Joined on 07/09/03
Please know what you are doing...
Pros: These are some of the best server boards you can find in the market at this price. There are basically no cons. Most of the "cons" in other reviews is from users that are not familiar with the complexities of such board.
Cons: No cons. For the last year, we've used them to build a Xen based cloud that now has more than 300 servers with these boards. No failures whatsoever except for a board that I am sure we accidentally zapped with static.
Overall Review: If you aren't familiar with servers, please educate yourself first. The complaints I see in these reviews are from ignorance. First of all, it uses NEHALEM Xeons, which all need ECC Registered RAM. To the one who says board will not post with 5506 CPUs and DDR3-1333: 5506 CPUs only use up to 800Mhz RAM, only Xeon 5550 and higher will use 1333Mhz RAM. And it HAS TO BE ECC Registered RAM! Chipset temperature is a bit high. These boards are meant to be in cases with high power fans blowing directly at these chipsets and CPUs, using an air flow cover. If a case fan causes the BIOS to lock up, you have a grounding problem. RMA process at Supermicro is 24 hour turnaround. I call, they send the equipment in advance (if I pay for it) and then they wait for yours to arrive. Supermicro is a business equipment manufacturer. You have to be willing to pay. If you use ECC, non registered RAM, the board will work. However, yes, it will crash from time to time, because that is the WRON
Computers constantly lose connectivity
Pros: Compared to other routers, aside from being a more modern radio and supporting new protocols, nothing else makes it great.
Cons: My wired desktops throughout the office constantly lose connectivity. I have ping consoles and network monitoring software running on my computer to monitor some remote servers, and all constantly show those locations are down. While at the same time, browsers freeze or my SSH sessions hang. I wired some desktops directly into the router to bypass a managed Hewlett Packard switch, in case the problem was nic negotiation with that switch, and yet, the problem still happens. I can't work when my connectivity goes out for a few seconds several times per minute. The router's software lacks a way to see statistics on its ethernet ports. Thus, I can't see if perhaps auto negotiation is not negotiating properly, or if there is packet errors, etc. If you are an advanced and frequent user, I do not recommend it.
Failure rate
Pros: Fast, high capacity.
Cons: We purchased several of these units for usage by our employees. Several of them are exhibiting data corruption after just a few months of usage. I am constantly finding corrupted files on my own.
Overall Review: The previous generation of the Xporters, the longer rubbery ones, were solid. We had used dozens of them for many years without a single problem.
Not a good buy
Pros: None really.
Cons: This router is quite buggy and underpowered. Ever since I installed it, I had the impression that connectivity was slowing down. I confirmed my feeling finally when downloading some TV episodes via my iPad, at a rate of not even 1MB per minute. One single TV episode took 6-7 hours to download. Normally it takes 20-30 minutes. Googling the problem, I found many other people reporting the same problem. The issue seems to happen randomly. The router also isn't as "easy" as they claim. The "easy" software does not always work. Some computers would be constantly rejected off the wifi network. Trying a manual setup would sometimes not work either. I have a Sony Vaio that connected only after an hour of fiddling with it. I also have a month old MacBook Pro that will NOT connect to this wifi router, no matter what I've tried. I've disabled security settings, changed channels, B/G/Auto, etc.
Overall Review: Buggy product. If you google more about these issues, you will find many people reporting it. Cisco support is also useless. Check more reviews for this product at other shopping sites and you will see the problems above being reported by many others.
LAN chipset changed!
Pros: We've used hundreds of these boards. Great quality. Not a single one has failed yet.
Cons: We just got a new batch of them. All are "revision 2". The LAN chipset is an Atheros 8131. Good luck trying to make that work in a Linux server. We may have to switch motherboards just because of this change...
Not compatible with Wolfdale
Pros: Solid and stable. We have hundreds of them in production.
Cons: Just got discontinued by ABIT. Does not boot with Wolfdale Core2Duo processor. Not sure if ABIT will release a BIOS update.