BIOSTAR TA785GE 128M AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: °Worked first time, boots reliably, both on HD and CD/DVD.
°Surprisingly little power draw for typical use (such as writing this review) of 46 watts.
°Overclocking the CPU / GPU / Sideport/ DRAM clocks are easy, with three primary choices: Normal, "Factory Overclock" (3 choices) and "Manual". Voltages are easy to set too.
°I really appreciate the built-in Memtest, to make sure that clock & voltage tweaks aren't going to result in crashes.
°Ability to move up to an AM3 processor, such as an Athlon II or Phenom II without tossing the board.
°The most "bang-for-the-buck" of any of the 785G boards

Cons: °All the bright LEDs inside could use a little dimming. In a closed case, they don't have any function.
°I also think I'd have made the "Status" and the "Power" lights different colors.
°HDMI connector would have been nice, as well as a digital audio out. °AMD/ATI needs to get off the stick and release better Linux drivers for the 785G chipset. The GForce 6100 board I have will easily run Compiz (3D desktop effects) - with a 1.9GHz Athlon X2! This same criticism would be for any 785G board.
°No underclocking the processor.
°None of these are game-changers (or rating-changers), as it's still a great value.

Overall Review: °Unlike "drdancm" I've bought several Biostar boards in the last 8 years and not had problems with them. (The only board I've had to return in that time was one ASRock board.)
°My system includes this board, 2GB Kingston DRAM, Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz 45W, Seagate ST3250410AS (250GB), LITE-ON DVD±R Burner, OpenSuSE 11.2 Linux. I've not upgraded the BIOS yet, but I doubt there will be much change in my opinion.
°I'm still waiting for NewEgg to get some greener CPUs in, like the 45w Athlon II 605e!
°(Disclaimer: I used to work for nVidia, as an engineer there.)

Pros: Great features, up to date chipset and excellent price on a microATX motherboard

Cons: My first copy of this motherboard failed within 1 week of setup with inability to boot, and no video at all. After receiving replacement via RMA, the second copy of this motherboard never boots properly, but only after a couple of hard resets (via reset button) and always hangs up if CDROM has 1st boot priority even without any media in the drive. So this copy is going via RMA and I will stay away from this brand for some time to be sure.

Overall Review: Unlike other customers who claim to have high tech experience, but only in their dreams (as you can tell from their comments) building custom PC's and troubleshooting PC's is my business. I have had motherboard failures from every major vendor (brand including Asus, Gigabyte, MSI etc.) so it is clear that no one company is exempt from quality control problems. It's the same story for hard drives. As prices have become cheaper and cheaper, quality has gone down. It's a terrible waste of our time. I would rather pay more and have less failures --but clearly this is not a majority opinion.