ECS K7S5A What is the truth?

[DCZX]

Hello,

I've been in a debate on another thread about this mb and I've decided it's time to start a new thread. I purchased this motherboard about 30 days ago with an athlon xp 1800+ and have experienced a lot of problems. While I have it "running" now, it is not running like it supposed it.

Are these real problems with this board? I am beginning to expect that they are VERY common, at least in revision 1.x of this board, which is apparently still sold. I don't think it is just a few random boards that have these problems but a great amount:

I. You cannot use two PC133 dimms in the slots at once.

Doing so leads to crashes in intensive 3D applications, etc. I have tried using 2 Kingston 128 meg simms and it crashes. Using one fixes the problem. I'm currently using one 256 meg PNY stick with no problems, to speak of. The problem is, however, that I could have a 256 + a 128 and I can't, because when I try, I experience the crashes again. Why did ECS claim the board supports it when it doesn't?

II. The "disappearing CMOS" problem.

It would appear a lot of people experience this. I tried a stick of simpletech DDR memory from Costco and this problem manifested itself. I also had times when nothing would boot up, no mb beeps, just my hd's and case fans turning on. Using the PNY simm fixed this. However, it was a problem. Perhaps using the recommended brands of ram fixes this, or maybe crucial ram.

III. ECS's website is terrible.

Goto: http://www.ecs.com.tw/ click on "support" or "faq". Both are "under construction". The only thing available is drivers and mb manuals. No mention of these common problems or their solutions. Try the US website: http://www.ecsusa.com/support.cfm I couldn't find any relevant support of FAQ's there either. I emailed them yesterday and am waiting for a response.

How common are these problems? Search this message board for K7S5A. Look here: http://pub65.ezboard.com/bk7s5amotherboardforum

I don't mean to make anyone mad here (or maybe I do?). I just want people to know there are problems with this board and I want to know if there are solutions. If anyone knows the answers to these PLEASE post them! I'll write an FAQ. I just want this thing to work! I'm using a 400W power supply, btw, and I don't think it's the problem.

 

[Buz2b]

Man, you are a "piece of work". However, let me save you some additional work. There already is a comprehensive FAQ on this board over at the OC Workbench ECS Forum.
I will, since you and I have been round and round about this before, keep my responses to a minimum. :Q
As to #2, do ya think that using recommended parts is a wrong thing to do??? If you want to use cheapo RAM, then find a board that recommends it.
And for #3, Show me a manufacturers website that is not problematic. Have you visited the MSI site lately? ASUS? Chaintech, PC CHIPS? Epox was not bad the other day but I think you can see that having a problematic website does not make for a BS product.
By the way,

I don't mean to make anyone mad here (or maybe I do?).

Be careful, there may be rules against this, unless of course you are in the OT forum.

 

[DCZX]

Really, the only people I would like to make mad are ECS so they would better support their board. I will try this post on the OCworkbench forum too.

edit: btw, I checked that faq and didn't find any answers to my 3 questions

 

[Peter]

Their FAQ section was pretty good before they switched to a new web site layout. It'll come back soon I guess.

And true, the Athlon and P4 chipsets push harder on the DIMMs than older chipsets did, so you won't be the first to find that (a) your old DIMM you thought is perfectly good isn't, and (b) newly bought DIMMs often aren't OK either.

regards, Peter

 

[aircooled]

I've never had a problem with 2 sticks of pc133 sdram (even though I recommend DDR strictly for performance reasons).

I've never had this "disapearing cmos" problem you speak of.

The ECS website may not be the greatest, but there is plenty of support from regular users at sites like this and OC Workbench as stated previously

 

[CoDerEd]

I never has an ECS before but whenever I build computer for a friend
I always use K7S5A w/Athlon XP that's my favorite pair.
I never has a single problem.. well the truth is, i try to avoid the
problem as much as i can by using recomended PSU only and also using
DDR from Crucial. that's the only stick i trust to go with an ECS board.
also i never OC the setup since i'm not gonna use it, well there is not
much feature of OC on the K7S5A too.

pEace

 

[Buz2b]

I never has an ECS before but whenever I build computer for a friend
I always use K7S5A w/Athlon XP that's my favorite pair.
I never has a single problem.. well the truth is, i try to avoid the
problem as much as i can by using recomended PSU only and also using
DDR from Crucial. that's the only stick i trust to go with an ECS board.
also i never OC the setup since i'm not gonna use it, well there is not
much feature of OC on the K7S5A too.

