M4A77TD Review first impressions - layout and install

The motherboard comes with 2 SATA cables, 1 ATA cable, a thin backplate, and a thin manual. The motherboard has 6 USB sockets built in, and 3 additional pinouts on the motherboard where you can connect external USB panels (purchased separately), each providing 2 USB sockets. 

Somewhat annoyingly, the box is completely unsealed, so there's no way to make 100% sure you didn't buy somebody's unmarked return. The cables are sealed, however, so you can try to infer from that.

Inserting the motherboard into the case I found two small faults. First, the backplate was made with 'fingers' that press against the IO connectors on the MB, as is typical. These fingers, however, were really 'extended', such that a significant amount of pressure was required to get the MB to slide into place so it could be screwed down. I had to remove the MB twice and bend the fingers back a bit before I could get it screwed down, and even then I needed a second set of hands to apply lateral pressure while I fastened the screws. Annoying, but it was dealt with in a couple minutes. The other notable is that while the M4A77TD claims to be a full ATX, it doesn't quite extend far enough, so one side of the MB is left hanging - the part where the RAM and a few of the HD connectors are. This means that the MB flexes a bit more than necessary when inserting those items. It's not hard to imagine a few MBs get broken during this stage of the install. I put a temporary brace behind the MB to prevent flexing.  Otherwise, installation was easy.

The layout is generally good. I miss the floppy connector, but then I'm a legacy kinda guy: part of the reason I bought this was the serial port (For winlirc). The top PCI slot is right next to the 16x PCIe slot, but both can be used at the same time so long as your video card isn't one of those double wide varieties with a giant cooler. All of the on-board cooling is passive, so there are no fans to make noise or fail.

The BIOS reset jumper is somewhat poorly located, just below the 3rd pci slot, and thus blocked if you use that slot.  Because it's in a cramped spot, it can also be hard to tell if you have the jumper on the right 2 of 3 pins to clear CMOS. Trying to unlock cores generally led to needing to reset CMOS in order to be able to boot again, so I speak from experience!