ECS k7s5a - is this a good mobo?

[Zarick]

I have an asus a7v133. Im so tired of the problem Ive been having. I freeze randomly in games with 512 ram. I have problems with my sblive and scratchy sound. I've had usb problems. So I'm thinking its time for a new mobo. Our local frys is selling the ecs k7s5a with a xp1800 proc for 120 bucks. I thought that would be a nice board since it has 2 ddr slots. I have pc133 and cant afford to add 512 DDR right now. So I would still be able to use my pc133 with it.

Opinions?

 

[Macro2]

I continue to be impressed with this board. Everything works. Only bad thing is the analog CD rom cable connector on the mobo is in a bad place. Sound needs amplification of course. LAN works great. One stick of ram is better than 2. Not a stock OC board but other than that a great board for the money.

Mac

 

[Zarick]

Im reading that people are saying your powersupply has to put out 3.3v with 28amps or it wont work?

 

[BurnItDwn]

I like the K7S5A, its a great board for the money.

I used this board for a PC i built for a friend as well as for a replacement board for my bros PC (he ran into some probs with an abit kt133 board) ... so far there have been no problems, and one was even a refurb

 

[IgoByte]

It's a great board for the money, but I'm a little disapointed with its layout. Not the best for smaller cases. Otherwise, it's cheap & solid.

 

[Ilmater]

I will say that I love this board, but I can't speak on whether or not it needs that kind of amperage. I have a 435W Enermax that I LOVE, and I'm sure it meets any power requirements.

However, when I upgraded to this board (just last weekend) I had to get a new case as well, and while I did not want a PS, I found the perfect case (lots of room for fans and hard drives) with a PS. So, as my friend was over and wanted to LAN with Warcraft III for awhile, I just went with the PS it came with. It was a cheap 350W PS from Turbolink that puts out 24A on the 3.3+V line. It ran for 6 hours without a problem. However, with my proc at full load, all 5 case fans, 5 hard drives, a burner and the HSF, I was taxing it quite a bit. The power supply got quite hot, so I decided that it was best to switch them out before I ran into problems. Therefore, I can attest to the fact that at least one K7S5A will run with a smaller PS. In fact, now that I think about it, I put together a system for a friend a year or so ago and he had a cheap PS with his. It's been running fine ever since. He has absolutely no complaints. Maybe some don't work so well, but I would bet that the rev 3 boards will run fine.

 

[amdskip]

Nothing too good for overclocking wise but it's cool because you can us PC133 or DDR and it supports all the new processors thus far. I've had one dead out of like 10 but thats to be expected because of the quantity of these boards ECS is kicking out.

 

[newbiepcuser]

Cheap and it works. The one I built 8 months ago is still running for my in laws.

 

[DeRusto]

Can't really get a better board for the money, this thing is very respectable

 

[Natej]

I've built five with this board they all work good.

 

[Tarmouth]

This board has become a staple at the shop i work in. Out of the past 24 we've sold only one was bad

 

[pdo]

I running this board along with an XP1600+ at 150FSB and it's been very solid. I also have the Gigabyte GA-7VRXP but I like this board better.

 

[nikko]

I actually just bought this board and so far I can't get it to work. I can't for the life of me figure out which of my case LED/Power Switch connectors go with which pins on the mobo. Anyone know of a site that has a pic detailing where everything goes? I don't need a diagram, the manual that came with my board has one that's not been to helpful.

 

[DeschutesCore]

Just like tarmouth's shop, ours uses the K7S5A in numerous builds. 3 of our 8 preconfigured machines come with K7S5A and it's a popular replacement for failing socket A systems. We use fairly standard 300 Watt supplies and have had no power issues, even loaded with burned / dvd / Ti4200 / and 2 80 GB drives. It's a good choice.

DC

 

[Tarmouth]

Originally posted by: DeschutesCore
Just like tarmouth's shop, ours uses the K7S5A in numerous builds. 3 of our 8 preconfigured machines come with K7S5A and it's a popular replacement for failing socket A systems. We use fairly standard 300 Watt supplies and have had no power issues, even loaded with burned / dvd / Ti4200 / and 2 80 GB drives. It's a good choice.

