ASUS P8Z77-M PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: all the features and compact size.

Cons: Board will only power up after clearing the CMOS. Once ON, if powered OFF, it will not power up again unless, you guessed it, the CMOS is cleared.
Tried 3 different, brand new, power supplies 2 AX860 and 1 AX760.
Tried all my hardware on another motherboard, a P8Z68-V/Gen3 and it all worked like a charm.

Conclusion:
This P8Z77-M Pro is defective. From what I read in these reviews they try to blame it on other components not being in the QVL list and such. C'mon... really? In my 15+ years of building systems, 99%of the times, if the component you buy has the specs the board supports, you're good to go.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear that you are having an issue with the board. Looks like you will have to send the unit in for service. If you are under the return policy with newegg, I suggest your return the unit for an exchange.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me again at cl-jeffrey@asus.com which I reside in the U.S

ASUS strives to meet and exceeds our customer expectations within our warranty policy.

Regards,

Jeffrey

Pros: 6+2 VRM and fully loaded SLi capable mATX board, blue theme.
eSata, USB 3.0, recently published BIOS update
board looks good and feels good, solid.

(Pros) - ASUS RMA..! LoL

Cons: would like one or more fan headers.
it seems a bad batch of these boards are floating around, watch yourself as I thought I got lucky.
no reason for the NIC going out as it was handled in my tech shop so it's just one of those things.
after reading all the reviews I'm starting to think is it..?
very disappointing (read below)

Other Thoughts: update BIOS FIRST THING...

while on my test bench I ran the auto tune function in BIOS and it settled for a stable clock of 4.53GHz (i5-3570K) but had some crazy crazy settings; nothing I would use personally.

just when I was on OCN recommending this board to someone later that night after a case swap, my NIC goes out....

swapped out board for RMA and then moved up to Maxiums Gene V.
the Gene V you can tell is the top mATX dog.!!!
total different feel between the two.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for your feedback. We're sorry to hear the issue with onboard LAN on this motherboard. Please RMA it using the online submittal form at: http://vip.asus.com/eservice/usa_rmaserv.aspx or call us at 1-812-282-2787 at your earliest convenience. Thank you.

For support information, please visit http://support.asus.com. For service, visit http://service.asus.com. For motherboard warranty, visit http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!Motherboard%20Warranty/c1c20; Refurbished products/accessories: http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!refurbished-warranty/c16us. For RMA status, visit: http://am.eservice.asus.com/rmaweb/search/rmCustomerQueryAction.do?.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty
cl-benson@asus.com

Pros: mATX but full featured, 2x pci-e 3.0 x16 slots for cf/sli, 4x usb 3.0 ports + internal, 2x eSATA, good cpu power circuitry for overclocking (could push my 3570K to 4.7Ghz and probably even higher if these guys didn't get so hot), 3 casefanheaders while most mATX boards have only 1. Nice uefi bios with ability to save profiles to usb stick and screenshot option.

Not sure what's going on with all the negative reviews here, this board has been rocksolid for me since day 1.

Cons: None really, except the primary pci-e slot is closer to the cpu than regular ATX boards but this is inherent to mATX. It can be a tight fit for a graphics card with a large air cooler like NH-D14, no problem with Hyper 212.

I also had a problem with bios settings not being applied after a failed overclock, had to reflash bios to get them to stick again. Won't hold that against this board since overclocking comes with no guarantees.

The bundled AI Suite software is another story though, it's buggy, litters the system with services and is a pita to uninstall. But it's not really required to use so not going to rate against it.

Last minor issue: the cpu fan header can only control pwm fans, would be nice if it could control 3-pin fans as well.

Other Thoughts: I wrote the original review complaining about limited fancontrol options. That hasn't changed (still can't set lower than 60% in bios) but Speedfan now supports this board giving me full control from 0 to 100%, so 5 stars like promised.

Pros: I've used two of these boards so far, one when we upgraded my brother's computer, and one I just built for a coworker.

These are nice boards, lots of PWM fan plugs, lots of PCIE slots. The visual BIOS is a little strange if you aren't used to it, but it seems to be pretty robust.

Overall I've no complaints on the layout or function of the board. Both fired up with a minimal amount of fuss, and to be honest, it's not a bad looking piece of kit.

Lots of bang for the buck here.

Cons: Would feel a bit better with a screw support in the lower right corner. There's a pretty good chunk of unsupported PCB there where things need to be plugged in.

Pros: You can SLI with it. I haven't had the same problems everyone else claims to have had. I bought it in october and it's run perfectly for me ever since. It's a great motherboard and it does everything I ask of it (except one thing, but that's not going in the pros section).

