I have been told by ASUS tech support that all the recent Intel and nVidia chipsets will refuse to run a server OS on a desktop motherboard but AMD did not [at least not yet] restrict this. If true, this is really crappy of Intel and I will be finally switching to AMD processors.Can anyone verify this for other mobo makers using Intel chipsets? It is at minimum true of actual Intel mobos as I have read exactly that on their website though they calimed it was a lack of drivers rather than flat out blocking which is what the ASUS guy told me they now do.I would appreciate any good motherboard suggestions for building an "HTPC 2008 server". It will sit in my wire closet anyway so I want good 5.1 audio to my A/V receiver and video to my Sony HDTV as well as run 2008 Server with Hyper-V for my development and testing work. Hopefully IE7 runningSilverlight for Netflix and Winamp run well on 2008 Server.Also, I'm far froman expert at audio or video so I need advice on1) for decent 5.1 audio, is the now normally builtin audio in the latest motherboards sufficient if I'm just going to route it to my A/V receiver with S/PDIF optical cable or are audio cards really worthwhile in this case even if not running speakers directly from the PC? and 2) will I get better video on my Sony 1080i HDTV usingHDMI output from the mobo or a graphics card vs. using an analog D-Sub connection that will display the native 1366x768 resolution of the TV which is what Iam doing on my current system. Sony says the later and others claim the former would be better. One thing I don't like about HDMI is the audio apparently cannot be split out in the A/V receiver and would have to go to the TV and then back to the receiver.Any advice andexperience most welcome!Thanks,Dave

Hi, These forums focus on Windows Server General related issues. The design of Windows Server does not have limited on any specific motherboard. For compatibility of operation system on different motherboard, I suggest that you post to the forums which focus on hardware related issues. The following forums maybe helpful for you: Tom's Hardware Forum http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [H]ard|Forum http://www.hardforum.com/ HotHardware http://hothardware.com/cs/forums/ TechArena http://forums.techarena.in/ Best regards, Vincent Hu

If there are no limitations for running Windows Server on desktop motherboardsthen I agree and in any event thanks for the references...but, if it is true that desktop mobos restrict running Windows Server, THAT would be a concern here I should think. I have heard both ways and I figure if folks are building servers they would know this.Dave

There is always Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility list available on the Internet and the best practice before Implementing a Server or Client one should always refer to it.http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspxThanksSyed Khairuddin

Thanks but that only mentions complete systems and nothing about motherboards. Dave

Hi Dave, I understand your concerns. However, as for the question whether a chipset will restrict a desktop motherboard to run a server operating system, it is more related to hardware and the hardware manufacturer. I am sorry to say that we are not the best resource. You may contact the hardware manufacturer of the chipset and motherboard for more information. This is the reason that I provided links to hardware forums for your reference. Thank you for your understanding. Best Regards, Vincent Hu