Customer Reviews

ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+ AMD 780G DDR2-1066 ATX Motherboard

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just spent a weekend building a XP Media Center 2005 PC using this mini-ATX board. It has everything: HDMI output, optical digital audio output, and built-in ATI HD3200 video with Avivo.

Just run HDMI to your TV/monitor for video and the optical digital to your receiver for Dolby Digital...no need to buy an add-on sound or video card. If you want coaxial digital audio you can fabricate a RCA jack with two wires directly to the SPDIF jack on the board. An easier route is to buy a optical to coaxial digital converter from Radio Shack. That's what I did, works great.

HDMI tip: do not install a separate video card before first startup. Otherwise the Asus driver CD will not 'show' the ATI video drivers on the CD. If you pull the video board, the ATI and HDMI drivers magically appear on the CD as a choice to select. Puzzled me at first.

The only flaw I've seen is that it uses "auto-configure" rear panel jacks to sense what's connected. This means I have to have my plasma TV on and set to the HDMI input before I turn on the PC...otherwise the motherboard thinks the TV is off and disables its HDMI output. Kind if a pain as I then have to reboot the PC. Easy for me but not so easy for my wife and kids. Asus needs to allow this feature to be shut off in the bios.

**11/2009 update. I am using this with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit and Media Center works great with this board. I installed a AMD quad 620 processor along with the quietest power supply I could find, and the system is nearly silent and runs cooler than my AMD dual core. And yes audio does pass out of the HDMI jack, you just have to switch it from SPDIF to HDMI in the bios.

Just finished installing this board w/ Thermaltake 575W power supply, AMD Phenom Quad 2.3GHZ 9600-Black Edition CPU, Q.Skill DDR2-800 2X2Gig RAM (Total 4Gigs RAM). I am a computer professional so installing and configuring this motherboard was very easy. For a regular mortal, I would suggest being careful and thorough. The saying 'measure twice and cut once' may apply to setting up the CPU. Be extremely careful. I heard someone tried removing the CPU heatsink after it was installed and wound up pulling off the processor's metal cover damaging the CPU. Anyway.[...]. I went thru and installed the motherboard and noticed no screws or board metal mounts were included. No problem for me because I had spares but it might put others in a bind if they don't have any. You can get these at a computer store like Radio Shack for a couple of dollars. This board include a DVI and VGA video card. I scrimped and used this to save on purchasing a new video card. It works just fine for me. I'm not a game player but I like decent quality pictures in high definition. This board suites me fine. Just a caution about RAM. Asus has a QVL list(Qualified Vendors List)of RAM models that they have tested and support. Also, if you buy DDR2-1066 RAM, you will need to have specific size to work(Not all sizes fit). According to one hardware site "the Phenom's memory controller has the limitation that it can only support *one* DDR2 1066 MHz per channel. If you have 8 GB, 4 x 2 GB, so all four DIMM slots occupied, ganged mode, you are lucky if you can run at 1066 MHz. Officially, see also the BIOS design guide, it's max. 800 MHz for 4 DIMMs". The talker had 64-Bit Vista which allows you to go past 3.2-3.5 RAM limit on normal 32-Bit Windows. Some users have 16Gigs of RAM and can open 40 active windows easily. Many people don't realize normal Windows has this limit and throwing more memory at it is useless and wasteful. Anyway. Just wanted to let you know. A neat feature called Embedded Gateway allows you to do a quick boot into a web browser, Skype, Instant Messenger, etc...without having to fully bootup Windows. Just 5 seconds and you select from on-screen menu. Very slick. It installs from the Asus DVD, under Utilities tab, so you won't find the instructions on the manual. Yeah. The manual isn't very thorough. Oh well. Overall, I would recommend this motherboard. I can't wait till I get some money and purchase Phenom II series processor. Maybe when they economy gets better.

God bless you all,

Benny

I actually don't own this board. I own another ASUS board. But this is relevant.


ASUS tech support is ASTOUNDING. The best I have ever used by far. They answer quickly-- I've never held for more then 3-5 minutes-- and when they do, oh boy. They hire people with real, serious tech training. They listen carefully and know problem causes by heart-- they're not using an automated troubleshooting system. They suggest a solution and then wait on the line while you try it, so you don't have to go to the trouble of calling back. They don't retreat after 2 minutes to telling you that come component X is no good and you need a new one, like so many tech lines. I've been using the same MOBO (A Striker Extreme) for three years, and their support is to thank for that. Additionally, they can help the tech-unsavvy and the tech-savvy in different ways. I'm pretty in-tuned, and when the tech I spoke to realized this he told me to grab a multi-meter and start poking around, which prevented us from having to test hunches in indirect ways, saving a lot of time.

I'm posting here (and on a few other asus board reviews) because I want people to know how awesome their support is and buy their stuff for that reason. I want the top guys at ASUS to see that this business model (spend more on keeping customers happy, make more on repeat sales) can succeed in a market where it is so rare. We need to show corporations that we respond well to being treated well, and maybe one day amazing tech support will be the standard.

I'm serious: I will never own a main-board other than an ASUS as long as they keep this level of customer respect.

Mine stopped working after two years. The warranty is 3 years, so I contacted ASUS through their online live chat. The service rep offered to email me the RMA info, but after waiting days, nothing came. The product is so outdated, I don't really want a refurbished one, so I gave up. Bought another brand this time.

This motherboard has been running strong for half a year. i have had no problems using this motherboard.

Very simple to install and set up. I had mine built in less than an hour and this was only my first actual build. I spent more time trying to recover my old files from the same HDD I had from my previous computer which seemed to get misplaced during the OS setup. I have had no issues with this board at all and am very impressed with the sound and video from the on-board audio outputs and GPU.

Super Great board, online within 3 seconds from turning computer on, no joke, Asus Rules, best boards ever.

This is a great motherboard. The reason for four stars instead of three is that the Raid support is a combination of software and hardware -- not fully hardware. This means that you cannot create a raid mirror after you install the operating system. You have to create the Raid mirror as part of the operating system installation.

Motherboards that implement hardware only Raid support do not have this restriction. You can create a Raid mirror at any point that you have a spare drive of the correct configuration.

In the last several months I've used three of these mother boards with AMD Phenom quadcore CPUs to replace three family PCs. I've been happy with the board on each occasion. I've not had to contact tech support so I can't comment on that. I also have not upgraded the BIOS or tried overclocking to comment on that either.

And so far so good. Plenty of connections. Using in my secondary machine now.


I sent my 790gx to ASUS as it died, but they sent me back one that also didn't work. So I bought this. I really don't care for ASUS anymore, so this will probably be my last ASUS buy. Didn't get my rebate from them, and wasted lots of money on a motherboard, and got basically nothing out of it. Thanks ASUS.