Cons: The only thing this card does poorly and it's more of a graphics card/case/mobo conflict is that when you try and sli two cards in the two 3.0 pci slots the case power connectors are too tall to allow a second gtx 660 to seat into the 3.0 slot so you end up having to place your second card in the 2.0 slot which slows down both of your cards to 2.0 speeds. It's not a huge deal and if I ever actually get around to caring I will probably just clip a little bit of the hard plastic of the case control wires and then be able to seat the second card in a 3.0 sli spot. It's a hassle but it's not even really worth docking half an egg. Even as close as the cards are in load they run at the same temps that they did as singles.

Other Thoughts: Coolermaster Elite 311 case
Intel i5-3330
Corsair tx750w psu
2xEVGA GTX 660
120gb ssd
rocketfish heatsink
1tb 3.5" western digital hd

Pros: Has great possibilities

Cons: Mainly, no problem resolution from ASUS. I have had this board several months and the customer reviews have gotten worse and worse. So, I have not tried to use it yet. I am waiting for Asus to resolve the problem, or, offer money back. I just can't waste the time when the odds for success are so bad.. I sure can't chance a build for a client. I gave it one egg as it is presently useless to me.

Other Thoughts: I would recommend that no one leaves this motherboard plugged in and unattended. It is apparently a power/electrical problem and maximum smoke or fire is possible. Needless to say, unplug from the wall before handling or changing components.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We appreciate your feedback and acknowledge your concern for this motherboard. If you experience boot issues when using some power supply makes, we suggest trying a different model. If there's no change, please contact me at cl-benson@asus.com as soon as possible so we can receive your board for service and repair or replace as necessary. Thank you.

For support information, please visit http://support.asus.com. For service, visit http://service.asus.com. For motherboard warranty, visit http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!Motherboard%20Warranty/c1c20; Refurbished: http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!refurbished-warranty/c16us. For RMA status, visit: http://am.eservice.asus.com/rmaweb/search/rmCustomerQueryAction.do?.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: Technically this board seemed like more than what I needed. Ran fine with 1 - 8gb stick of ram in it.

Cons: As with many other users, I experienced nothing but trouble and had to RMA this board back to Newegg. This board would not boot with more than one chip of RAM in at a time(1x 8gb). I tested them all and they worked (4 x 8gb). The RAM was part of a newegg bundle and according to Asus "it should work just fine" as it was a supported set. Asus support had no support answers.

Other Thoughts: I'm waiting on the new board still. Currently January 24th. After reading a ton of negative reviews (which somehow were not available a few weeks prior to Christmas) I'm really dreading this purchase.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We're sorry to hear about the memory issue you had with the motherboard. The P8Z77-M supports 4 x DIMM, Max. 32GB memory. Please try using a 32GB kit from our QVL: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1155/P8Z77-M/P8Z77-M_QVL.pdf for best compatibility. Use the MemOK! feature to load fail-safe memory settings when 4 DIMMS are populated and use XMP profile (if available) or manually set frequency/timing/voltage per specifications. If you any questions concerns, please contact me at cl-benson@asus.com (reference #C1037-8219 in the subject line). Thank you.

For support information, please visit http://support.asus.com. For service, visit http://service.asus.com. For motherboard warranty, visit http://www.service.asus.com/warranty.aspx#!Motherboard%20Warranty/c1c20. For RMA status, visit: http://am.eservice.asus.com/rmaweb/search/rmCustomerQueryAction.do?.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: I own this board and it works great for me in my small case with a 7850 video card and an i7. The only people who comment are the ones who have problems! I think the bios looks cool as well.

Cons: crossfire 16x / 4x, but not really a con for me.

Pros: Great, except for fan and usb problems

Cons: On reboot, USB sometimes requires power off for a while before rebooting.
Big problem is the CPU fan speed. For the first few seconds of boot you hear the normal sound f the CPU running at 100%. But the fan doesn't speed up during operation even when the CPU is 79C. I have tried setting min temp to 50C, max speed temp to 60C, but the fan never budges, even with actual temps at 80C while running handbrake encoding a x.264 video. Manual mode makes no difference.

The cpu is definitely hot. I'm getting Hardware Errors in the log and crashes during heavy loads. While it is possible it is the Intel fan, it seems most probable that it is the motherboard.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We're sorry for the fan control issue you had with the motherboard. Please make sure that Intel fan is plugged to the CPU_Fan header, in UEFI > Advanced > Monitor > CPU Q-Fan Control is enabled, set either to Standard (should automatically adjust fan speed according to temperature) or Manual mode. In Manual mode, set CPU Fan Max. Duty Cycle (%) to 100. This will enable CPU fan to spin at maximum when temperature reach CPU Upper Temperature limit. If no change after trying the above, please contact me at cl-benson@asus.com (reference #C1037-7641 in the email subject line). Thank you.

Regards,
Benson
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: great Motherboard
Fits well in any size case
runs my i5 2500k at 4.8ghz flawlessly
Price

Cons: Dual boot bios is a little buggy making your system cycle through restarts.

Other Thoughts: Enthusiast motherboard for a consumer price and has 3 pci slots