Need Opinions: What to do when no AGP POST with k7s5a?

[kylef]

ECS K7S5a revision 2 in an Antec case with a Sparkle 350W power supply.
Duron 850, Crucial pc2100 DDR dimm. Not overclocked.

I removed ALL DRIVES and ALL PCI cards for diagnostic purposes.

Here's what happens:

Case 1. Known functional Elsa Synergy Force (Geforce 256) in AGP slot: PSU fan starts. Monitor does not wake up out of sleep mode (no video signal). No beeps whatsoever.

Case 2. Known functional ATI Radeon LE in AGP slot: PSU fan starts. No signal to monitor. No beeps.

Case 3. Known functional ATI Xpert 98 in PCI slot: PSU fan starts. Monitor wakes up! BIOS comes up normally. Success!


What would YOU do in my case?

 

[drake6]

Personal I check a few obivous things first like pluging in the atx cable and another video card, if you really want to be though maybe try another powersupply unit. But I think you got a doa , with my ecs (see sig ) hav had no such problem , Id return the mobo to the retailer for a exchange if it in the return period. Bummer man but I would return or exchange the mobo thats my 2 cents

 

[Thump553]

Read the faq over at ocworkbench.com for more info on this mb-look under ECS forum.

Your problem almost certainly is a tight AGP slot. Reseat the video card a bunch of times and try again. Do the same with your memory. Once it boots up, should be fine after that. Good luck.

EDIT: Wait, you need to have at least one hard drive or floppy hooked up for any system to boot. Rereading your original post you said you removed ALL drives-hook at least one back up first. Minimum system requirements are cpu, video card, memory and a floppy or hard drive.

 

[dejansen]

He doesn't need any drives to POST. He's not trying to boot.

 

[kylef]

I didn't give you guys the WHOLE background... I got the mobo back in September or October of 2001. It worked fine with an old 3dfx Voodoo3 AGP card, which has since been given to another system entirely. I replaced it with the ELSA AGP card two weeks ago. It worked fine again for about a week with the ELSA card.

One day when I turned it on, the screen flickered while the BIOS initialized and "Starting Windows 2000" graphic was on the screen. But as soon as Windows switched the video mode to full resolution, everything was back to normal, so I didn't think anything of it.

The very next day the system would not boot. After some diagnosing, I have narrowed it down to the AGP slot. The system boots fine with a PCI video card, but it won't even POST with an AGP card. That's what the test cases above were attempting to report.

Is it worth it to RMA the board? What kind of turnaround time am I looking at, and how much of a hassle would it be?

Thanks for the replies!

 

[kylef]

Anyone? I'm at a loss here for what to do. It's been 48 hours since I emailed ECS and I still haven't gotten a response... I'm beginning to think that I should just bite the bullet and get a better mobo...

 

[Thump553]

With the additional info, it definately sounds like RMA time to me. Never RMA'd to ECS so no idea how long it takes. For what its worth, I currently sent a MB to Abit for RMA just before Xmas and still don't have the replacement. If time is at all critical, I'd buy a replacement.

 

[TBC]

<< Anyone? I'm at a loss here for what to do. It's been 48 hours since I emailed ECS and I still haven't gotten a response... I'm beginning to think that I should just bite the bullet and get a better mobo... >>


When I was first checking out the ECS K7s5a motherboard, I called voice, and asked ECS if the motherboard can be sent to them if its defective. They told me no, and that they only deal with "direct customers" for RMA's. I asked her what she meant by direct customers. She told me that "direct customers" are their authorized resellers.

I find that very stupid. Which probably explains the low price of their motherboards. I assume if you buy from anyone that isn't listed on their web page as an authorized reseller, then there is no warranty. (every name mentioned on their web page as an authorized reseller, I have never heard of before).

 

[Workin']

FWIW, I smashed 2 of those boards with my feet because no one would take them back. I had 6 - 2 were exchanged for different brand boards after they failed, I smashed 2 after they failed, and I sold 2 to tinkerers after they failed (again, no hope of RMA). I was skunked, 6 for 6 bad with these boards. Please don't ask for my opinion

 

[mechBgon]

Look at the interface between the AGP slot and the video card. If you can see the gold contacts on the edge of the video card, it's not in all the way. On my K7S5A it took a really surprising amount of force to get the card all the way down into the slot so it was making contact with both rows of contacts.

