Sabertooth Z77 - Serious Flaws - Issues and Problems

[blm-x]

ok. I chose the Sabertooth Z77 because of it's advertised robustness and features. I am disappointed.

Current configuration:
i7 3770k
32GB G.Skill F3-2400C10D Trident X
Samsung MZ-TD500BW SSD's (3 x 500GB)
WDC WD5000YS SATA2 HD 500GB
HGST HDS724040ALE640 HD 4TB
LG BH14NS40 BD Rewriter
Corsair H100i Cooling
Cooler Master HAF XB case
8 additional cooling fans
OCZ Z850 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
Using Intel HD 4000 graphics

Optimized Defaults for CPU and XMP for memory. Nothing excessive.
Windows 8 Enterprise (TechNet) fully licensed. UEFI boot.
AI Suite II
Corsair Link 2
Drivers and bios current.

The system is working. It will reboot once in a while when idle (system error)
The system is running cool and I have monitored temps with CoreTemp and RealTemp.
Voltages with CPU-Z. I have run Prime95 a few times to check.

AI Suite II and motherboard flaws:
I keep getting warnings such as +3.3v 0.000v or Motherboard Temp -1.000c
They are a constant nag and this is during idle or very low workloads.
All the voltages have warnings and these seem to occur every 5 - 10 minutes.
Motherboard Temperature warnings from -65c to 127c ... There is no liquid nitrogen within 2 miles of this system board
Using Thermal Radar, the observed MB temps are always from 27c - 35c and have never spiked past 45c
The CPU temp has never been above 80c and the voltage has never been above 1.3v
Memory voltage is a default 1.65v.
I have more than enough power and this is the second power supply I have used on this system. The first was a Thermaltake TR2 600 (cheap but fully working). With both power supplies the same errors occur. Installed OS and utilities from scratch 4 times. Used different SSDs. Reseated CPU (Artic 5) and memory a couple of times. Memory has a twin fan cooler also.

Bottom line, the sensors on this board are buggy along with the ASUS software. The Corsair software does not give me any problems. What this means is that I can't rely upon the ASUS software to take remedial action in a situation where I lose air conditioning and require shutdown.

My second big issue:
The AsMedia Sata 3 controller is absolutely unreliable and useless. It does not report to the operating system that it is Sata 3 or AHCI. In fact, drives formatted with AHCI on the Intel controller and attached to the AsMedia will report errors and the system will freeze up for a while. It is useless and a waste of space on this system board. Including this unreliable garbage on this advertised "premium" quality system board is a stain on ASUS's reputation. They would be wise to kick AsMedia to the curb and find a much more reliable solution even at a slightly higher cost.

So now I have a system board I will have to RMA and thus be without for 3 - 4 weeks since ASUS does not cross ship.
This will be the second ASUS MB I've had to RMA, the first being a P8Z77-I Deluxe with a power connector problem when mounted in a case.

I have been evaluating these system boards for use in a commercial production environment where performance is necessary in presentation and video applications such as running multiple projectors and large displays.
These system boards are not ready for prime time. I require much more reliability and faster response for service and replacement than what is currently provided.

The P8Z77-I Deluxe is not a bad little board now that it is stable. However, it seems with ASUS boards you will always need a backup system board when the current one is out for repair.

[Chino]

Welcome to the Republic of Gamers forums, blm-x.

The misreadings you've been getting is a common bug for people using AI Suite. It's not the sensor's fault actually. All you have to do is remove the AI Suite software manually. Then reboot into Safe Mode and run the uninstaller that can be found in my signature. That will put an end to all those pesky misreadings. I know AI Suite has some nice eye candy but there are far better standalone programs that do a better job.

Due to the limitations from the Intel chipset, motherboard manufacturers have no choice but to use third party controllers. Of course, neither Asmedia or Marvell controllers will ever match the speed of the native Intel ones. That's why no one ever uses them for OS drives. They're useful for connecting optical drives to or backup hard drives.

While we're on the subject of AHCI, I'm not sure the Asmedia controllers supports that.

[HiVizMan]

Sorry to hear your pain with the bogus reading.

Key is to only have one application installed that polls the sensors. More than one can cause havoc. I am not a fan of AISuite and do not use it on any of my builds.