pEace

I know I promised to keep my responses to a minimum but you (DCZX) don't have your PM's enabled. Lacking that, I quote Mr./Ms. CoDerEd as an excellent example of responsible system building. Thank you for your post.
(And I AM NOT accusing anyone else of NOT being responsible, so don't go there)

 

[ku]

I never had problems with 2 pc133 sticks (had to use it when my ddr one died). I dunno about the disappearing cmos problem cuz it never happend to me. But hey, for less than $60, what can you say.

 

[FuManStan]

I just picked up a K7S5A and 1800+ as well and havent seen any of the problems you mention. I had some power supply issues at first, but i expected it since i was using an old power supply and was just hoping that it would work. Picked up a new one at Fry's and my system is working just fine. I'm using 2 sticks of PC133 256 MB SDRAM and i'm not having any problems at all.

 

[Copperpipe]

My K7S5A's are only teamed up with lowly 1 ghz and 900 mhz Tbirds, but I've never had any problem with mixing PC133s of different capacities and make. I've had 256 MB PC133 Kingston teamed with 128 MB PC133 PNY/CompUSA as well as a pair of 256 MB PC133 Kingstons...all running at CAS2 and fastest timings.

As for lost CMOS problem, I only lost the CMOS settings after I started running chfsb to overclock the FSB (that was my fault).

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones who haven't had any problems...but then it could be because my CPUs are slower.

 

[mpbruin108]

I have a k7s5a and Xp CPU and have had no problems with this combination with any type of ram (pc133 or ddr). I'm building three more this weekend because it has been stable thus far. Maybe it is because I got a enermax ps. Maybe its just cuz my ram is corsair or micron/crucial. The thing is, even though this combo of MB and CPU proves to be cheap (money wise), you should try to save yourself a headache by getting higher quality components...but I'm sure we all know that right?

I have a question. Does anyone know if this motherboard can handle registered ECC ram? I accidentally bought pc2100 ecc ram from some guy from amazon and when I found out it was ECC, he already sent it. Thanks in advance for helping me figure this out. I couldn't find the answer on the ECS website.

 

[junthin]

mpbruin108: Interested in trading that ECC ram for some non-ECC ram? LMK, thanks!

 

[tohlya]

I have two rigs with the K7S5A and PC100/PC133 and PC133/PC133 combo no problems whatsover.

 

[Regalk]

In the days when there was no competition for ECS I would have just whined a bit. Why in the heck do people keep buying this board when the Asus A7S333 and the MSI 745Ultra are out now is beyond me. I used the ECS board (3 of them which were all crap) and now am using the A7S333 which is a breath of fresh air for this chipset. Now why did I stop by when capable guys such Buzzb are still supporting it!!!!Smack myself.

 

[Buz2b]

Regalk, what took you so long to get to this thread for your usual attack? BTW, maybe people are still buying this board because it is much less expensive than others and still offers a good price/performance ratio. Gee, ya think?!?(Smacks his head)

mpbruin108, using ECC has always been a crapshoot with this board as it does not officially support it. However, there have been times where it has worked just fine. Hit and miss though.

 

[joe4324]

www.ocworkbench.com is were its at, they have the best ECS forum i know of on the net, you should find what you need there.


I have built 15+ (probably 20) systems with this mobo, Mostly older rev 1's, I've had virtually no "real" problems. and havent had to RMA one of them yet. (most were bought from newegg and at computer shows) I try to stick with using only Crucial ram although prices have sky rocketed in the last few months so I have bought and used a few budget chips (with complete sucess, so far) For a while with older bios releases it seemed that 1.4 tbirds had some trouble running at 133/133 so the first few systems I avoided them infavor of 1.33s when the late '01 bios came out people seemed to have much more sucess with 1.4's but I was using xp1600's by then.

My biggest gripe out of anything about this board is the dismal installation cd. Its pretty un-intutive and I can see were some truly new system builders might have to spend a few extra minutes tracking down the lan drivers or something.

