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yet another ECS k7s5a problem

X

xbassman

Golden Member
Hey guys,

I searched around and couldn't find this problem elsewhere, but here goes.

Bought this ecs board from newegg for my wife as a Christmas present. So I think I am past the point of returning it for a refund or exchange. (Nov)

Initially when I assembled the system everything went flawlessly. It ran 24/7 for about a week. Then I went to check something on the sys and noticed it had crashed. I tried to reboot it...no luck. Searched the forums and saw somebody said to hold the power and reset at the same time. When I tried that I got it going again. (Not really sure what that did :-/ ) Meanwhile I had ordered a new vid card for it installed that and still working well.

Well a couple of days ago it crashed and now I am stuck! 🙁

I can't seem to get it past detecting ide devices. It will detect (correctly) then it gets stuck.
I have tried removing everything and still no luck. Actually the only way I can seem to even get to the bios setup is to let it stay unpluged for quite a while. Then when I restart after saving and exiting, it gets stuck after detection again.

I am getting ample power, (Enermax 300W). Also tried a Deer 250W I had lying around.
I swapped the battery with one from another mb.
Cleared cmos a few times.

If there is something I missed let me know, Otherwise I guess I'll have to start the rma process with ECS.

Thanks
 
Please list your system specs. I will never the less hazard a guess and say to check your temps, also try to get into the bios (if it'll co-operate) and disable the ACPI aware O.S. option.
 
Oops...

temps are fine....38 C idle (case open), 46 C full load (case closed)

Tbird 950
128 mb Micron CAS2 sdram
Leadtech Winfast mx 200
wd 20gb ata100 HD
etc....

pretty basic setup
using onboard sound and lan.

I did disable power mgmt also.
 
You've got a tricky problem alright! There are still a few things to try(if your not completely fustrated with it yet 😉 ) Have you tried fail-safe default settings? Have you made certain that the hard drive isn't the problem? Swap it with another if possible. If that doesn't resolve the freeze up then I would say RMA it because at that point it's WAY past being worth the headaches!
 
Yup did the failsafe also.......
Guess I'll try another disk. (I was gonna do that, but I started getting pissed...decided it was time to walk away)

Thanks for your replies 🙂
 


<< Any luck with your problem yet? >>



No....Actually after it is warmed up a bit I can't get past disk detection without anything hooked up.
As soon as I can get off work in time to call I am going to RMA this board. The only problem though is, as of a couple of days ago they are out of stock @ NewEgg. (where I purchased it)

Too bad Asus doesn't make one in this price range.....
 
It's not possible to RMA the board to Newegg, is it? The only two times I've RMA'd motherboards, they went back directly to the U.S. service department for the motherboard manufacturer, which is usually located out in California somewhere...

Just curious, because I'd love to let Newegg handle it if possible... I'm sure it would get done faster and more reliably if they were handling it!
 


<< It's not possible to RMA the board to Newegg, is it? >>



I am not really sure yet...I will call them first though. I hate dealing directly with manufacturers. They don't care as much about the end-user as do retailers.
 
I had a similar issue with my WD 40GB 7200 rpm drive but it was hooked up to a Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller. The controller would never detect the hard drive. However, I was finally able to get it to go by disabling the onboard sound (specifically the onboard midi port). It's not the ideal solution, but I was planning to ditch the onboard sound eventually...

The other thing to try is to remove all jumpers from your WD hard drive if it is the only device on your IDE channel...


 
Note that WB hard drive has a "Single" drive jumper setting. If you have only one hard drive on this channel. Pls use this jumper setting. (no the "master/slave one")
 
WHen one of my ECS boards gave me trouble, reseting the AGP card helped (actually I had to use a PCI card, which worked and then when I put my AGP card back in, everyhting worked again. It would run not properly until I put in the PCI video card!). It has been running 24/7 ever since. Just my experience.
 
Well...after reading the knowledge base (forums) @ ECS's website it looks like getting an RMA will take an act of Congress.
So I dove in again.

All cards are seated properly. Hd is set correctly. (same errors without hd pluged in)

I went through the same routine....unplug everything reset CMOS....boot. This time I have even less!
checking NVRAM frozen. press reset....blank screen. (crap!)
OK....grab another battery. Now I have the original battery plus 2 more pulled from motherboards not currently in use.

This time I get the familar CMOS error press F1 to run setup. I did this...save and exit....blank screen. (crap, crap!)
OK try again...change battery again....this time it freezes before ide detection again.
Change battery again....freezes after ide detection.

