Problem withe the ECS K7S5A Revisited

[theRedMosquito]

i'm trying to setup a computer with this ECS K7S5A motherboard. All the parts are in place, including a PCI video card. As i've posted before i'm having trouble booting this sucker up. after the ram check and ide auto detection stuff the boot process just stops. after the afore mentioned memory and ide checks and detection's i get two of these three error messages; "CMOS Settings Wrong," "CMOS Memory Size Wrong," "CMOS Battery Low." Than two options appear below it "F1 to Run SETUP" or " F2 to load default values and continue." But i for some reason i can chose either option, for some reason my keyboard can yeild an input response. Now first off this keyboard does work, i've tried it on other comps, and used other keyboards on this same comp with the same result. I have changed the CMOS Battery, and cleared the CMOS itself, and the problem still presist. I am just asking for any suggestion from any body who can help. If anything i'm seeking confirmation that this can be fixed (and i'm not crazy) or i got stuck with a bad mobo. The ECS website suggestion to update the bios to fix at least the "CMOS Battery Low" problem, but i do not see how this can be done with these circumstances. Anysuggestion, on how to do anything would be much appericated.

 

[theRedMosquito]

forgot to mention system specs.....

Athlon XP 1800+
WD 160 GB HD
512 DDR RAM
Creative Labs Blaster Video Card (not sure on name, but its and old school S3 Savage 4 Pro , PCI videocard)

 

[meeshu]

Suspect motherboard ROM may be faulty/corrupted.

I don't know if ROM can be changed or not; but basically I think your motherboard is faulty.

 

[TD77077]

I remember there were some K7S5A boards where the jumper settings for the "clear CMOS" and "Normal Operation" were reversed in the MB manual and many boards were shipped with the jumper in the "clear CMOS" position.

Check the ECS website for the K7S5A manual and verify that you have the jumper in the "Normal Operation" setting. It might be reversed, even though you are thinking it is set right. This could also be causing many other problems for you, especially if you tried to update the BIOS.

Good Luck.

 

[Swampster]

Their Tech Support is correct. There is a revised BIOS for this board that will correct the problem. Go to their site and download it. If you don't have the installation CD that came with the board, then download their BIOS flasher utility and the instructions for what to do with it.

Basically, what you will do is boot from a bootable floppy that has the program and the update file on it and you just follow directions.

 

[theRedMosquito]

alright thanks guys....now i'm going to go try it out

 

[raftman]

I'm putting a system together with this mobo - and I had the same CMOS errors when I first booted. I haven't upgraded the BIOS, but going into setup and making sure the CPU/MEM FSB settings were right fixed those problems for me. However, this required hitting del to get into setup, so I can't help if your keyboard isn't working... (I'm running a athlon 2000+ w/ 256 MB PC2100 DDR RAM)

I have a question though -- It seems to me that it's taking a long time to boot from the HD -- I have auto-detect disabled (defined drives in BIOS), and the drive is set to master on the primary IDE. After the mem check the screen goes black for 10 seconds or so before going to the win xp screen. I would think it would be faster. Any ideas?

Andres