What's the feedback on the K7S5A ?

[wjal]

I'm looking for a home for a T-bird and these boards seem to be quite popular. I assume this is due, largely, to the low cost but I am curious about it's weaknesses. Is that SiS chipset really going to cut it?
I know it's not much of an overclocker . I'm more concerned about quality, stability and ease of setup.
By quality, I mean I don't want to be RMAing for the next 6 mos.

 

[Athlon4all]

I ran one for a month or 2. Ran great, I had absoletly no problems with it. Only reason I got rid of it is 'cause I was trying to oc my duron 800 using the L7 and L4 bridges, and somehow the CPU was fried as was the Mobo. Great board, well worth the price, only catch is that you must have a top-quality power supply, like Antec, Enlight, or Sparkle. When I used it, I used a Antec 300W ps. As long as a good top quality power supply will be going with it, dont hesitate to get it

 

[osage]

the search key will get you a great number of opinions on this mobo.

 

[wjal]

The search key gets me a great number of opinions from guys who ran a brand new one for one hour, wrote their review and moved on to the next board. I'm looking for opinions from those who have lived with the board or know someone who has.

 

[Buz2b]

I would respectfully add that you need to try the search function again. I just did and it brought up no less than 18 separate threads that dealt with many differing opinions from many different situations. Just put "K7S5A" into the search parameter; nothing else.
Along with that, the most current thread is here. Basically a "fishing expedition" by the author.
If you are looking for a more comprehensive site on this board, you might want to check out the OC Workbench ECS Forum. They even have an excellent FAQ on the board; not to mention, tons of "feedback".
As to personal experience, I have built somewhere around 7 or 8 systems with this board. These units have ranged from simple "basic home rigs" to main business systems and beyond. I have yet to have a problem with them, other than one or two that I "caused" during the build process.
Read the threads and you will get the general idea. Good Luck!

 

[jackwhitter]

the sis chipset is very stable and a workhorse. it is not gonna be the fastest (due to age), but for another $10 you could get an sis 745 chipset board like the asus a7s333 or the msi 745 ultra. both are excellent boards and very stable with some overclocking. i've used an sis 735 for a few months now with no problems. it's a great board. i've got a friend who has had the k7s5a for 8 months now with 0 issues. but you will hear very many different opinions on the board.

 

[EvilDexter]

DO NOT GET THE K7S5A. I have a long and storied history with them and they might run great for awhile but the quality of the board is very low, and in all likeleyhood will die in just a few months.

1. The chipset on the board overheats. (Theres a fix: Take off the Chipset and put some artic silver on it.)
2. It Doesnt like 2 Sticks of DDR Ram in some cases
3. There are allready faster chipsets/mobo's out there for about the same price

IMHO: I suggest that you spend the extra money on a higher quality motherboard instead of risking it with this one.

EvilDexter

 

[faceplate]

Hello I had the K7S5A for about 7 months. Things worked very well. I had the MSI Pro2-a before. I hated that POS. I think the IDE controller on the PRO2-a is a little faster that on the SiS chip. On the K7S5A there was a problem with data curruption with the Floppy disk controller under win2k, but it was fixed under a patch. I had one problem. In win2k I could not go into standby. I dont know what was up with that. It might be a problem unique to my system. I could have sworn I was able to earlier on that board. Who knows? I lived with it. It is a very stable board. But mine shorted out last week, and I need a new board. I am looking for something newer and faster. I have a new post about that. Well anyway I hope thats enough. Peace!

 

[Radiohead]

I've had the board for about 4-5 months now and it has been very stable for me. But I would have to agree with EvilDexter. The board is not of greatest quality, just great value. There are much better boards, quality and value wise, to be had now.

 

[DongTran]

Originally posted by: EvilDexter
DO NOT GET THE K7S5A. I have a long and storied history with them and they might run great for awhile but the quality of the board is very low, and in all likeleyhood will die in just a few months.

1. The chipset on the board overheats. (Theres a fix: Take off the Chipset and put some artic silver on it.)
2. It Doesnt like 2 Sticks of DDR Ram in some cases
3. There are allready faster chipsets/mobo's out there for about the same price

I have 16 systems sitting here with the athlon XPs 2x256mb DDR ea. They are all working fine. Been here for 3 months now.

Here are some reasons why I likes -

Cheap as hell
Works - and it works good
Takes all Athlon XP processors
SiS 9000 multicasting seems to run very fast with ghosting
Both types of memory.
The socket is situated so that the HSF clip is not next to the power supply like other motherboards. Easy to access on this guy.


Two things I hate about this board -

The smell. Something about this PCB brand new out of the bag smells like complete ASS. It goes away though.
The power LED. It uses a two prong connector as opposed to normal 3 like everybody else. So I have to modify the damn plug on every one of them. Oh well, 5 second mod. Cut myself a few times in the process though oh well.