ASRock ALiveNF6G-DVI AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: It's still working.

Cons: Could'nt get Vista drivers. The box says 'ASRock, an expert in Windows Vista', maybe but not with this mobo. Did'nt like the BIOS interface, seems 10 years out of date. Would not choose or reccommend this brand again

Other Thoughts: It's still working. (Kinda suprises me), I keep expecting it to fail. I do not have a lot of confidence in this mobo.

Pros: Lots of features for the price, DVI option is great, stable (once you get it going - see below), well marked board, decent manual. Excellent choice for a home office.

Cons: Couldn't get it to go past boot sequence until I cleared CMOS and enabled "AM2 BOOST" in BIOS. Once enabled everything worked fine.

Other Thoughts: If you flash BIOS to newer version you can turn off "AM2 BOOST".

Pros: Fast, very stable board. Onboard video is faster than my Asus M2NPV-VM (6150-based). Unified north/southbridge causes it to use about 9W less power when idle and 17W less power under load than the M2NPV with the exact same hardware installed. This makes it perfect for a server or media PC.

Cons: CPU retention is attached using cheap nylon clips rather than screws. There is no CPU retention baseplate. SATA sockets also seem a bit cheap since they are open on the sides. This cost-cutting seems to have no ill effects, however. Onboard video does NOT support Purevideo so despite being faster than the 6150, it's slower for HDTV since it only decodes using YUY2 (software mode).

Other Thoughts: Overall, a solid board. I highly recommend it.

Pros: 1. Fast boot up
2. Good Features
3. Verrrrry easy procedure for updating BIOS
4. On board graphics work well, DVI-D port is appreciated.
5. On board sound is stellar--definately going to have to upgrade to surround sound speakers!

Cons: 1. Only has 2 fan headers, one for the CPU and one for a case fan, 3 case fan headers would be better.

Other Thoughts: 1. * This board shipped with BIOS version 1.30, which does not support the newer CPUs which have "G1" level stepping (BRISBANE CORES).
** With a Brisbane CPU the system will freeze during the boot sequence after IDE detection and display "00A1" in the lower right corner of the screen >>UNLESS<< the "AM2 BOOST" BIOS option is enabled.
*** After updating the BIOS the "AM2 BOOST" setting can be disabled.

2. This board has a unified North/South-Bridge chipset architecture--which is very efficient, but only supports 2 IDE devices.

3. Works well with:
AMD 64 X2 3600+ Brisbane
18.0v DDR2 800 Adata RAM 2(512MB)
1 PATA-100 HDD and IDE optical drive

Pros: Nice Features
BIOS can be updated from w/in windows
***big improvement from my last motherboard!
boots up fast!
Price :-)

Cons: Thought I had a DOA board untill I read the review from 3/23/07.
Seems like they should have this listed in the FAQ section of the ASRock website. Would have saved me a hassle.

Other Thoughts: *Shipped with BIOS 1.3, which does not support the newest CPUs with "G1" stepping.
**This requires that you turn on "AM2 BOOST" in the BIOS, otherwise your system will halt after PRIMARY IDE detection and show "00A1" in the bottom right hand corner.
***after updating to BIOS 1.4-2.0 using the handy windows application you can turn off this "AM2 BOOST" option.


--Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Brisbane
Item=N82E16819103046AMD
--2(512) Adata 1.8V DDRII 800
Item=N82E16820211064

Pros: Comes with a great set of features and it appears to be fast and stable once you get it running.

Cons: Board will not boot if you turn off the "AM2 BOOST" option in the bios. No Post Beep... Just sits there after detecting Optical drives and hard disk displaying "00A1". I have 3 of these boards in the exact same setup and every one of them had this same problem.

The driver disc displays a message that says it found no suitable hardware or something like that when you load it in vista. The drivers are there for 2000/XP but no vista. Windows did a good job of detecting it however, so there are only two items that need drivers still. Now I'm off to go find them... Yay Fun

Other Thoughts: Hope you don't mind overclocking your FSB, you've got no choice!

Setup Used: Athlon X2 3600, 1GB A-Data Dual Channel DDR2 800, 80 GB Western Digital SATAII, LG 18x DVD-RW, 350 Watt Power supply

Pros: Good board.. does what it's suppose to. Everything is where it's suppose to be at.

Cons: Nada

Pros: Everything works awesome expect the USB ports.

Cons: After only having this one day all 4 USB ports died. I had to go out a buy a PCI USB card so that I could use my Mouse and printer.

Other Thoughts: I am not going to fault them to much for having the USB ports die on me, things happen but I should of took the 30 dollars that I spent on the PCI card and put it on a Motherbored that would not of had this problem.

Pros: This is a good solid motherboard for the price you pay, it booted up the first time for me with no problems it detected every thing nicely. boots up really fast also if you want a good solid motherobard this one is right for you

Cons: this isnt really a con but you might want to think about replacing the chipset heatsink with something better or putting chipset fan on it because it runs a little to warm for what i like it to

Other Thoughts: My system specs AMD Athlon 5200+ G-skill 667 ddr2 1gb ram Western Digital 160 gb sata HDD Gigabyte G-Force 7600GS 512 MB Video card Micro fly micro atx case a samsung dvd dl burner and a ultra v series power supply

Pros: Decent Manual, no significant jumpers, lots of RAM space, compact, upgradeable... and the best thing yet... IT WORKS!!! (Long story)

Cons: Be careful, there is only one IDE slot. 1st PCI slot is really close to the PCI Express slot. My video card will prevent me from using that slot. (Leaving me with only one PCI .)

Other Thoughts: There are enough nice on-board components, that the PCI issue isn't much of an issue for me.