The thing that people need to understand about this board is that 1, its geared towards the system integrator crowd. not the enthusiast's, it doesnt have l33T oc features or agp pro slots or anything. So right off the bat its not the easiest board to work with for the new system builder. 2, Because of the price it attracted hundreds of thousands of new people into building there own systems, or upgrading old ones. Because of this alot of the bad rep this board got was from people who were making mistakes. This is not to say the boards were perfect. but there was ALOT of user error. I seen it everyday on this board. People screaming about how crappy the board was then you find out they were using a 200watt ps they ganked from an E-machine...

This is by FAR the best selling motherboard of all time. I forgot the exact numbers but they've shipped "Millions" of them. How many people do you see comming and saying how awesome this board is? not many your happy it works, But when you have a problem where is the first places you go? to a forum to find help. So of course you will see ALOT of peole with problems. BECAUSE THERE ARE MILLIONS OF USERS!, not a couple hundred thousand or so for most other boards.

 

[Peter]

Well said ... you're not going to find too many healthy people in a doctor's waiting room, are you?

 

[Spamela]

my K7S5A is equipped with 2 sticks of 256MB crucial PC133 cl2 ram & i've had absolutely no problems - no crashes, no disappearing cmos, no boot problems, nada.

 

[DCZX]

Okay, two questions to the people having no problems,

1. What revision is your motherboard? (I think it's printed on it)

2. Do you use your computer for high intensity 3D games, etc.?

With the 2 sticks of ram, my computer runs fine, until I try to play any game, after which it crashes after about 5 minutes. 1 stick, no problem.

The way I see it, I don't care who this board is made for, when I pay for a product, I expect it to work the way it is intended. I want you all to know that using the holy "recommended" ram only applies to DDR. The manual does not list any recommended PC133 ram, so I would assume I could use 2 sticks of PNY or kingston if I wanted, but it doesn't work. That is why I'm annoyed with this mb, because it gives no indication that this ram won't work. I don't think PNY qualifies as "cheap" "generic" ram, and even if it does, there is no recommended alternative besides DDR.

 

[mpbruin108]

My version is 3.0a and i play lots of 3d intensive games. I haven't had a problem. I don't even want to get into a debate as to what could be wrong and what not. Sorry you have been having trouble with the board. I still think nonetheless that there is more good than bad with this board.

 

[TheWart]

my board is revision 1.0 and running fine with a tbird 1.4 512 PNY DDR. try the U.S. version of the ECS website which was working 1 minute ago (bios download area at least), but i have to concur that the best website for this board is OCWorkbench.

 

[Regalk]

After reading Joe### stuff I have to admit that he has a point there ... as a value based board. Maybe the guys over at OCworkbench who found real TECHNICAL problems with the board (and were henceforth kicked off the forum for rocking the boat over there) were all wrong (the first rev that is).
Unfortunately I am not in this market segment so no ECS, PCchips or whatever they call themselves is going to grace my setup.

 

[Buz2b]

Maybe the guys over at OCworkbench who found real TECHNICAL problems with the board (and were henceforth kicked off the forum for rocking the boat over there) were all wrong (the first rev that is).

Gee, I was almost teary eyed guy. NOT! Give it a break! I'm sure it was another "vast right wing conspiracy" that kicked all those poor users off a public forum. Or gee, perhaps they were spreading crap that they couldn't back up which is called irresponsible by most standards and were asked to stop. It could happen here too.
You know, sometimes I wonder why I even bother to respond to the likes of this. Others have asked me also. I guess I just hate it when people try to spread garbage and pretend it is gospel.
Wow, I feel better now; don't you??

I'll stay out of this untill more male bovine fecal matter surfaces.

 

[Ronzon]

Our shop has built well over 40 systems with this board. Sold many to individual system builders. Only ONE has come back because he was trying to use a 250w ATX power supply. Incidentally I myself have the K7S5A (early revision) in my home system and it had the disappearing CMOS at startup problem using the Antec 303x PS (foolishly running 3 CDROMS and 3 HDs with all PCI slots maxed out). Upgrading to a TTGI 420w supply fixed the problem completely.

Lesson: great inexpensive board, but you NEED a solid well-built PS with a high TCO rating.

 

[DCZX]

I'll stay out of this untill more male bovine fecal matter surfaces.

Well, as long as noone posts pictures of this mb, we should be okay.

just kidding!

I'm growing to like this mb, as much as I hate it.