 

[logear1]

doublecheck to be sure the card is seated.The majority of problems I've had has been with this.Built an IWILL XP333-R last wk-put 3 sticks of memory in,locks closed on all-but POST codes indicated memory problem. Even with locks closed on memory I was able to push them in more and they were real tight . It also POSTed after doing this.

 

[kylef]

Thanks for all the replies!

The AGP card is definitely seated all the way. Like I said, the system worked fine for about a week with this exact same setup (and for a couple months before that with a different setup) and then mysteriously quit...



<< skunked, 6 for 6 bad with these boards. Please don't ask for my opinion >>



Whew! That's really bad luck, man! I hope you've gotten something better working since then...

I suppose I'll just buy a replacement NOW and see what I can do about getting this thing RMA'd. I'm not exactly crossing my fingers, but I figure I could always Ebay the board if someone is willing to receive it and send it back to me fixed!

Now I just need to decide between a Shuttle, Epox, and Gigabyte KT266a board...

BTW, I JUST got an automated reply from ECS. 3 days for an automated response! Yikes!

 

[xbassman]

Hey kylef....

Looks like your prob started the same way mine did. Initially the board I have was crashed (left on 24/7) it had been working superbly.
Well, anyway I read in a forum somebody saying to hold the power and reset at the same time.
Now I am not sure why, but after I did this it booted and ran fine for about another week.

Of course now I am ready to try and rma this thing.

 

[kylef]

<< Well, anyway I read in a forum somebody saying to hold the power and reset at the same time. >>



WOW! That's just AMAZING! I just tried this technique, and it WORKS again! Incredible!

xbassman: Did you get it to work like this for a week and then it quit AGAIN?

I'm going to go put this thing through all of the tests to make sure it's all working.... But after all of the time I spent yanking things, swapping things out, trying different components, reseating cards, and here I probably could have gotten it to boot by holding in the RESET AND POWER BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME!

 

[Endless]

I had something similar happen after flashing the BIOS one time...I was able to get it to boot again my clearing the CMOS for a few seconds with the power cord unplugged and then trying again.

As for the warranty issue...I believe that this is the policy with most motherboard manufacturers. But I've found that most resellers will take the board back and they will send it to their distributor who in turn will file the RMA. From my experience with various motherboard issues in the past (ie. Asus and Abit), it normally takes about 2 weeks or so. If you're having problems returning it to the reseller, I've found that if you can find out who the distributor is who sold the board to the reseller, they are sometimes willing to RMA it for you too.

 

[kylef]

Well, the thing seems to be back to its old, semi-functional self now (!)

I still, for the life of me, cannot get the LAN adapter to show up. I tried the "LAN ID" utility supplied on ECS's website, but when I run it, the utility says "No Sis LAN Adapter found!" and exits. I KNOW it's there! I used it for several months!

I've double and triple-checked the "Onboard LAN" setting in the BIOS. I just re-flashed the latest bios to make sure I hadn't accidentally flashed the "non-LAN" BIOS. Still no effect.

There are NO PCI CARDS in the machine at this time. Just an AGP video card (which, thanks to Xbassman, works now!)

Has anyone had their onboard LAN disappear like this?

Thanks again!

 

[Endless]

Hhhmmm...it could be that your onboard lan is fried....do you have a hub to plug into to see if the LED's on the hub show that a connection is made or another system with a NIC that you can connect to with a cross patched network cable?

I really wish there were some LED's on this board so that you could tell if the NIC is actually working....

 

[kylef]

Yes, I have a hub, and it NEVER shows link power lights when it's connected. But to be honest, I never paid attention before, so I wasn't sure if they should come up immediately, or only after the drivers had been initialized by Windows (like a PC card adapter)...

But there are positively NO activity or link power lights on my switch for the onboard LAN... I guess I fried it somehow?