Hi, I've been sick for the last 2 days, yesterday I spent most of the day in bed and was almost too dumb to start the computer. Today I feel better but not up to writing scripts or testing ports and crap. What little testing I did try showed me that I still have problems with closed ports. Re motherboards. I am an Asus/AMD fanboy. The only "BAD" MB that I got from them in the last 10 years was this model:Asus M4A77TD -- DO NOT BUY IT! I bought three of those BAD un's, right after a lightning strike cost me two motherboards. The extra one was so I didn't have to wait 2-3 weeks for a replacement. One died in a year, the second one died the next year, the last one is still running. All of them had major "quirks". I think they were caused by driver problems--network, sound and boot systems. Anyway, that bad experience pissed me off and I decided to spend whatever it took to get a really dependable "modern" MB. I decided that this MB at $190 was what I wanted. I bought the AMD version because it handled 8 core CPUs which were a lot cheaper than Intel's. http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-SABERTOOTH-990FX-R2-0-Motherboard/dp /B008YDJHWM/ref=sr_1_17?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1387239639&sr =1-17&keywords=motherboard+sabertooth It failed the "pour 16 oz of iced tea on the motherboard CPU while it is running" test but otherwise I have had no problems in the two years that I have owned one. Motherboards in the last few years have gone the same way as hard drives and most other equipment. You have to research all the user reviews and pick one that has the most good (4 or 5) ratings and whose problems that give them a poor rating are not a big deal to you. If the #1 rating (lowest) is 20% or higher I won't buy it unless I have no choice. Since when you do get a long lasting MB, the main reason you wind up upgrading it is because you want some new technology (USB3, Sata6, PCI-e, etc) My only advice is to get one that has more of the "new" technology than what you need right now--thataway when you do want to upgrade you don't have to change the MB. Also I prefer 4 ram slots instead of 2, so that when I get some extra ram I can use it in that machine.. One PCI (old style) slot is still a good idea. If you are going to hammer it (building Trinity, video editing or conversion) then an aftermarket fan is a good idea. I sorta went overboard on the CPU fan cooler. <grin> You can turn the fans off on the CPU cooler and it still stays within the CPU'sworking temperature range. Power consumption of the motherboard itself is not much of an issue. Most of the power they use is to run the RAM, CPU and "drives" that you install. The Sabertooth I bought has a 8 core CPU and can push over 185 watts to it when needed. But when they are not being used the power cost is about what a dual core would draw under the same load. I have one of those KILLAWATT power meters and on my system using: 16 gig ram, 8 core CPU, 4 active hard drives, (6) 120mm fans, one SSD drive and a 650 watt power supply, the meter shows about a 250-270 watt power consumption while surfing. BTW power supplies are very important. Get one with a much higher power than you need. When the extra power is not being used the power drain is no bigger than a smaller supply. But there are "large and sudden drains (CPU going to all cores, memory maxing out suddenly, Video card maxing out, etc) When these happen, if you do not have a good PS, the system gets voltage and or current drops and spikes that can confuse or crash the system. For the above system I got a 650 watt, even though a 450 "should" have been able to handle it. Not much help probably, but something to think about. Keith On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 5:23 PM, Darrell Anderson &lt;darrella(a)hushmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: