When I went to Casio’s website to look into the warranty, one of the selections for reason of return said “Shuts off during play. ” So I guess this is not a rare issue. I filed a claim, being less then 1-year from date of purchase, but the kicker is, I have to PAY to have the keyboard shipped to Casio. Then there is no guarantee that I won’t be charged $75 for repair.

I am so unhappy about this and so is my son, who will have to miss lessons and practice until we can buy a better keyboard. And definitely NOT a Casio!
Rating: 1 / 5
Casio LK-100 Lighted Keyboard with Premium Accessories Package

Solid motherboard, great value for the money, quick and easy installation, power and reset buttons on the board, tons of overclocking options, wonderful capabilities. The perfect motherboard for everyday computer usage and even some gaming. It saves you money by having onboard graphics, and is capable of playing HD videos and basically doing everything that you expect from a powerful budget computer.

Detailed review:

I am not a gamer. I basically use my PC for multimedia, some programming, and some image-editing. I decided to build a new computer as the ever more resources-intensive browsers started to really affect the performance of my old computer. What I basically wanted was a computer that was going to let me surf, watch HD videos, and that won’t keep me waiting for minutes for applications to launch.

When you read online reviews, you may recognize a tendency for people to exaggerate the importance of certain products. You don’t need four slots for four $100+ graphics cards if you’re not a hardcore gamer – it’s only going to strain your resources and will require an entire blueprint for your case cooling. Don’t pay more for anything that you’re not going to need even 2 to 3 years from now. Knowing that I have no need for all those slots, I decided to go for this motherboard. Which basically has all the features, it also has SB750, so unlocking hidden cores (Phenom II X3 720, Phenom II X2 550) shouldn’t be a problem.

The installation was a breeze. There are blue LED’s that tell you what went wrong in your installation if the motherboard refuses to post – i. e. your motherboard refuses to start. The only downside is that there is no real explanation for what each of those LED’s stands for in the manual or online. The other good thing about this motherboard is the power and reset buttons. As someone who doesn’t assemble PC’s for a living I am bound to freak out if my motherboard doesn’t start. Also, connecting all those wires from the case bezel to the motherboard isn’t always a fool-proof procedure – you will be able to eliminate the possibility that your connections from the case’s power button to the motherboard are faulty. So, it definitely helps with the troubleshooting. The same LED’s that I mentioned also look great if your case has a see-through side panel.

The quick installation guide is really great. It saves you the time of having to go through the manual, and in my case, it really helped me know where all those cables from the computer case are supposed to go.

Installing the CPU – Phenom II X4 955 – was very easy, my Corsair DDR3 1600 ram worked right away – at 1066Mhz, Corsair says that it should be overclocked to 1600, but I don’t really see a difference and I don’t want a lot of heat circulating in there. The DIMM slots – the slots where you place your RAM – are not too close to the processor. They didn’t interfere with my installation of the stock CPU heatsink and fan.

It will also support the old 140W Phenom II X4 965 which is currently available at Amazon – a 125W version is available elsewhere.

The onboard graphics – ATI Radeon HD3300 – has played all the HD videos that I threw at it, even the 1080p ones. It also doesn’t take that much from my system’s memory. I have 4GB of memory, and I have 3. 6 available to my OS. It’s great because my memory usage rarely hits 2GHz, even with heavy browsing – multiple youtube videos, flash-intensive websites, etc – and many applications open. I also like the fact that this motherboard still has two slots for any discrete graphics cards that I may buy in the future if my requirements change. It has two slots, so crossfire – using more than one ATI graphics card at the same time – isn’t going to be a problem if it becomes a necessity 3-4 years from now.

I also had no issues with sound. I mostly use Linux, and the Arch installer recognized the onboard sound right away, and I also had no issues with the ethernet adapter. Everything basically works right out of the box.

The motherboard also has one IDE slot, which means that you can salvage two IDE drives from any old computer lying around if you want to, this is great especially for DVD drives, which don’t affect the system’s performance in major ways. You can even use those old hard disk drives if you feel like it.

Here’s what this motherboard has:

– It has all the USB 2. 0 slots that you can wish for – 6, and has three places where you connect the cables from your case for even more USB ports.

– eSata – for highspeed external hard disk drives.

– HDMI – for blu-ray video playback on new monitors without the need for converters.

– RAID – for arranging the hard disks in arrays (great for some people whose data will benefit from redundancy).

– Gigabit ethernet – high-speed network connectivity for great transfer rates between computers on the same network if the hardware supports it.

– 128 MB included memory for the onboard graphics – more performance.

– 8 channel high definition audio.

– IDE – for up to two old PATA drives.

– It supports trusted computing – required by Windows 7 Ultimate bitlocker for full disk encryption and is likely to be heavily marketed because it will give vendors more control over DRM media (you’re future-proof because you will be able to get it when they start requiring it), you will need to buy a TPM (Trusted Platform Module, a card-like chip that you connect to your computer) though. It’s a good thing that they haven’t included it by default as a lot of controversy surrounds trusted computing.

I decided to give MSI a try as I had some serious issues with Gigabyte and Asus motherboards in the past. So far, this wonderful motherboard has met and even surpassed all of my expectations. It worked right out of the box, wasn’t dead on arrival – I didn’t have to RMA it, came in wonderful packaging, and had all the things that you expect a motherboard’s vendor to include. I only think that they need to include what those blue LED lights stand for in the manual, and maybe slightly redesign their website.

Notes:

- Make sure you choose an AM3 CPU. I personally choose Phenom II X4 955 because it has the best value for the money at the moment and is very future proof. It can be overclocked to the speed of the Phenom II 965, but those 200Mhz don’t make any difference now.

- This motherboard doesn’t support DDR2, if you have some DDR2 modules lying around from an older build and would like to use those then get an AM2+ motherboard, it will still support the new AM3 Phenoms as they’re backwards compatible.

- This motherboard doesn’t have USB 3. 0 – the modern external USB devices that we all use are USB 2. 0, which is likely to be heavily marketed in 6 months or so. I don’t think that it’s really worth the wait, as the eSata is more than great. It’s good to keep in mind that USB 3. 0 is still a new technology, so when it’s available it’s going be very expensive and won’t be free from errors for a while. It will be two to three years before USB 3. 0 devices start floating around. AMD and intel will not support USB 3. 0 till 2011, but then AMD’s Bulldozer – a new processor by AMD, more cores, more efficiency – will be available then and who knows what else. Even then, USB 3. 0 devices will be backward-compatible, so you will still be able to use them with this motherboard.

Conclusion:
It’s a great motherboard, has a great price, and has all that you need to build a very modern computer. It’s well-documented and makes building your own computer easier than ever.
Rating: 5 / 5
MSI 790GX-G65 SocketAM3/140W CPU/AMD 790GX CrossFire/4DDR3-1600/ATI CrossFireX/Radeon HD 3300/GbE/HDMI/DVI/VGA/R/A/1394/ATX Motherboard