Leadtek 7350KDA Results...it's going into storage for awhile.

[Insane3D]

Yeah, it seemed fine @ stock speeds. The only thing was I had issues with the floppy. I wasn't able to flash my bios from a floppy drive, I needed to get the LS 120 from my main rig to do it. I vaguely remember the ECS having issues with the floppy, but I don't know if it's related...

 

[NFS4]

<< Yeah, it seemed fine @ stock speeds. The only thing was I had issues with the floppy. I wasn't able to flash my bios from a floppy drive, I needed to get the LS 120 from my main rig to do it. I vaguely remember the ECS having issues with the floppy, but I don't know if it's related... >>


Yes, the ECS has problems with corrupting floppies in Win2k and WinXP. But I think it was fixed with a BIOS update (but still, how do you overlook something like that?:Q).

Anyway, AGodspeed pointed this out to me concerning the ECS K7S5A. This sounds EXACTLY like the problem I was having with the two SiS735 boards:

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2001nov/bch20011129009082.htm

 

[MisterNi]

This isn't good. I was looking to upgrade my K7S5A to a non Via solution. Looks like I'll have a wait a bit more for that to happen.

 

[Pabster]

Then wait 2-3 weeks for the ECS K7S6A. It will utilize the new SiS 745 chipset.

 

[AGodspeed]

Then wait 2-3 weeks for the ECS K7S6A. It will utilize the new SiS 745 chipset.

Really, is it really going to be out before the end of the year? That would be nice, as long as some tier one board makers are involved (I'd like Gigabyte, ASUS, etc. to play around with. Even ECS will do if they would use quality parts).

 

[Pabster]

The big names are scared. VIA threatens to increase chipset prices if they produce other boards utilizing SiS chipsets. Not legal, but it happens. I'm still a bit surprised that makers ala ASUS and ABIT don't jump on the SiS bandwagon though -- after all, when your mainboards sell for $50-$75 more than competitors' (with similiar or identical feature sets), you can afford an increase in chipset pricing

Of course, ASUS is producing a SiS 645 mainboard ...

 

[Floydian]

After buying a ECS k7s5a, I'll probably never buy an ECS board again, unless my options are extremely limited, and I'm ABSOLUTELY sure that it will work correctly.
My reasoning?

I have to solder on a tiny surface mount resistor to be able to use my 1.4ghz tbird 133 mhz bus instead of 1.05 ghz 100mhz bus..... if I run at 1.4 normally I get corruption errors like the plague, if I download anything its corrupted...

Thats just unacceptable, plus the fact that ECS is really helping the situation by saying that it has no problems, and it is Athlon XP approved, and nothing about problems with the original Athlon 1.33 and 1.4 ghz.

Sure, I bought it for 65 bux, but does selling boards cheap justify the motherboard manufacturer sending out error prone boards?
It could be argued, but IMO, thats not right :/

rant over, resume thread

 

[Soccerman]

well insane, the memory you're using is being overclocked, correct?

remember some of the latency scores for the SiS735 AFAIK, they're one of the lowest (I think lower latency than the KT266A in one or two situations), so that could be part of why u can't hit any higher than what u got.

also, u could have gotten a 'bad board' so to speak..

 

[Insane3D]

Here's the deal. I've decided to sit on the board for awhile. I'm not going to return it, I'll just throw it in my closet and wait for a few bios revisions and some faster DDR to become more mainstream. If the price comes down after the holidays, I may pick up some of that Kingmax Tiny BGA PC2700 (DDR333) with the 5ns modules. The memory performance will lack a bit from the KT266A, but if Kingmax is good, I might be able to run 200/200/33! I would love to see an Athlon run a 400mhz DDR FSB and as of now, this is the only board with the correct divisors.

 

[Bozo Galora]

Here is some information I ran into regarding the ECS K7S5A problem with the 1.4GHz Athlon I recieved.

You need the rev with the "XP" Sticker on the CPU Socket
The rev of board that has a little white sticker that says "XP" on or near the CPU socket is the rev that has
been validated by AMD. All previous revs of this board may give stability problems. Since ECS doesn't put
a rev number on the board, the only way to tell is by the little "XP" sticker. - by AMD GUY

perhaps same with Leadtek?

 

[NFS4]

<< Here is some information I ran into regarding the ECS K7S5A problem with the 1.4GHz Athlon I recieved.

You need the rev with the "XP" Sticker on the CPU Socket
The rev of board that has a little white sticker that says "XP" on or near the CPU socket is the rev that has
been validated by AMD. All previous revs of this board may give stability problems. Since ECS doesn't put
a rev number on the board, the only way to tell is by the little "XP" sticker. - by AMD GUY

perhaps same with Leadtek? >>


Check out this thread for ECS instability:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=641456

 

[gogeeta13]

<<

<< Here is some information I ran into regarding the ECS K7S5A problem with the 1.4GHz Athlon I recieved.

