GIGABYTE GA-A55M-DS2 FM1 AMD A55 (Hudson D2) Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: I got this as part of a budget Newegg barebones combo with an AMD A4-3300 APU to upgrade my wife's basic internet system, and this is what my review reflects. HWMonitor shows it runs extremely cool even without a system fan. Runs a lot faster and stabler than I expected it to.

Cons: Blue-screened like a demon, with more varied error codes in two days than I've seen in the last 15 years. Newegg promptly replaced the mobo and it now works perfectly (no crashes whatsoever after three days, now), with the exact same Win 7 installation and drivers (I didn't reinstall Windows at all, so drivers [which I obtained from Gigabyte's site] clearly weren't an issue). Yay Newegg!

Overall Review: If you're looking for a cheap system to surf the net, watch HD videos and/or do some medium-spec gaming (eg WoW/LoL) this combo is surprisingly impressive, especially for the price.

Pros: It works. Got this packaged in as a shell shocker deal along with the A8-3850 so the FM1 socket was required.

Cons: Had an issue with getting the drivers to work properly with the board. I did not have an optical drive in the tower so I planned on getting drivers from Gigabytes site, which normally would've worked great. Be sure If you choose not to use the CD that comes with board to use Gigabytes Global Site to download the drivers. Long story short this board is revision 1.1 NOT 1.0 -- Which cannot be gotten on Gigabytes American driver website it must be gotten through their global site. If I would have installed the drivers off the disc It would've worked great with no headaches so still 4 stars.

Overall Review: It's a bummer that this specific board was bundled because gigabyte offers the same board with the A-75 chipset (which allows for 6.0 G/per sec transfer speed as well as USB 3.0). This board only offers 3.0 G/B per sec and USB 2.0/1.1 for front ports. 15 dollars more will get you the better chipset and allow you to utilize the full potential of SSD's.

Pros: Compact, easy to install.

Cons: Gigabyte drivers are flaky and produce Windows 7 BSODs. However, there is an easy solution... After several days of investigation, I discovered the driver file "gdrv.sys" was the culprit. This file is supplied on the Gigabyte driver/software disc as part of the "EasyTune" install. As others have mention, caution is warranted when installing the extra, non-motherboard related software from this disc. A simple uninstall of "EasyTune" will remove this file (gdrv.sys) and stop the BSODs.

Pros: Very happy with it used it on my daughters new entry level gaming system. Runs very fast, and was a good price for the whole build.

Cons: None

Overall Review: AMD A8-3850 GIGABYTE GA-A55M-DS2 8 GB of DDR 3 1600 SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6670 1 GB 250 GB Hard Drive

Pros: Solid and stable little board. Perfect for basic builds that will be doing only mid level gaming. Good overclocking capability in the BIOS. Really liked the availability of a pair of PS/2 ports, this made the initial set up very easy.

Cons: Would have liked to have seen a USB-3 header. A second pair of available DIMMs for additional RAM would also have been nice but not really required for this build.

Overall Review: Some readers may wonder why I put the PS/2 headers as a positive. It is really simple, PS/2 headers have not been dieing away because USB is better, USB is cheaper, not better. A PS/2 port has an assigned IRQ which is much quicker than USB, even USB 3. It also does not tax the CPU as much under load like a USB will. In short, PS/2 is more reliable and will work nearly all the time except in a full system overload or impending crash. I try to stick with PS/2 when I can, I only use USB when I have to use a wireless keyboard and mouse connection but will go back to PS/2 when I need to trouble shoot a problem. Computers come with wires, no way around it, so live with it and get use to it.

Pros: nice simple board. feels stable, haven't seen any BSODs, drivers loaded easily (32bit OS) It has a really small footpint and what connections are on it are laid out logically and well.

Cons: There aren't actually any cons. See below.

Overall Review: I purchased this for a budget build. I would love a fdd connector and a pata connector, I wish it had sata iii, I wish it had more than one pci slot. but......If I wanted that (and I do), then I should have gone and purchased a different board. Seriously, if those are must haves, get a different board. If you can live without out (and I can), then what this board does, it does well, especially combined with an AMD A6-3500 Llano. Easy install, stable setup, stable running.

Pros: Micro-ATX for my small case Good name brand Dual-Bios Price (got originally for $40)

Cons: Died after approximately 8 months of usage Not an A75

Overall Review: System had most up-to-date bios version. Signs of a problem began around 7 months and slowly degraded to "brick" a month afterwards. Going with another brand for replacement.

Pros: Works great out of the box, paired with an AMD APU 3850 it worked great for gaming, 30-80 fps with WoW, 20-60 fps with WoT. Good value and software features, great post install Driver CD.

Cons: After 6 months, the audio ports stopped working. After reinstalling and testing my software and speakers, the ports are in fact dead.

Overall Review: Would of been 4-5 stars, but now I have a gaming system that doesn't have sound.