My final farwell to KS75A . . .BUT WAIT !

desy

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2000
5,442
212
106
Unfortunatley I had one of those Rev 4 boards and all the classic problems , Cmos resets, chronic instability, drivers failing to load, floppy corruption and so on.
I tried putting heatsink compound on the chipset and went just short of soldering a 200 ohm resistor onto the ZP resistor.
So I have given up and am paying the restocking fee and getting the epox board.
I've done bois upgrades and set the memory timings to normal reseated the ram, the video, made sure I had good power, sigh. . .
It wasn't a fancy setup Athlon 1.2, 256 MB of DDR, Geforce MX 200 32 mb video, 30 gig quantum, samsung CD, and a creative modem.
Just never knew which machine you were going to get when you booted it up.
So I'm not intending to bash this board just p1ssed I couldn't get it to run with what it had .. .
Sure I coulda bought an XP processor for it and it mighta fixed it but I'm tired of playing with it, finally.
My wife pushed me to give it up months ago but I persevered hoping to find the magic solution cause I hated to give up considering all the useful information
found here on troublshooting the little beast.
Hello epox!

 

Budman

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
10,980
0
0
That's funny, I have a rev 4 board & it's runing fine.

What power supply were you using ? Amd aproved I hope. what bios ver did you try?
 

AA0

Golden Member
Sep 5, 2001
1,422
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0
always better to pay for the better board ahead of time, pay more for the quality, pay less for shipping it back.
 

gogeeta13

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2000
5,721
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I have k7s5a in my LAN box from rev1. I have built 20+ machines using all the other revs, all fine.

As I always say, if you are having probs, then you are an incompetent system builder(but I will give nfs4 the benefit of the doubt..).

If you hate it so much, send it to me, I will pay you, It will work fine for me, cause I know what I am doing:D
 

desy

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2000
5,442
212
106
Yeah I got 400W Macron power and did dl the January bios from the ECS site to boot. . .
I expected some compatability problems when I bought cause hey its a new chipset but nothing like the stability probs I had.
Cest La Vis. . .
So all in all it didn't cost me a fortune on restocking. I bought it as a cheap build for somebody else and had the probs right from the get go with a 950 Duron so
I got him an FIC mb for stability and took it on myself. Normally I stick to boards I know but the price and performance was too tempting.
 

NaughtyusMaximus

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
3,220
0
0
Sounds like you just got a bad board to me. Either that, or something else in your rig wasn't compatable. It seems to me that people who don't have problems with the K7S5A don't ever have problems (no matter how many builds with the board they do), but people who do have problems have them right off (on their first board)...
 

SonicTron

Senior member
Oct 20, 2001
988
0
76
I got what seems to be a revision 0 board (only thing on the board is a sticker at the bottom left that says "0") and it works great. I'm using a crappy 250W deer power supply that I've had for 2 years, running a 16x dvd, 24x cdrw, 30GB 7200 IBM, 40GB 7200 WD, geforce2mx, duron 800@933........etc blah blah anyways my system is basically crammed. No power problems. No stability problems AT ALL. EVER. I've had this system going for 1 week+ before rebooting, and reboots were for software or hardware changes. You musta got ripped a new one with your board, I'd buy another one if I had the $$$.
 

Insane3D

Elite Member
May 24, 2000
19,446
0
0
It's been awhile since I had my ECS, but if I remember correctly, they had an incompatibility with those Creative modems. Did you try it without the Creative modem?
 

foofoo

Golden Member
Mar 5, 2001
1,344
0
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<< As I always say, if you are having probs, then you are an incompetent system builder(but I will give nfs4 the benefit of the doubt..). >>




<< If you hate it so much, send it to me, I will pay you, It will work fine for me, cause I know what I am doing >>



hmmm, interesting comment.
the implication of your first statement is that there are no bad boards, only incompetent people.
the implication ofyour second suggestion is that you are way too impressed with yourself.
adressing the first comment. this is definitely not the case, i had 2 verified bad ecs k7s5a boards as have other people i know
in many situations, it's much more cost efffective and simpler to spend a few 10s of dollars more for another board than to try to work with one that displays instability and takes a lot of effort to troubleshoot (with the added probablilty that any future configuration changes will also introduce stability problems)
good move desy, you'll be much happier
 

Adul

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
32,999
44
91
danny.tangtam.com
I still wouldn't trust it. Enough people have bitched about ECS to sour me on it.

Googeeta don't be so quit to judge someone because they couldnt get an ECS MB to work. Now if he comes back with issue on the epox I would question is ability. But at this point he seems to have done what he can do.
 

