I'd like to post my positive experiences with this board since so many seem to have negative experiences.
About 8 days ago I built my first ever 'computer from parts'. I'm a programmer (and game player) who's only prior knowledge of hardware was pretty much limited to some knowledge of video cards. I did a lot of research at this site and others to figure out component compatibility and to figure out what I actually wanted to buy. Three weeks ago I had no clue what cpu sockets, chipsets, ram latency, and a lot of other stuff meant (and I still only know the basics). My goal was to build a solid gaming PC within a limited budget and with no intentions of overclocking.
I decided to go with the Asus K8V board because Asus has a solid reputation and I didn't need the extra stuff from the deluxe type of boards. Throughout all my research I failed to read this thread until *after* I'd ordered my mobo from NewEgg...and I was a bit scared when I did read this thread. Although I was feeling a little uneasy after reading this thread, I also felt like I knew some of the pitfalls I needed to watch out for, like making a driver disk for SATA and the like - which is covered in the Asus manual but it could probably stand to be bolded, red, and highlighted or something since it's kinda important.
I was already intending to read all my manuals before building and reading this thread further cemented it. I'm a noob to hardware and figured I needed all the info and instructions I could get. I also used "mechBgon's (awesome) guide to building your first PC from parts" which was a huge help. As mechBgon indicates, you need manuals for specifics - but, in my noob opinion, manuals can only take you so far - for a noob builder like me it was nice to have mechBgon's guide to help with an overall build plan and strategy (not to mention that it's amusing in places.)
It took me 2-3 hours or so to assemble my PC, since I'm a noob and was being methodical, needing to refer to manuals a lot, and taking breaks between steps to refresh from mechBgon's guide. When I did my last check for loose wires and thought I was ready to boot I kinds felt like I might have a heart attack - I was sure I'd screwed something up or would have a motherboard horror story. However, my machine booted up perfectly on my first boot - and has been running smoothly nonstop ever since.
I had no problems at all with the Asus board or included bios. I found the board to be easy to work with - everything seemed nicely laid out and spaced for the components I had (keeping in mind that this was my first build and I have nothing to compare it to - and I have no intentions of overclocking). The manual, while it might've been a little more bold about pointing out some key issues like SATA setup, did contain all the necessary info to get setup correctly. I was a tiny bit concerned about the onboard sound since my older PC is SoundMax and had been screwing up a bit lately - but I'm impressed with the sound.
The one thing I do wish was a LOT more clear in the manual is which SATA controller is most ideal for a single SATA drive setup. I dunno how many times I read through that stuff but I swear all they talk about is raid setups. I also swear that I read somewhere earlier in this thread that the VIA was the most ideal for a single drive setup - but now I've read several more recent posts in this thread saying the promise is the more ideal (and that's why I don't see HD activity lights). I wish the manual was more clear on this topic. I ended up using the VIA controller - and it seems to work nicely - but I'm lacking HD indicators (no biggie).
One other thing I didn't read about until it was too late was the recommended memory for the board at the Asus site. I picked decent quality RAM and it seems to be working properly despite not being on the recommended list so I guess I got lucky.
The final system:
Antec Sonata Case (comes with 380W PSU)
Asus K8V Motherboard
AMD Athlon64 3000+ (retail - using stock HSF)
1GB Corsair Value Select RAM PC3200
Maxtor 120GB HD (SATA, 7200 RPM, 8MB Cache)
Lite-On 16x/48x DVD-ROM
Sony 3.5" Floppy
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (128MB)
MS Windows XP Pro
(Using existing 19" monitor, MS optical mouse, and MS (original) natural keyboard)
(no burner since I have one in my old box and rarely use it)
I happened to catch the RAM and video card at the Fry's anniversary sale at nice prices - everything else I ordered from NewEgg (along with FarCry and UT2004 - gotta have some new candy to go with a new gaming system!).
I'm quite pleased with the system. It seems to idle around 34/35C and I've seen it up to 45ishC after a good gaming session - which seems reasonable from what I've read here (considering I'm using stock HSF and just the one stock fan on the Antec case - and considering I'm in Arizona where everying is friggin hot).
It's not the most state-of-the-art machine but I think it's decent for my needs and budget and it completely smokes my old (don't hurl) HP Pavillion P4 1.5ghz, 768RAM, GeForce FX 5200. (I can't dog my old system too much - I ran it hard 24/7 for over 1.5 years, put more RAM in it, went through 3 vid card upgrades, and it performed like a champ - and continues to do so for my wife.)
Cheers,
Paul
PS - Forgive my rambling. I tend to be verbose!