Sean Houlihane

Hmm… After my parcel arrived from Scan, I started to assemble my new PC. Everything seemed to go well, until I plugged it in. Blank Screen. The POST led indicated that everything was normal, booted OK. I try sapping the DVI/HDMI selector (this motherboard can only support a singe connector at a time). No Joy. I try a Cmos reset. The POST sequence now stops at 7F, cmos checksum error, so I know that the bios is reset correctly.

Inspection of the interwebs shows several pople have had doa problems with this board. Closer instpection of the packaging suggests I am not the first person to receive this motherboard – some of the plastic bags containing cables are already open. Have Scan sent me a board which has already been returned by someone else?

Initial thoughts on this board – the manual is very light on detail.Connectors are detailed, but nothing at all on the bios settings. Whilst having round cables is a plus, they do look very cheap and nasty after unpacking the Lian Li case, which is very nice. the BIOS POST lights are really useful in determining if the board is functioning.

Emprex wireless keyboard – Looks nice, feels very plastic. Has 18 media keys, about half of which work in Ubuntu 8.10 out of the box. I’ll save messing about trying to get more till 9.4, which has to wait till I get a working motherboard. Not too bad to type on whilst resting on the lap, and range is good, works at 5m with new batteries. Mouse joystick is a rubber tit thing, and sadly has no click button built in.

Likewise, the cyberlink remote needs to wait, but first impression is that it is a usb keyboard device, not an IR receiver. Luckily there is a driver, just hope it can be made to work.