Customer Reviews

Gigabyte Socket 1156/Intel H55/USB3/A&V&GbE/Mini-ITX Motherboard GA-H55N-USB3

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

 

 

Using this motherboard as an open "caseless" pc. Works well with core i7 875k (using hyper tx 3 heat sink; there isn't a lot of room on the board and the h50 liquid cooler wouldn't fit), XFX 5770 in the only PCI-e x16 slot, 8gb Patriot Sector 5 G series filling the two RAM slots, Cooler Master 700w mod ps, and Win7 x64 Ultimate on Intel 80gb ssd. Tested the USB 3.0 with a Diablotek dock. Average is about 4-5 times faster than USB 2.0. A very good mini-itx motherboard for a simple and powerful machine with USB 3.0 built-in.

A side note: I've been playing Starcraft 2 on this rig and it runs very well with almost everything on ultra setting in 1920 x 1080 resolution.

I teamed this board with an i3 530, Corsair ddr3 memory and an antec 310 case. Everything fits

and works perfectly. Had to make some minor mods to the internals of the case to have everything fit properly

but it worked out better than expected and really lovin the small form factor.

Performance wise the board is a champ. The bundled software is abit buggy but I don't use it much. Updated the firmware with ease with the provided utility.

Havn't tried overclocking yet but I think it can give some satisfactory results.

This is a good motherboard. The downside is that its digital audio output is a 2.0 channel only. If it had 5.1 channel output, it would be a great motherboard.

STAY AWAY from this MB if you are not going to use a discrete graphics card.

Purchased this MB from another website approximately four months ago and it has given me nothing but problems. I am using it as an HTPC using the video provided by the CPU and the H55 chipset. Initially this MB worked fine except for some annoying but manageable issues with the video not initializing properly when changing TV inputs. I decided to live with this instead of returning it to the vendor which was a big mistake. As soon as the window closed (30 days) for me to return this MB to the vendor it started randomly shutting down. I replaced everything trying to find the problem before narrowing it down to this MB. A quick search on the internet revealed that this was a common problem and was caused by the northbridge chipset overheating when using the on-board CPU driven video. I tried touble shooting with Gigabyte's tech support but it was quickly obvious that they weren't reading my e-mails and just having me try everything I had already told them I had done to no avail. I requested an RMA, sent the MB in on my dime, received it back after about a month with the only noticeable change being a new design northbridge chipset heat sink. This appears to be acknowledgement that there is a problem with the initial design although you won't find any info about it on Gigabyte's website.

Well, this worked for about a week then the random shut downs started again. This time I contacted tech support and told them that I had to put my own chipset heat sink on the MB along with a fan blowing directly on the chipset in order to get it to run properly. I also told them of the following new problem since getting the MB back from Gigabyte: now the computer locks up whenever it goes into sleep mode and requires me to unplug it, let it sit for a bit, then plug it back in to get it to boot back up. Otherwise it gets caught in a reboot loop or won't power on at all. I had done nothing to the computer upon getting it back to make this start. This had to be caused by something Gigabyte did. Their tech support said it had to be a driver issue and I should re-install Windows. The problem is that I had already done that and had stated so in my initial e-mail to them. It didn't fix it and they still weren't reading my e-mails. They never even apologized for nor mentioned the continued shut down problem this time.

I can't deal with Gigabyte anymore. This will be my last Gigabyte board. I can accept a bad MB here and there but I can't accept them not acknowledging the problem and refusing to stand by their product. I'm purchasing a different manufacturer's MB and throwing this one in the trash. Please check the reviews on other websites before you buy. You will see that the shut down problem is very common and Gigabyte is doing nothing about it nor even acknowledging the issue.

I recently installed three Gigabyte motherboards on my system builds, and I have just noticed that the DVI ports on the mobos are missing four pinholes on the right side. Therefore, if I want to connect a monitor using the DVI, I won't be able to. Fortunately, I installed graphics cards, so this is not an issue for me because I use the VGA, DVI or HDMI on the cards instead of on the mobos. Otherwise the mobos have seemed to do what they're supposed to, so far.

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