Drivers for ECS nForce-A mobo

[kaborka]

I got the ECS nF3-A V1.0A motherboard as part of the recurring combo at Frys. It has the latest BIOS. I installed the nForce 5.10 driver set off the CD that came with the board, after installing XP SP2. Standby is disabled on XP's shutdown dialog. USB 2.0 is not working, either. When I plug in my thumbdrive in the back-panel USB ports, Windows complains there is no high-speed USB port available. Device Manager shows a yellow '?' next to 'USB Controller' under 'Other devices'. My mouse and thumbdrive do work, apparently limited to USB 1.1 speeds.

[*]Has anyone gotten Standby to work on this board? XP installed the 'ACPI Uniprocessor PC' HAL during setup.

[*]I gather from the threads in the HD forum that people have had some USB 2.0 troubles with this board, but that it does work. Can anyone explain how to get it working?

[*]I'm using a SATA drive, but no SATA controller appears in Device Mgr. On my other system, a nF4 939 board, the nVidia SATA controller shows under SCSI controllers. Why doesn't it show on this system?

I used the default BIOS settings for USB and ACPI. Can someone confirm which settings to use?

 

[Peter]

Standby doesn't work until all driver issues have been sorted. You're obviously missing the USB 2.0 driver. XP SP2 should have it; try clicking "Reinstall driver" on that "USB Controller" item.

 

[kaborka]

Good call, Peter. I did an "Update driver" on the marked USB controller, and XP recognized it as an "Enhanced USB controller". Now my thumbdrive workst at USB 2.0 speeds. Thanks! Dunno why the SP2 install didn't take care of it, but it's working now.

Any ideas about why Standby is disabled?

 

[Peter]

The board should at least support S1 sleep (powered). Does your XP installation use the ACPI HAL (see under "Computer" in Device Manager), and did you enable all relevant ACPI stuff in BIOS?

 

[kaborka]

The 'ACPI Uniprocessor PC' HAL is installed, and ACPI is enabled in the BIOS. There is a BIOS setting for 'ACPI Suspend Type' which has these choices:

[*]S3(STR) -- this was the BIOS default setting
[*]S1 & S3 -- I tried this setting, but no dice
[*]S1(POS) -- likewise, didn't help

I have no documentation on these options, but regardless of the settings, Standby is still disabled on the shutdown dialog.

 

[kaborka]

Update: I continued setting up Windows. I had already run the Dec Autopatcher (full) to apply most of the Windows updates. After I allowed XP's AutoUpdate to install the more recent patches, the Standby button magically became enabled. (Go figure!)

With the BIOS set to S1(POS), I can enter and return from Standby, but the PSU does not shut down, the fans are still running, including the CPU fan. The S3(STR) setting ("Suspend To Ram", I gather) does shut down the PSU, leaving the power button blinking. However, I was unable to completely return from standby. The PSU turns on when I press the power button, but the screen remains blank. I suspect this may be due to my temporary use of a SIS PCI video card that does not support S3 standby. Maybe I'll have better luck with a new AGP card. (My old spare nVidia TNT AGP card would not plug into this board.)

It would still help if someone who has this board can confirm that S3 standby will work. Also, the power-on hotkey, currently set to the default Ctrl-F1, does not work, either for return from Standby or for cold start. Does anyone have the hotkey working?

 

[cordless89]

Has anything been uncovered on this? I also have the problem of PC not waking up by anything other than power button. Mouse, hotkey or nothing else seems to wake this thing up. any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[kaborka]

No news. I submitted a query to ECS Tech support at www.ecs.com.tw, but haven't heard anything. With as many of these boards as Fry's and Outpost have sold, you'd think ECS would fix this in the BIOS.