Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)
To vent some of my frustration with ASUS I decided to post to a few
places my review of a recently acquired K8V Deluxe AMD64 board. It
seems this is the only thing I can do since ASUS chooses to utterly
ignore all of my attempts at getting some sort of support. And this is
supposed to be a "deluxe", premium product. I pity those who buy just
the "regular" motherboard from this company.
On the surface the K8V looks good. I was initially pleased when I got
it, glancing at a nice looking board and spiffy accessories. This
feeling quickly dissipated. While the basic functions of the board are
acceptable (the CPU and memory do operate) the rest has a lot to wish
for.
The BIOS is full of useless features like "Instant Music" that lets
you play music CDs from the BIOS. I cannot fathom anyone actually
using this "feature". Add to this an ability to make the board "speak"
uselessly at startup and have a custom picture flash for 1/2 of a
second during boot. And to pay for all of these miracles you only need
to forget about being able to use both a PCI sound card and the
on-board sound (because the speaking BIOS does not like 2 sound
devices and automatically disables the on-board). Why would you need 2
Sound cards if you need to mix sound from more then one incoming
source when you can have the board speak in a mumbled voice "The
system is booted!!!". I mean that is the reason you paid for on-board
sound! No?
The board comes with 2 SATA controllers, one part of the VIA chipset
and the other a FastTrack 150 by Promise. Both can do cheesy
"software" RAID. The SATA cables that come with the board do not lock
onto the sockets so if you sneeze they will fall off the drives or the
MB. Add to this the fact that the HDD activity LED will not function
for the SATA drives unless they are in the RAID mode on the VIA
controller. So if you only have 1 SATA HDD, forget about the HDD LED.
Why would you need a functioning HDD LED which you will use nearly
each time your PC is on when you can turn your PC into a $2000
single-function CD-player once in a decade?! I mean one has to have
his priorities straight!
I use mostly Linux. There is a good driver in the 2.6 kernels for VIA
SATA and a lousy one for Promise SATA so I am not going to be using
the buggy driver and a secondary controller just for the sake of the
LED which should have functioned properly in the first place.
As to support, if you try to go to the ASUS "support" page using
Mozilla you will get a pretty error. SOL. The ASUS attitude is "Use
what we tell you: IE". If you are strictly a Windows user you might
not notice this but it is a major pain for me and I assume my money is
the same color as someone's who uses Microsoft products. Yet I am to
be put in the doghouse. Note that K8V is an AMD 64 board and thus most
likely to be used by the Linux 64-bit crowd.
Luckily, to make me feel more equal, ASUS placed the support forums in
Taiwan and put them off-line for a good measure. The FAQ is laughable.
Web based support form is redirected straight into a trashcan.
In summary, a lot of annoyances compounded by a total lack of
commitment on the part of ASUS leads to a very unpleasant experience
completely at odds with ASUS' (at this point in my opinion rather
undeserved) reputation.
To vent some of my frustration with ASUS I decided to post to a few
places my review of a recently acquired K8V Deluxe AMD64 board. It
seems this is the only thing I can do since ASUS chooses to utterly
ignore all of my attempts at getting some sort of support. And this is
supposed to be a "deluxe", premium product. I pity those who buy just
the "regular" motherboard from this company.
On the surface the K8V looks good. I was initially pleased when I got
it, glancing at a nice looking board and spiffy accessories. This
feeling quickly dissipated. While the basic functions of the board are
acceptable (the CPU and memory do operate) the rest has a lot to wish
for.
The BIOS is full of useless features like "Instant Music" that lets
you play music CDs from the BIOS. I cannot fathom anyone actually
using this "feature". Add to this an ability to make the board "speak"
uselessly at startup and have a custom picture flash for 1/2 of a
second during boot. And to pay for all of these miracles you only need
to forget about being able to use both a PCI sound card and the
on-board sound (because the speaking BIOS does not like 2 sound
devices and automatically disables the on-board). Why would you need 2
Sound cards if you need to mix sound from more then one incoming
source when you can have the board speak in a mumbled voice "The
system is booted!!!". I mean that is the reason you paid for on-board
sound! No?
The board comes with 2 SATA controllers, one part of the VIA chipset
and the other a FastTrack 150 by Promise. Both can do cheesy
"software" RAID. The SATA cables that come with the board do not lock
onto the sockets so if you sneeze they will fall off the drives or the
MB. Add to this the fact that the HDD activity LED will not function
for the SATA drives unless they are in the RAID mode on the VIA
controller. So if you only have 1 SATA HDD, forget about the HDD LED.
Why would you need a functioning HDD LED which you will use nearly
each time your PC is on when you can turn your PC into a $2000
single-function CD-player once in a decade?! I mean one has to have
his priorities straight!
I use mostly Linux. There is a good driver in the 2.6 kernels for VIA
SATA and a lousy one for Promise SATA so I am not going to be using
the buggy driver and a secondary controller just for the sake of the
LED which should have functioned properly in the first place.
As to support, if you try to go to the ASUS "support" page using
Mozilla you will get a pretty error. SOL. The ASUS attitude is "Use
what we tell you: IE". If you are strictly a Windows user you might
not notice this but it is a major pain for me and I assume my money is
the same color as someone's who uses Microsoft products. Yet I am to
be put in the doghouse. Note that K8V is an AMD 64 board and thus most
likely to be used by the Linux 64-bit crowd.
Luckily, to make me feel more equal, ASUS placed the support forums in
Taiwan and put them off-line for a good measure. The FAQ is laughable.
Web based support form is redirected straight into a trashcan.
In summary, a lot of annoyances compounded by a total lack of
commitment on the part of ASUS leads to a very unpleasant experience
completely at odds with ASUS' (at this point in my opinion rather
undeserved) reputation.
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