DC

Actually nikkos right the diagram for the switches and led's leaves alot to be desired, if I remember correctly one of the ecs boards actually shows 3 pins for the power switch lol

 

[pdo]

Originally posted by: nikko
I actually just bought this board and so far I can't get it to work. I can't for the life of me figure out which of my case LED/Power Switch connectors go with which pins on the mobo. Anyone know of a site that has a pic detailing where everything goes? I don't need a diagram, the manual that came with my board has one that's not been to helpful.

this board came with the clear CMOS jumper settings. You need to the jumper to second and third pins in order for it to work. Don't know why ECS does it like that..

 

[JackBurton]

I LOVE this board! Damn, for $55 it is a steal! HOWEVER, do NOT use two sticks of SDRAM! I had two 256MB stick of Crucial PC133 CAS2 memory running at CAS3 and it was giving me constant lock ups. Once I took on stick out everything has been ROCK SOLID ever since. You shouldn't have a problem with two sticks of DDR memory though.

 

[osage]

I have had several for quite some time, I've used a wide range of PSUs with good sucess, I have used 2 sticks of PC133 as well as 2 sticks of DDR without issues. not at the same time of course. Duron, T-birds, and XPs all work great.

good board for the money, not an OC board.

 

[pISSANt]

I have had mine for ~ 6 months now and it has been rock stable. I had an abit kt7-raid before, and thought it was stable, but after trying this board there is absolutely no comparison. I unfortunatly have an SBlive and it was giving me fits with my old board, with this board I have no problems. I also recently built a computer for work with k7s5a and after figuring out that the pins were mislabled for the on/off switch, the board has had no problems. I have no problems recommending this board.

 

[MGMorden]

I'm running one of these boards in my Windows system. It's a pretty decent deal (I already had a Socket A board and just got this one when I wanted to go to DDR ram). It's not given me any trouble (trouble I've had with Via-based boards in the past) and was cheap as heck. It's running much better than one of my friends' Leadtek board (also has the SIS 735). As long as you're a little patient this board should last you no problem until Hammer+SerialATA becomes the thing and then we'll all need new boards.

 

[Frodo301]

I don't think anyone has covered just how rock solid stable this board is. I've been using mine for about a year now with a dual boot of Win 98se and Win XP Pro. My box runs 24hrs a day in XP, chugs right on along without problem. Reminds me of another classic board I love, the Abit BX chipset based BH6. For the price it's a steal, and the best bargain going for your $$$.

 

[Slogun]

Originally posted by: nikko
I actually just bought this board and so far I can't get it to work. I can't for the life of me figure out which of my case LED/Power Switch connectors go with which pins on the mobo. Anyone know of a site that has a pic detailing where everything goes? I don't need a diagram, the manual that came with my board has one that's not been to helpful.

I just went to the ECS site and looked at the manual
(http://www.ecsusa.com/ecsusa/www.ecs.com.tw/download/manual_k7s.htm)
LED/Power Switch connectors are not hard to do. Power Switch connectors polarity makes no difference and for the LEDs, if you know which two pins they go on and it doesn't work, just reverse them.

You can also search this forum for a wealth of info on this board:

http://forum.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000697

 

[RanDum72]

Once you get this board to boot up and run continuously for several days straight without incident, then you should be fine.

 

[ljohn]

I dont think you should get this board. I have had mine for about 3 months now and I just bought a epox board to replace this. this board is so screwy. had trouble from the get go i believe. the problem is that it wont boot after you turn it off. the power cycles through the system but it wont post. every time I turn it off i have to turn it on and off on and off, pray ,bang on the motherboard ,etc and after like 10 -20 times of doing this it works. it is not fun. I would never buy a ecs board again. go to the ocworkbench.com forum and look under ecs boards. there are tons of ppl on there that have the same problem. when its on its cool no freezes at all. but I dont oc or nothing like that . once you turn off the power it goes to hell and I cant get it to start for a while. not fun at all. but if you get a good board then it may be worth it. but for me I'd spend a liittle more money and get something that will start when I turn it on.

 

[Rainsford]

Great board, I love mine, especially since I'm too poor to afford DDR memory at the moment. I'm running a lot of stuff off of the board (including 2 sticks of SDR, two different 256 sticks with two different brands) on a 300 watt Antec that puts out 14 A on the 3.3 V line and it works fine for me, no lockups at all. And according to Anand this board is within about 10% of a KT333 board performance wise. It's a great deal for the money, especially if you want to use SDR now and maybe get some DDR later.