Remember this system was running 100% at first.

I remember reading about battery problems reguarding the battery mount. I think it ws at OCworkbench.com forums.
I am gonna check those forums again.

I'll post it if I figure something out.
 
Hey Brudda 🙂 RMA'ing dat thing will be far less trouble than what your going through now 🙁 Here's the RMA info page @ECS RMA proceedure it's not that bad 😉 Just fill out the form, fax it to 'em and send the board and everything that came with it back in the original box(that's so they can refurbish and use it again) and mail it to them and you'll soon have a new one or refurbished anyways 😉 let us know how you're getting on.
 
Well dapunisher, You are right. I am through mesing with this thing. There is one problem though.
I looked again at ECS' warranty page and I had missed a few details.
here's a cut and paste:

* ECS Warranty is offered to direct customers with valid ECS invoice only

(that would be NewEgg, not me)

and again

Warranty Period
All ECS motherboards are covered by a one (1) year warranty on parts and labor against defects in workmanship and manufacturing. The warranty is effective from the date of ECS' original invoice, unless stated otherwise in writing.

Here's how long NewEgg is covered.....I am sure they didn't buy it over a year ago.
(It is no wonder ECS is not carried by as many vendors as other brands.)


 
Had something similiar happen to me a couple of years back with an Abit board. Turned out one of the DIMMs went bad. Took me awhile to get it through my head that memory does go bad every now and then. Anyway, I replaced the RAM with a stick from another machine and it corrected the problem.
 
I have an ECS K7S5A and love it BUT I too ran into the problem you are having when I went messing around with components after having it running perfect. I tried a lot of stuff and then just gave up and stuck another board in. Then I threw the K7S5A in another system and it set up like a charm (*after I learned to wait out the blank screen*) just as it had done when I first received it. There is no rhyme or reason. It is like the CMOS is not being cleared even when you pull the battery. Anyway, here is how to fix it:

Unplug everything. Video card, all cables, CMOS battery, everything. Just like you had just placed it in the case although you can leave the CPU and RAM in place (I think although just to make the gods happy pull the RAM and then stick it back in). Then plug everything back in. Fire it up. You will be good to go and it will ask you to hit F1 to run setup. Do that and then it will restart. At this point, if it doesn't happen when you first turn it on, you will meet a blank screen. LEAVE IT. It will eventually flip into BIOS. It may take 1-3 minutes and it'll seem like forever but it will come back to life.

I've never run it with the onboard modem/sound enable so I don't know what sort of wrinkles those add if you enable them. I just use onboard LAN and set RAM to Ultra.

The trick is waiting out the blank screen. At least it was for me... I never had a problem with freezes during RAM check or ever so that might be another layer you have to deal with. I wish you luck and let me know if it works. If it doesn't, don't toss it because chances are it'll work when you build a new system with it. 🙂

One other thing, maybe this is just my board or HD or cable but the only other problem I've had with this mobo is detecting my HD just after switching it. I have to make sure the cables are securely inserted or even disconnect/reconnect the IDE and power cables and then reset.
 
Thanks for all the input guys.....
Everything is fine except for the motherboard. I even tried the sit and wait thing. Unpluged everything, put in original battery, reset cmos, plugged everything back in. Then the mb wouldn't even get to detecting ide devices. I let it sit for about 10 minutes or so....still frozen.

Now it is in NewEgg's hands. I submitted an RMA request online.

Since they no longer stock the K7S5A hopefully NewEgg will let me pay the difference to get a better board.

Looking ot other motherboards @ NewEgg. I found out that MSI handles warranty the same as ECS. (only through direct customers)

I'll keep you guys posted RMA requests take about 2 business days to approve or decline.
 
I'd love to know if that worked.... Unfortunately, I purchased this thing back in October, so I doubt there's a chance in Hades...
 


<< Hey guys,

I searched around and couldn't find this problem elsewhere, but here goes.

Bought this ecs board from newegg for my wife as a Christmas present. So I think I am past the point of returning it for a refund or exchange. (Nov)

Initially when I assembled the system everything went flawlessly. It ran 24/7 for about a week. Then I went to check something on the sys and noticed it had crashed. I tried to reboot it...no luck. Searched the forums and saw somebody said to hold the power and reset at the same time. When I tried that I got it going again. (Not really sure what that did :-/ ) Meanwhile I had ordered a new vid card for it installed that and still working well.

Well a couple of days ago it crashed and now I am stuck! 🙁

I can't seem to get it past detecting ide devices. It will detect (correctly) then it gets stuck.
I have tried removing everything and still no luck. Actually the only way I can seem to even get to the bios setup is to let it stay unpluged for quite a while. Then when I restart after saving and exiting, it gets stuck after detection again.

I am getting ample power, (Enermax 300W). Also tried a Deer 250W I had lying around.
I swapped the battery with one from another mb.
Cleared cmos a few times.

If there is something I missed let me know, Otherwise I guess I'll have to start the rma process with ECS.

Thanks >>




I've had lots of Sh!t with that K7S5A too. Never really completed building a working system with that board. Some people here blames me for incompetance and lack of dedication, which I believe is not the case. After spending literally tens of hours troubleshooting and one RMA, I gave up and bought a different motherboard from Gigabyte. Had it been MY PROBLEM, I'd still be having problem no matter what I'm using.

The only other things I know are from what others have said K7S5A is EXTREMELY picky about power supply and memory.


Go ahead and RMA it. Be prepared to blow some $$ though. I can only think of one party who can benefit from ECS phenomena. The shipping industry.




 
"I've had lots of Sh!t with that K7S5A too. Never really completed building a working system with that board. Some people here blames me for incompetance and lack of dedication, which I believe is not the case. After spending literally tens of hours troubleshooting and one RMA, I gave up and bought a different motherboard from Gigabyte. Had it been MY PROBLEM, I'd still be having problem no matter what I'm using"
Ditto and I bought the grand Epox 8KHA+ with same components and am happy that the ECS is in the dumpster now where it belongs. I am one of those who will forever condemn this board (ECSK75SA) regardless of what others say.
 
UPDATE

NewEgg accepted my RMA friday. (I purchased my board Nov. 16th)

If they will let me I will pay the difference to get a better (non-ECS) board.

Here's where I am coming from at this point of my ordeal:

Different companies have different levels of acceptable quality and control problems.
For example: A couple of years ago a vendor shipped me a Microsoft Intellimouse that seemed to be of inferior quality.
I contacted Microsoft legal department because I suspected that it was an imitation. (there were quite a few of them going around at that time. Well, it turned out that it was a fake and they sent me a new replacement. But in the meantime, while I was talking to the Microsoft rep, he mentioned that I might have just gotten a bad mouse, and that their return rate was about 1 in 12.

Since then I have never bought another Microsoft mouse. (1 of 12 is not acceptable to me)
When you buy things online if you have to ship one item back you usually lose any savings you had buying a cheaper item in the first place.

On the same topic, I RMA'd 2 hard disks within the last couple of months.
IBM took 3 weeks to get me a replacement. Maxtor on the other hand had one to me in 3 days. (I'll be buying Maxtor from now on)

Really I new better than to buy a cheap board, but i was sucked in by the hype like many others
 


<< UPDATE

NewEgg accepted my RMA friday. (I purchased my board Nov. 16th)

If they will let me I will pay the difference to get a better (non-ECS) board.

Here's where I am coming from at this point of my ordeal:

Different companies have different levels of acceptable quality and control problems.
For example: A couple of years ago a vendor shipped me a Microsoft Intellimouse that seemed to be of inferior quality.
I contacted Microsoft legal department because I suspected that it was an imitation. (there were quite a few of them going around at that time. Well, it turned out that it was a fake and they sent me a new replacement. But in the meantime, while I was talking to the Microsoft rep, he mentioned that I might have just gotten a bad mouse, and that their return rate was about 1 in 12.

Since then I have never bought another Microsoft mouse. (1 of 12 is not acceptable to me)
When you buy things online if you have to ship one item back you usually lose any savings you had buying a cheaper item in the first place.

On the same topic, I RMA'd 2 hard disks within the last couple of months.
IBM took 3 weeks to get me a replacement. Maxtor on the other hand had one to me in 3 days. (I'll be buying Maxtor from now on)

Really I new better than to buy a cheap board, but i was sucked in by the hype like many others >>



Even if they want 15% restocking fee, definitely do it. Even if its 50%. Otherwise you'll probably just throw it away.
 
I guess I'm a bit late to help, but how many DIMMS do you have running? On my K7S5A I used to have this problem when running 2 sdram dimms as well. Removing one solved the problem, so i investigated more and found that the +3.3v rail HAS to be > 3.3v or else using 2 dimms will randomly cause problems like you've described.
 
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