Problems with ECS K7S5a: Disappearing LAN Adapter -> Now no post with AGP

[kylef]

I am experiencing some rather strange problems with the ECS K7S5a.

1. I recently purchased a Pinnacle TV Tuner card (PCI). When the card is inserted into ANY PCI slot, when I turn the computer back on the built-in ethernet adapter NO LONGER SHOWS UP in Device Manager. I'm running Windows 2000.

I DO have a spare PCI-based ethernet card, and if I put that one in the computer, the PCI NIC comes up and runs fine. However, I would like to use the built-in ethernet adapter because of its dedicated memory bandwidth, which is one of the features of the Sis 735 chipset.

I've checked the BIOS, and the ethernet adapter is enabled. Once I remove the Pinnacle card, the built-in NIC shows up once again...

2. I have two drives plugged into the Secondary IDE controller, a Delta 50X CD-ROM drive and an older Memorex 1622 CDRW drive. Both drives show up fine in Device Manager, and I have no trouble READING from the drives whatsoever.

However, I have tried to run both Nero Burning Rom version 5.5 and Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4.05 (both of which I own), and BOTH of them hang just after launching them. Nero hangs with a message that says something like "Scanning SCSI bus" and EZ Cd Creator hangs without displaying ANYTHING. These are BAD hangs, because the entire system becomes instable. The CD Drives no longer function. Win2k cannot even kill the offending processes (Nero and/or CD Creator). The only thing that can fix it is a reboot.


I would REALLY like to fix these two problems. Has anyone experienced anything like them?


Edit: I forgot to mention in #1 that when my LAN disappears, it REALLY stops working. My Hub does not show a green Link Active light when I plug in, which normally comes on just with power, right?

 

[jfunk]

Thats pretty funky, especially since it's any pci slot.

Not sure if it will lead anywhere, but check to see what resources are being used by each of them when they are working.



j

 

[mboy]

The pinnacle card sucks. I have one and have never been able to get it to work right with my computers. WOuld crash win2k and mess up 98SE.

 

[lsman]

For 2.
Does it work before or never work?
Cause i have similar problem before with older board. I read somewhere that the 2 software can not put together under some condition. I forget, may be read from EZ CD's site. Anyway, if it never works before. Uninstall both and install Nero only. It give you more control (5.5 is way better than 4.05)! with all the mp3->CD encoder build-in, ...etc.
At least that's what i fixed the problem then. (I try to update the driver/firmware for CDRW but no use)

 

[dummy2001]

This is probably irrelevant, but ECS does have a utility to restore LANs that disappear after flashing the bios. There may be a similar mechanism in play.

 

[kylef]

Thanks for all the replies!

I'll do some more investigation, but I've hit a show-stopper for now. My AGP slot is apparently fried somehow.

My computer won't post with an AGP card, but boots fine with a PCI video card. I've tried the same AGP card in another machine and it boots fine. I had noticed some "blinking" during post but I didn't think anything of it... All of a sudden, it just wouldn't post anymore!

Man, it's just been one thing after another with this machine... I don't want to blame the motherboard, but I'm starting to get weary...

 

[kylef]

lsman:

Actually, I only installed EZ CD Creator AFTER Nero had this problem (hanging at the "Scanning SCSI Bus" message). So there is definitely something ELSE going on.

More about this issue: When the "Scanning SCSI Bus" message comes up, the Hard Disk LED lights up and never goes out again until the computer is restarted. There is no hard disk activity.

Perhaps this could be some sort of weird driver problem?

I'm going to attempt to RMA the motherboard. Has anyone else successfully RMA'd a board to ECS?

 

[kylef]

I'll ask again: has anyone successfully RMA'd a board to ECS?

I cannot get an AGP card to work on this board... it just won't post. PCI video cards work fine...

Of course, I've only got 2 AGP cards to try...

What do you guys think?

 

[DieHardware]

What cards are you using and which slots are they in? What AGP cards(brand, GPU, etc) try you try? Are you sure you seated them correctly? And did it give you any beep/error codes? Have you tried setting "Primary Graphics Adapter"(its in PCI/ plug n' play setup menu) to AGP with the PCI card in then power down and swap to the AGP card?

 

[kylef]

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!


So, what do you think?

 

[lsman]

one last solution before RMA.
reinstall windows, install software. Test if okay. Add each driver and test software. Then see what cost the problem.

i will not have any slight hope for the RMA part...