You need the rev with the "XP" Sticker on the CPU Socket
The rev of board that has a little white sticker that says "XP" on or near the CPU socket is the rev that has
been validated by AMD. All previous revs of this board may give stability problems. Since ECS doesn't put
a rev number on the board, the only way to tell is by the little "XP" sticker. - by AMD GUY

perhaps same with Leadtek? >>


Either way, it is still inexcusable. You need one with XP optimizations to run a 1.4 THUNDERBIRD stably? Something sounds fishy at ECS. >>



No way, I have one of the first boards that shipped out, it is perfect. Runs my tbird 850, and tbird 1.33 flawlessly. I run it with a 300watt psu, some generic pos one. I have also set up 8-10 other rigs with them, all on crappy PSUs with 1-1.4 tbirds. Some with DDR some, sdr. All the boards were ordered at different times, and none had the XP sticker. I swear it is just user error that would casue all these probs. Now I know there may be some lemons, but a 50% RMA rate is not correct.

While I will admit I was careful with the board(on the first one I got, I noticed the traces close to screw holes, so I put red-cardboard washers on top's and bottom of all holes except one that free of traces(this was for grounding purposes)..

Back on topic:
I would be willing to best this board that Insane has is one of the first 500-1k off the production line, and I am not joking.

It can be expected that there could be problems. You also have to realize that the way the 735 is designed is uncharted territory for the most part, I am sure leadtek has had just as much trouble designing a good layout as ECS/PcChips did.

NFS4:
You are always assuming things about products, wait and see before you jump. All assume does is make an ass of assUandME

And just to see if I am not just lucky. Pabster, how many bad boards have you had(if any)?

 

[Pabster]

gogeeta13 wrote:

"And just to see if I am not just lucky. Pabster, how many bad boards have you had(if any)?"

Out of 20+ now (all revisions, including the latest Rev 6) absolutely none. Each and every board has been rock solid and ran without a hitch -- whether it be a cheap Duron with PC133 or the latest 1900+ XP with 1GB of PC2100. No issues whatsoever.

I still believe that the vast, vast majority of people having trouble are newbies. The rest likely received a bad board. That is the same for any mainboard.

 

[NFS4]

<< NFS4:
You are always assuming things about products, wait and see before you jump. All assume does is make an ass of assUandME

And just to see if I am not just lucky. Pabster, how many bad boards have you had(if any)? >>


Where do you get ALWAYS from? The ECS board is the only hardware product I have had that I can think of that I have voiced this much displeasure for. So I don't see where you get always from. I have never been this upset with a mobo in all my life

And the ChipGeek article confirms the problems that I was having along with many other people. I was somewhat amazed that the EXACT problems that I had were detailed in that article.

And many have had to disable ACPI to get the board running stable. I find that inexcusable. But that's just my opinion as my sig states

 

[gogeeta13]

<<

<< NFS4:
You are always assuming things about products, wait and see before you jump. All assume does is make an ass of assUandME

And just to see if I am not just lucky. Pabster, how many bad boards have you had(if any)? >>


Where do you get ALWAYS from? The ECS board is the only hardware product I have had that I can think of that I have voiced this much displeasure for. So I don't see where you get always from. I have never been this upset with a mobo in all my life

And the ChipGeek article confirms the problems that I was having along with many other people. I was somewhat amazed that the EXACT problems that I had were detailed in that article.

And many have had to disable ACPI to get the board running stable. I find that inexcusable. But that's just my opinion as my sig states >>



Always could have beent he wrong word..regardless..

After you had your problems with the lemon or a board, you have been shooting down every Sis/ecs product you can find, I think that is is wrong to assume that Sis is so bad. I remember the same nfs4 as happy as a little boy with a new train set when you first ordered it, because you were sick of the Via southbridge crap. So now, after one bad expirience, you have a grunge that projects a negative image on both Sis and ECS. I don't want this to be a personal attack, because I do value your opnions at a high standard, just not this particular one.

I am just saying, you should not apply the problems you had with your ECS to the leadtek,


<< I was just sitting back and laughing to myself (I know, I'm evil) when I first saw this thread b/c I KNEW that it would end up this way. I'm sorry that you had problems with the board, but after my experiences with the chipset, I didn't think that you WOULD have a positive outcome. >>



See what I mean? You are applying the ECS problems to the Sis735. Even though I have had perfect success with close to 10 other Sis635 ECS boards, I do know that these k7s5a may have had a higher than average "lemon count." Just like the kt266 was a great chipset, the via southbridge brought it down. I think the same applies to the ECS.

/me wants to keep the peace

EDIT:had to close the quote