Crassus

Member
Oct 21, 2001
171
0
0
IMHO the ECS K7S5A is a board for people who both have time and knowledge on their hands or plug next to nothing into it.
If it doesn't work, send it back. After all, its just a mainboard, not your wife :)
 

JKYamamoto

Member
Oct 9, 1999
32
0
0
Your not the only one to have problems with this board. I had posted in The Hot Deals section last month about my problems with this board. I've built who knows how many systems since the 286 days. Following is my story with the board.

Friday, January 25, 2002 12:48 AM

I bought this same combo ECS K7S5a and Duron 1 Ghz on Wed the 16th. Put the system together on Monday the 21st. Didn't get a video signal, the moniter says everything is connected properly. The heatsink fan did spin up and I can hear the hard drive spin up. Just no video. Return it to Fry's and they check the system out and determine that the Duron is bad. They put in one of their cpu's and the board fires up. OK, try to get another Duron, but their out of stock, so I upgrade to a 1.5gig OEM Athlon. Bring it home and try to start this combo up. I have a Antec KS282 case with a PP303X 300watt power supply. The heat sink fans starts to spin up and then stops. Try this several times and then decide to change the power supply with another one. This time the fan spins up, but I don't hear the hard drive or the other sounds when a computer starts up. Try to start this sytem up again after reseating RAM and video card. This time as the fan spins up the power supply blows. The next day I called Antec and told then of my problems and they upgrade the power supply to a 350watt power supply for free. Return to Frys, and the so called tech says that the M/B and cpu must be bad. Get another M/B and they don't have a 1.5XP so I upgrade to a 1.6XP. I'm thinking at this point maybe my video card is not good so I buy a GeForce Ti. This time the fan start up but again no video signal. Return to Fry's again an a different tech checks out the system and determines that the cpu is bad. Trying to get another 1.6 XP and all they have now are boxed 1.7gig Athlon. Figuring that maybe it was the OEM chips that were bad to begin with (not a good sign when they say this is the last 1.5, 1.6 chip in stock) I go home with the 1.7 Athlon. This time the system starts. ALright finally got together a system that works or so I thought. Loaded up a new install of windows. Load all the drivers, etc,etc. I play with the system for a while and everything appears to be all right. Run Prime 95 and left the system running at night and when I woke up the next day. The computer was DEAD. This time I return everthing back to Fry's, M/B, boxed 1.7cpu, heatsink fan, and Geforce Ti and get my money back. Bought an Epox 8KHA+, 256meg of Cosair memory and a boxed 1.7gig Athlon XP. Get back hame and this system fires right up and haven't had a problem since. I'd beware of buying the ECS K7S5A combo, unless you have a Fry's near by so you can return it.


 

osage

Diamond Member
Jul 16, 2000
5,686
0
76
If it won't work send it back. Some of these boards have a problem, as well as some other boards as well,ECS is not the only maker to ship a board with a few bugs..

I have a couple of them that are good as gold, but I have worked with some that are not....
 

PlatinumGold

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
23,168
0
71
i had 2 verified bad ecs k7s5a boards as have other people i know
in many situations, it's much more cost efffective and simpler to spend a few 10s of dollars more for another board than to try to work with one that displays instability and takes a lot of effort to troubleshoot (with the added probablilty that any future configuration changes will also introduce stability problems)
good move desy, you'll be much happier


i don't know, it seems to me that people have had WAY more problems w/ Via chipsets then w/ the SIS chipsets. why is it when a few people have problems w/ the ECS MB's the mb is crap and when people have problems w/ any of the MB based on via, it's just cause the builder didn't use the right 4 in 1's etc. the excuses for Via go on and on and on. bottom line, Via makes CR@P chipsets.

i'd take a chance on an ECS board before i'd chance a Via board.

just a rant.
 

VTrider

Golden Member
Nov 21, 1999
1,358
0
0


<< As I always say, if you are having probs, then you are an incompetent system builder >>



Nice....is that an example of the scientific method?
 

AA0

Golden Member
Sep 5, 2001
1,422
0
0
you are ignorant...

The SiS chipset has no known chipset issues, but the ECS boards do. They have had a large number of issues with hardware, and high RMAs. They always have, their boards die prematurely too (which many people may find out soon enough)

VIA boards are made by many manufacturers, and when you buy a ECS VIA board, guess what? Its crap. Any quality boards with VIA chipsets don't have these issues, while cheap boards will.
You will see this happen with the Sis 745 chipset when some big companies make good boards, and you'll get more crap cheap boards from chaintech or ecs or more.

All chipsets are STABLE, the boards aren't stable. Memory timings are usually the number one cause, and if you want to go to DDR333 and are thinking of getting a cheap board, you are severly stupid, the timings get even tighter.
 

spaceman

Lifer
Dec 4, 2000
17,611
172
106
2 for 2 with the k7s5a


no complaints with this board whatsoever
i love this board.
 

