ASUS A8N-VM CSM 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: I had no problems getting the "normal" aspects of the system running (including dual monitors (yes, with dvi))

Cons: There is a problem in the BIOS that has not been addressed even with the latest update. On system boot (with a 2.4 or 2.6 kernel) reports ACPI errors and the system is unable to allocate resources to external USB/FIREWIRE devices. No comments from ASUS, but others have reported similar problems on the nvidia forums.

Pros: This board is perfect for my needs (I'm not a gamer, but heavy use of my new system for 24 track digital audio editing.) The "bad sound" that others complain of really isn't an issue for us, because we listen to the mixed output on studio monitors anyway. It took me a while to figure this out, since I'm an inexperienced tech, but once I got it, I've been very pleased with the overall performance and stability. More notes below.

Cons: None really. Most of the problems I had with this were a result of my own stupidity. I had to do quite a bit of research on google to figure out certain things. See below for more helpful beginner's tips. I got a lot of bad advice from asus and other techs who weren't as knowledgable as they pretended to be, but users at newegg sent me quite a few very valuable tips. THANKS!!

Overall Review: So you won't make the same mistakes I did: 1.) The board came with the 0506 bios update. I was hoping to get out of having to flash the bios to the 0702 version, but with my AMD X2 4200+ cpu, I kept getting "hyper transport sync flood errors" at boot up.( It still booted up into Windows, but still, if it ain't right...) It needed the 0702 flash. 2.) If you DO have to flash the bios, it will hang everytime instead of booting into Windows. I had to re-load the entire OS (with the press F6 thingie, etc.) 3.) Please note: if you, like most people, bought non-ECC RAM, please be aware that the default setting in the BIOS is for ECC. 4.) Yes, you should enable RAID is the bios before you load the OS, even if you don't plan to use raid. 5.) I freaked out when I saw a USB-like tray icon for my SATA drive, thinking windows would let someone dismount my OS drive like a memory stick and then I'd be scr*wed. Don't worry, won't happen.

Pros: Nice for those who don't want to spend a lot of money on a graphics adapter.

Cons: No cons

Overall Review: Be aware that it will need the latest bios from ASUS or you will have flickering video when cool & quiet is enabled in windows. Most recent as of this review was 0506

Pros: Well laid out board with DVI. Would have been the perfect HTPC or office workstation board

Cons: Board was unstable with a 16x pci-e link. Had to switch back to defaults of 8x. Also seems to be unstable with a hypertransport link above 400Mhz instead of the 1000 Mhz it is supposed to support. Cool and quiet was not working with old bios. S3 suspend feature not working. Bios is sparse and allows few modifications even for a budget board. Fan Control does not go low enough to quiet most stock fans. Flashed new bios and still had the same problems except the cool and quiet worked finally. I'm also having problems with the usb ports not initializing my keyboard in windows. It seems to work in the bios. Disabled power saving feature for usb but did not help. TV out and S/pdif brackets not included and difficult to find. These are problems i worry about on cheap 2nd tier boards, not Asus.

Overall Review: Not sure if I am going to rma or not. It seems stable now at the reduced settings. Hypertransport and pci-e link don't hurt the performance too bad and it would work fine in a htpc but not a gaming rig or workstation. Bois updates might sovle these problems in the future. Still might find a use for the board. I hate RMAing stuff.

Pros: built in video, audio, gigabit lan, rca video out, firewire, tons of usb ports, small size

Cons: why is it not shipping with a heatsink on the nvidia graphics chip? it gets over 162 degrees hot because they dont include a heatsink even though the board layout has holes for it AND says "heatsink 2" right beside the chip

Overall Review: BTW- the Q-fan control DOES work, it's just not compatible with most standard AMD retail cpu fans. however, these boards are destined to fail because they arent shipping with a heatsink over the graphics chip. temps are hot enough to instantly burn you if you touch it- nearly 162 degrees. this chip will fail over time at these temps. i can only assume they did this because they realized a heatsink with their board layout would block PCI 1 and 2 at the last moment.

Pros: Purchased this Motherboard for a new mid range system I was building along with an AMD Athlon 64 4000+ processor and X-QPack case. The motherboard installed in the case easily and the lay out of the board was great for my needs. The MB came with the latest BIOS so no updates where needed. I especially like the dual video ports (VGA & DVI) on the motherboard. The on board video worked just find for my needs sense I don’t play as many games as so many others do. I’ve played (Age Of Empires II/ The Conquerors, StarCraft/Brood Wars, and Unreal Tournament 2004) all at 800x600 resolution, with no problems at all. Above that UT gets just a little shaky. Over all I am very happy with the MB considering the prices and I would purchase it again.

Cons: None at this time.

Overall Review: Other thoughts, didn’t realize there was no serial port (com1, etc) on the board so I had to order a usb to serial converter in order to hook up my UPS monitoring software, no big deal. As noted on a previous review you can not use the DVI port with a VGA/DVI adaptor plug, it won’t work. You will need a true DVI cable. It makes no direct ref to this in the manual so if you want to use the DVI port make sure you have a monitor that uses a DVI cable. Northbridge & Southbridge chips run a little worm but not enough to make me concerned.

Pros: Loaded with features Everything you could want in a motherboard except SLI or Crossfire PRICE

Cons: Not much included...

Overall Review: I built a system using the on-board video for a customer who does very little gaming. I was so impressed with the board. I decided to build an SFF for myself based on this board. The on-board audio is impressive, replaced my audigy card. The Front Panel Audio connector was as simple to hook up as a usb or firwire header with my Aspire X-Qpack case. Onboard lan and firewire work great. Rock solid stability great performance, even gaming after I paired mine with a 7800GT video card. I can't complain at all. I'm not impressed with SLI or Crossfire at all so for my money this is the best bang for your buck around. I'll recommend this board to anyone interested in building a solid Athlon 64 system without SLI or Crossfire support.

Pros: I was worried about BIOS problems but the BIOS on the currently shipping motherboards has been updated to 0403 (from the initial 0303 version, which reportedly had some problems). (I ordered my motherboard on 11/26/05.) There's a newer BIOS on ASUS's website, but 0403 is sufficient to get installed without any problems. Cool n Quiet works for me (once I turned on Minimal Power Management in Windoze), as does Q-fan control, etc. In fact, everything is just peachy.

Cons: none