Asus MBs - How to tell what version is inside the box without opening the shrink wrap

Folks,

Asus seem to have a policy of not explicitly printing the date of
manufacture or the PCB version number of the board on the box lable.
This is presumably to avoid customers refusing 'old stock'. Where the
box is 'shrink-wrapped' the customer is effectively taking a gamble as
to what version is inside.

e.g. the Asus A7N8X deluxe Gold edition is sold mainly in
shrink-wrapped packages in the U.K. and as such it seemed impossible
whether one was getting the recently release PCB rev 2.0 version.

Well here's the secret of telling the date of manufacture of whats
inside the box.
(This applies to all motherboards but I am not sure if this applies to
all Asus products)

The first digit of the Serial No. is the last digit of the year of
manufacture
2=2002
3=2003 etc.

Second digit:
1=January
2=February
3=March
....
9=September
A=October
....

As regards Asus A7N8X Deluxe PCB ver 2.0 these were manufactured from
March 2003 onwards so try to get a box with serial no starting with
'33' or best '34' or later to be sure.

Exception: Some defective boards go to Holland for repairs and after
repair are 're-released' with a new serial no. So if you are really
unlucky you may end up getting a repaired PCB V1.04 with a '34....'
serial No.

Hope this helps.

P.S. Just bought a A7N8X deluxe Gold from www.dabs.com with a '34...'
serial number and it was a PCB Rev 2.0