Foxconn G45M-S LGA 775 Intel G45 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: I took a chance with this motherboard, and it paid off. I was building a home server and wanted something that could support 1333MHz FSB, at least 8 gigs of DDR2 800 memory, and that had onboard video and a lot of SATA 3Gb/s slots. This board was one of the cheapest options I found. I have it running now with a Q8200 and 8 gigs of the cheapest DDR2 800 memory I could find. Installed Ubuntu 8.10 without a hitch. Compiz effects look great. The only minor issue is that fan speeds and system temperatures are not detected with current shipped 2.6.27 kernel, but that's supposed to be fixed in 2.6.28 (it87 driver has to be updated to support the IT8720F chip on this board). The PS/2 ports are a nice bonus. They're getting harder to find on new motherboards. I use an old PS/2 Kinesis keyboard, and that saved me from having to buy and adapter.

Cons: The retail package includes a floppy connector and cable, which is fine (although who needs it?). It also includes an IDE cable, but there's no IDE connector on the board. Ok... It would've been nice to have an IDE connector for all those legacy harddrives I have sitting around. Seems weird to have PS/2 ports and an FDD connector but no IDE connector.

Pros: Has many features, a good bios, and solid state caps. For the money you get a pretty solid setup to build a HTPC or Lanparty box. Good compatibility with ram, HD's, CPU's, and vid cards.

Cons: This con kept it from being a 5 star: In the motherboard manual on page 19 there is a mistake. The clear cmos jumpers are labeled incorrectly. The board ships with the jumper in the run/default position, but the manual states this is the clear cmos position. See below...

Overall Review: I assembled a system with a Q8200 and other goodies, all top end. I assembled the pin headers as the manual said, but noticed the clear cmos jumper was in the wrong position, or so I believed. The system would keep resetting itself or not turn on at all. I shipped it back as faulty, but the next board again came the same way. The jumper connecting the clear cmos pins. I called the Tech support at Foxconn, and was told that the manual was wrong, and that the pins should be opposite of what the manual states. To their credit, someone answered immediately and found the correct placement for the pins and confirmed the mistake on page 19. Unfortunatly, I sent a motherboard back thinking it was a gonner. Two weeks lost and return shipping charges for nothing. So, buyer beware this is a solid motherboard with a very bad mistake in the manual, I hope this helps. NewEgg is Awesome!!!

Pros: The installation was very smooth. 16GB ram max, lots of connectors and slots as well as a serial port, you just need to get an external connector...

Cons: After few days of testing and re installation with hyper V 64 bits standalone and 2008 server 64 bits I had always some random weird issues with the network being flooded and shutting down the others machine connection. The fault is the integrated realtek network card that act without real reason crazy. if you google it you will find that others people have the same issue with realtek on other motherboard also. Nobody to blame outside realtek selling none fully tested chips with bugs. The solution is to get a good intel pro 1000 network card for $30 and you save yourself a lot of time and trouble...

Overall Review: Foxconn customer service is very reactive and the brand provide a very good image trough the website also. Too bad realtek produce buggy stuff.

Pros: * Lots of features packed into a mATX form factor * 4 DIMM slots; able to dual channel * Excellent User's Manual * Great "bang for the buck" * BIOS is up-to-date out of box

Cons: * Overclocking problematic; can't set memory timings or latencies in BIOS, although voltage and frequency are adjustable * "FoxOne" utility allows you to chnage settings that will cause system crashes (e.g., PCIe frequency) * BIOS defaults are a little unusual; be prepared to change them

Overall Review: Overall, I'm quite pleased but not blown away. The installation went very well, Vista-64 was happy and came up w/o a hitch (other than needing to make my SATA drives ACHI rather than IDE), system can be partially over-clocked. I would like to see full support for over-clocking, an improved FoxOne utility, and more helpful technical support. Their support is responsive but, so far, has resolved one of my 4 issues. I was on my own for the others.

Pros: Just plugged in a Q9550, ASUS 4850 TOP, 8 Gigs of G.skill 1066 memory, the HDD, and DVD and it fired right up. This was my first build and I was expecting to have to do more troubleshooting. I wanted a small yet powerful system and that is what I got. 5.9's in Vista across the board.

Cons: The G.skill 1066 memory is running at 800. I can probably fix this but it's not that urgent so I haven't figured out how to do it yet.

Overall Review: I just wanted a microATX board with the p45 chipset and a PCIe 2 x16 slot. The integrated graphics on the g45 have had some slightly negative reviews but with my ASUS 4850 TOP factory overclocked board (very cheap these days including rebate) this thing is a monster.

Pros: This motherboard does what it is expected to do at a VERY attractive price. 4 memory slots !

Cons: No SPDIF-OUT cable to connect on the motherboard ! Come on, a simple cable wouldn't be expensive to include... the connector IS there after all. The FOXCONN live update software on their site is corrupted. I had to install the one that came with the CD and perform an auto update to be able to get it.

Overall Review: This motherbopard worked flawlessly. I had to upgrade the bios as it didn't ship with latest.

Pros: - cost - features - size

Cons: nothing too serious, but I encountered a couple of issues: 1. my MB arrived with out of date BIOS firmware (...P05), which locks up Vista64 installer almost immediately, and freezes XP (32bit and 64bit) installs at the 'installing devices' phase. I just flashed to the latest firmware (....P09) and am now running Vista64 w/o problems. 2. MB layout w/ larger graphics cards (eg GeForce GTS 250): SATA ports are crowded by graphics card; PCIe 1x slot is completely obscured; graphics card blocks DIMM slot release tabs (must remove graphics card to add/remove DIMMs) 3. SATA connectors #1,#2, and #5 not labeled on MB or in docs. Its also not clear which SATA connectors are for SATA controller #1 and controller #2. (FYI - with SATA controller #1 in IDE mode, the SATA connector above #3 is Primary IDE Master, and the SATA connector above #4 is Primary IDE Slave).

Overall Review: Newegg rocks! My setup is: - Q9400 CPU - 4x 2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 sticks - XFX GeForce GTS 250 - Vista64 ultimate

Pros: Onboard Raid PCIE 2.0 for the future New type display port for the future Overclocks good Bios was up to date already Arctic cooler Freezer 7 fits The price!!! Running E4300 @ 2.5ghz conservative overclock with stock voltage. Was able to go overclock past 3ghz easy.

Cons: No IDE ATA connection, so forget about using older style rom and HD's unless you buy a controler card. HDMI dsiplay output only worked after changing the setting in windows, display would not show when booting. Had to boot with RGB connection first. , HDMI is way better quality then RGB connection. Maybe someone else can figure out how to make it boot and work with the HDMI connection only. I use a 9800GT aftermarket card so I don't have to worry. PCI 1x can't be used with a large video card CPU temps raise 4c when using a aftermarket video card, I've had this issue with all microATX boards.

Overall Review: Overclocking Has quite a few different cpu/memory dividers for overclocking depending on the 667 or 800 memory setting. You will have to switch between two sections in the bios to overclock properly. No matter what memory you have you can select 667 or 800 to get different dividers, The memory timing adjustment is excellent on this board. Just select SPD disabled and the timings will show up to be adjusted. I'm actually running 800, 6-6-6-18 mem at 667 setting with 5-5-5-15. CPU voltage is set by numbers and so on up to 1.58v equivlant. 0 is Auto 40 gives 1.328v 43 gives 1.344v 45 gives 1.360v 50 gives 1.392v and so on... Check the PC health stats in the bios after you change to see the voltage. C1E and speed step will be disabled when overclocking no matter what. Disable the spread spectrum manually. Mem Voltages go by 50mv increments 0.05v = +50mv.