Intel DP45SG Extreme Series P45

Buy This Product

I can't think of a single bad or wrong thing about it. Except for what I wrote in the update.
It had the slot configuration I wanted. Not many did.
There are no PS/2 (keyboard/mouse) or PATA (IDE/ATA)connections, just 12 USB ports (6 back panel, 6 more internal) and SATA (5 internal, 1 external), etc.
You can boot in legacy disk mode, which runs the SATA drives as if they were an old PATA (IRQ14/15), so I presume that you could install XP pre-SP3. Switch it back after install.
The driver disc is dated 19 June 2008; newer stuff at intel.com.
-------- Update: Audio out the analog jacks is messed up. I got a second/replacement board and it does the same thing. The audio goes in and out about once a second, sometimes it will play for 10 seconds straight, until you do something. Others have similar problems; somehow, some say audio is fine (never more than "fine").
The audio optical out is okay - no gaps or dropouts - but only for 2-channel stereo PCM. No AC3/Dolby Digital Live/Home Theatre - not that I can get to work EXCEPT from one (of two) test panels in the MS Vista mixer program, and that only tests the channels with tones. The other Vista MS mixer test panel fails to do anything w/r/t Dolby digital. This is with the IDT audio driver installed (current). Using the built-in MS Vista driver for the audio, the same drop out happens. Worse, the optical out does not work at all (no red light).
I've put the lastest BIOS (0109) in and no difference. The only card in this is an EVGA 9600GT video card. CPU is Q8200.
Important. The driver pack on the included CD will freeze XP since the USB portion (inf) is wrong. Result: No keyboard. No mouse. Not even safe mode gets around it so you'll have to reinstall XP. Go to intel.com and download the newer inf package for this board. I don't know if a vista install of this inf is the same way since I didn't use the CD there.
Besides that, this motherboard runs okay. Maybe intel can fix the problem. P.S. If you find references to use a Realtek "Vista_214.zip" driver, don't bother. It doesn't really install, and all you get is the built-in Vista driver for the mobo audio.
I have no internal audio connnections hooked up, only the back panel audio connections are being used.
--------------
UPDATE 2.0: Flashed to BIOS 0116 (5 May 2009) and the audio problem is no more. An updated audio driver package is available but that wasn't installed yet. The s/pdif (both 2.0 pcm and 2.1 digital) is still working fine. I can now say it's working fine (currently windows 7 rc).