2) WD 1.0TB SATA-600, Raid-1 Mirrored
G: (2) WD 1.0TB SATA-300, Raid-1 Mirrored
H: (2) WD 500GB SATA-300, Raid-1 Mirrored
I: IBM 18.4GB UW-SCSI drive
And a bunch of other removable media drives.
Yes, I still use old stuff, so sue me. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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- Anonymous
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Verified Owner
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Owned For:
1 month to 1 year
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