VTrider

Golden Member
Nov 21, 1999
1,358
0
0
I agree that for the most part, chipsets in general are stable and well, cheap motherboards are 'cheap motherboards' - reminds me of that algebra stuff, a postitve * negative = negative. I find it very amusing all these K7S5A threads that have been posted on AT for months now. Somebody builds 1, 2, 3 or even 6 with no problems and rants and raves about it - nothing wrong with that. Somebody builds 1 K7S5A board and has constant problems then they are quickly labled incompetent and ignorant! The real funny thing is that it's not all newbies that are having problems with this board, i've read dozens of posts from experienced system builders that have to do w/problems with this board. It seems many people are to quick to jump to blame the 'builder' and not the 'hardware'. These problems with the K7S5A are similair to countless other scenarios that have to do with non-experience, but doesn't anybody really see what's happening here? I truly believe it's a 'hit or miss' situation with this board first and not so much to do with your experience building. Can anybody name another specific motherboard that has so much controversy like this? If not, then think of the reason why that is?!!

-VTrider
 

PlatinumGold

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
23,168
0
71
hmmm lets see. how quickly we forget.

abit was dropped off amd's recommended list for a while, about 13 months back i believe.

in another thread someone called MSI a "cheap" mb. what's that all about?

my point is, basically people base their opinions on something based on their limited experience and on what they percieve other people believe about that thing.

for eg. any other product w/the kind of problems the IBM Gxp series had woulda been labelled ABSOLUTE garbage, but for some reason, mb because of its high performance, the ibm gxp 75 was considered the BEST hd available by MANY experts on this board.

I'm willing to bet, more people have had problems w/ the IBM GXP series than people have had w/ the ECS, and yet, no one labels IBM a "Cheap" manufacturer. why is that?

ECS makes a DECENT product at a GOOD price.

I could really go on and on about this, but IGNORANT PEOPLE won't bother to really read what i'm writing so i'm probably wasting my time.
 

highwire

Senior member
Nov 5, 2000
363
0
76
I picked up from another thread that the K7S5A is defaulted to HALT implemented, and that most/all other brands were not. If this is the case, it would make the board more touchy than others and more dependent on power supply quality, etc.
Any confirmation on this?
 

FrodoB

Senior member
Apr 5, 2001
299
0
0
You get what you pay for. My K7S5A has been acting up the past 2 months - occasional hard locks, rebooting problems, a couple random reboots here and there, and other weird behaviour. But it was fine for the first few months. This system with Windows 2000 is less stable than my prior P3 450 (orginally P2 - 400) Abit BX2 2.0 sytem with Windows 98. It's not that my current rig it is unstable to the point of being unusable. It runs fine most of the time. I guess I'm just not used to these little annoyances happening multiple times a week. I can't even remember my old system ever hard locking or ever seeing a blue screen error. I am getting a little worried as my problems seem to be occuring more often lately. The solution is to buy a new motherboard (Via), but it's hard to justify shoveling even more money into this system.
 

foofoo

Golden Member
Mar 5, 2001
1,344
0
0
frodo b,
those symptoms, working ok for a few months and then becoming unstable are a classic example of poor motherboard manufacture. typically this is an unsoldered pin that has been making contact by touching the solder pad (or ball grid array pad for chipsets, etc) but has been slowly developing an oxide layer and now that layer has become thick enough that the contact is intermittent. i have done work in localizing these problems on circuit boards and this is it at the 90% level.
this is exactly what aao's post was suggesting and what i agree with. the ecs mb design or manufacture process, not the sis chipset, are the most likely culprit here.
 

desy

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2000
5,442
212
106
Hmmmm
I never did try it with anything but the Creative modem, but I have used that modem in many other boxes.
I did get a lot of crashes in IE and it did appear slightly more stable if you weren't doing internet stuff
I'm still thinking it was the Athlon and if I had purchased an XP the problems might have gone away based on MR. Athlons ECS thread over at OCworkbench.
My wife was the one that had to put up with it though.
I'd buy ECS again just not this one. . . I talked to my sales guy at NCIX and he says they have had a pretty low RMA on this board

 

Insane3D

Elite Member
May 24, 2000
19,446
0
0
"I never did try it with anything but the Creative modem, but I have used that modem in many other boxes."

Yeah, I used the Creative modem in a lot of customer builds, but I did a few with the K7S5A and the CL Modem, and I had problems. I traced the problem to the modem, used a zoom instead and it was fine. I've read about it before..something about the CL modem doesn't get along with the Sis735. Oh well, good luck on your next board! :)