ECS k7S5A

[kritical]

bought one of these for the computer me and my friend are building. We are computer animation majors and are dorm roomates so we share the same computer. Anyway, I bougt this board because it was very cheap and I read a lot of great things about it. But today I started reading posts on several ECS forums and see that a lot of people are having problems with this board and that many aren't recommending it for hardcore usage. Well, me and my roomate will be doing a lot of rendering, animation, and using memory intensive applications. Did I make the wrong choice in buying this board? I am a little worried now that I see a lot of problems people are having. These are the parts I bought
ECS K7S5A motherboard
AthlonXP 1600
Crucial 512 DDR memory
MSI Geforce3 TI200
Do you guys think this will be a great machine for animation and rendering in programs specifically in Maya or did I make the wrong choice on the motherboard? Please help me out. Thanks in advance.

 

[HappyPuppy]

Some people have had problems with this board. The vast majority have not. A lot of the problems came from novice builders who jumped on an inexpensive board. The K7S5A can be a little touchy to get up and running but the performance and stability coupled with the price make it a damn good board.

IMO

 

[Pabster]

Reiterating what HappyPuppy mentioned - The low price point of the K7S5A has brought a lot of newbies out, to build their first rig. Unfortunately, with that comes inexperience. I've seen people trying to use their old 200-230w power supplies from an old machine, people attempting to use old Socket 7 and Socket 370 HS/F assemblies, etc. Mostly elementary mistakes which often cause the wide array of issues reported. Sure, some people just get "bad" boards. But I wouldn't get too concerned.

The main problems are:

• Inadequate Power Supplies. Don't attempt to carry-over your old generic 200 watt special to this board. A decent 300W ought to suffice, but larger won't hurt any
  
• Improper Memory / Configuration. Some people report the board "picky" about RAM. That has never been my experience. But keep in mind K7S5A supports both PC133 SDRAM as well as DDR SDRAM. I've seen people attempt to use both, and wonder why they aren't POSTing. Also, the board has a maximum RAM capacity of 1GB. Don't try to stick two 1GB modules in. It won't work
  
• Failure To Set Jumpers. You've got to clear the CMOS, for example. Especially if you switch CPUs or change RAM types. Common mistake. Also, don't turn on KB Power On unless you really use it. Some people report issues with this feature turned "ON", although I've yet to experience any trouble with it.
  
• Improper Seating of AGP/PCI cards / RAM modules. New boards can be "tight" ... Some people "gingerly" put their cards and RAM in, and don't get them fully (and properly) seated. This can cause "NO POST" issues. First thing to check if anything goes wrong.
  

Other than that, just avoid the other common mistakes -- forgetting to hook up the fan for your heatsink; grounding the board to the case by using too many standoffs, or having one where it ought not be; not checking your power supply and it is set for 220V; improper polarity of terminals (for case connectors, et al.) Just take your time.

 

[foofoo]

some significant number of non-newbies have also had problems with this board. i am one of those. price/performance is great with this board, if it works! if you run into problems after taking the basic precautions that pabster mentions, try the ocworkbench.com forum, especially the faq section. if you cant get it to be stable, even with the tips there, rma it and hope for a better one next time. personally i gave up after 2 bad k7s5a mbs and the exact same components are running perfectly in my shuttle ak31a. but that's just me, plenty of other people have had good luck with this board.

 

[RossGr]

<< Some people have had problems with this board. The vast majority have not. A lot of the problems came from novice builders who jumped on an inexpensive board. >>



Also a lot of problems were caused by flakey boards, I have had nearly the exact experiance as Foofoo. Only I did not try a 2nd ECS board, went stright to the Shuttle. The same components and even the same Windows 98SE installation have been running great ever since I dumped the ECS board.

BTW: The ECS board ran fine for about 3 weeks then began to hang up randomly, finally refused to POST.

 

[NFS4]

<<

<< Some people have had problems with this board. The vast majority have not. A lot of the problems came from novice builders who jumped on an inexpensive board. >>



Also a lot of problems were caused by flakey boards, I have had nearly the exact experiance as Foofoo. Only I did not try a 2nd ECS board, went stright to the Shuttle. The same components and even the same Windows 98SE installation have been running great ever since I dumped the ECS board.

BTW: The ECS board ran fine for about 3 weeks then began to hang up randomly, finally refused to POST. >>


I also went straight to the Shuttlle AK31 Rev 3.1 from the ECS K7S5A. I had many random problems with the ECS board and did not feel like troubleshooting everyday.

 

[mechsiah]

I have built 4 computers using these boards with only one tragedy. www.ocworkbench.com has one of the most detailed FAQs on the ECS K7S5A I have seen in any forum. If you can afford it, I would recommend spending the extra $40 for a KT266a board with your current configuration, especially if this is your only machine.

This board is touchy, especially with higher end systems. I built 3 with the Mushkin 512 (that was a swet deal) and 1600+s, but one kept throwing memtest errors and soon became useless. It had no problem running a duron 900, though. In spite of numerous tweaks I just had to put a bullet in its brain. The other two showed no errors. The last one I built was that duron I mentioned and it had no problems.

I'm sure it will be fine, but $40 buys a lot of peace of mind. Good luck!

 

[dhomeworld]

I have built over ten machines with this board, and the only real problem I had was the USB being bad on one. Since you are using an Athlon XP, you should update the boards bios. Even though the one you have probably supports an Athlon XP, only the latest is problem free with Windows XP and an Athlon XP.

-- dh -- Jay -- Assistant Manager of the Cobb County FCS Store
www.buyfcs.com - Atlanta, GA's Custom PC Specialists

 

[Duvie]

I agree if you are a bit tech savvy go with the ecs otherwise save us here the headache and the whining and get a stabile kt266a board. However since those are via boards no guarantees there either..hehehe

I have built a few of these with no issues to date...other then a bad cmos battery...

 

[kritical]

"BTW: The ECS board ran fine for about 3 weeks then began to hang up randomly, finally refused to POST. "

See guys, thats what I'm worried about. And no I can't just go spend an extra $40 since I already ordered the board a week ago. I'm getting real worried cause my roomate is giving in a lot of money so I can build a stable computer for use with Maya. Should I just return the ECS board and what is a real stable board under $100 I can get?

 

[Motero]

You could get an Epox 8K7A from Newegg for $99 free shipping.

Or the Epox 8kHA for $91 shipped from newegg.

Both great and solid motherboards.

 

[RSI]

<< "BTW: The ECS board ran fine for about 3 weeks then began to hang up randomly, finally refused to POST. "

See guys, thats what I'm worried about. And no I can't just go spend an extra $40 since I already ordered the board a week ago. I'm getting real worried cause my roomate is giving in a lot of money so I can build a stable computer for use with Maya. Should I just return the ECS board and what is a real stable board under $100 I can get? >>

I am replying to your message from my main computer at home which runs on a K7S5A motherboard, no BIOS updates here. I run a Tbird 1.3 w/256MB PC133, 20GB Quantum LM, a couple CD drives (burner and regular), PCI NIC, PCI SBLive, PCI Supra, AGP S540 (POS) - everything works fine. I had problems with sound when I had EVERYTHING on PCI, but other than that, the board is 100% functional and 100% stable - never a crash.

Hope that reassures you at least a little.

-RSI

 

[johndoe52]

Mine works beautifully. No motherboard problems yet. Not too happy with the tweaking options but this isn't going to be my main rig.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

Mine is the most trouble-free motherboard I've ever had.