ECS K7s5A-2

[James Rutkowski]

I'e built 5 computers for friends all using this motherboard, the 5th one being for my wife(alert sounding here).
This is the only one that will read the processor (AMD1.8) well below it's speed (1150). I've checked the PSU and RAM, I've replaced all the above and makes no difference. I've checked the TEMP and it's normal. Anyone have any ideas that may help,
For you married guys (wife very unhappy and ya'll know what that means)... HELP!!!!!

[Strawbs]

you probably have the FSB set too low in the BIOS. set it to 133MHz and all should be fine.

:t

welcome to SysOpt.

[James Rutkowski]

Originally posted by Strawbs
you probably have the FSB set too low in the BIOS. set it to 133MHz and all should be fine.

:t

welcome to SysOpt.

I've got it set to ??133/100 now and makes no difference.....I've also tried adding more ram (total 1.24) and still no help....

[James Rutkowski]

Originally posted by Strawbs
you probably have the FSB set too low in the BIOS. set it to 133MHz and all should be fine.

:t

welcome to SysOpt.

I've got it set to ??133/100 now and makes no difference.....I've also tried adding more ram (total 1.24) and still no help....

I've also tested the processor on other boards and it ran at 1600 on all 3......

[Strawbs]

what speed ram do you have?

[James Rutkowski]

Originally posted by Strawbs
what speed ram do you have?

Ram is PC-133 on two 512 sticks.

Bios is set to 133, no difference....

I should also mention here that I have checked other processors
here and they ran at 1535...This is real weired and I can't figure this one out.......:confused:

[Strawbs]

Originally posted by James Rutkowski


Ram is PC-133 on two 512 sticks...:confused: if you have 133MHz ram and 266MHz processor then the FSB should be set to 133/133, not 133/100.

is this (http://www.ocworkbench.com/hardware/elite/k7s5a/k7s5ap2.htm) your board?

[James Rutkowski]

Originally posted by Strawbs
if you have 133MHz ram and 266MHz processor then the FSB should be set to 133/133, not 133/100.

is this (http://www.ocworkbench.com/hardware/elite/k7s5a/k7s5ap2.htm) your board?

Board is in wife's new computer that she wanted built....Has all the bells and whistles but doesn't do the cooking.....Anyway
I've tried all the stuff you mentioned, still I refuse to surrender
there is something minor that I've overlooked someplace.....
Just can't figure what????

[Strawbs]

Originally posted by James Rutkowski
....Has all the bells and whistles.....
u sure the power supply is up to it? try unplugging some of those "Bells and Whistles".

[James Rutkowski]

Power supply is new 350 watt. Checked all power at all connections plus amps. It checks out on an "O" scope.......Been down that road couple of years ago....

[Strawbs]

well my final suggestion before bed (it's 11:00pm here, and I'm up at 05:30) has to be MoBo jumpers incorrectly set, and that really is all I have. :(
stick with it tho', i'm sure someone else will be along shortly.

:t

[James Rutkowski]

Originally posted by Strawbs
well my final suggestion before bed (it's 11:00pm here, and I'm up at 05:30) has to be MoBo jumpers incorrectly set, and that really is all I have. :(
stick with it tho', i'm sure someone else will be along shortly.

:t

Thanks for the tips...I'll keep at it.....

[BipolarBill]

It definitely has to be set at 133/133, Rudy.

[Spazzy]

I would like to know about this board, the ESC K7S5a.. is it stable? I have to build a computer for a friend who just wants to get started learing about the net and basic things like that. She dont even know how to type yet. She dont need no Asus with a 333 FSB and what have ya ! Ill get this board if I can hear any positive things on it, and whereas you have five...?? you would be the one who could steer me straight. :) Sorry I cant help you with ur problem, I only plan to run a 1.2 on the one I get... IF if get it.... I have read somewhere tho that that board does not support over 1.2 gig cpus's that cant be true tho eh...?? Thanks

[Razielian]

I LOVE this board.
I got it with my 1800 xp.
Its never given me any problems..
Everythings to be runnin fine with it..
Only bad thing about it.
Not user friendly when comes to overclocking your cpu.
Just remember to disable all the onboard stuff in the bios to make your board run better.

[BipolarBill]

I wouldn't disable the LAN or sound. The board is stable if you set it up right.

Get the K7S5A Pro. When you install Windows, immediately run the CD Setup first thing - do not browse for drivers. As a matter of fact, download and burn The Windows Installer update to CD first - the CD needs it:

http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/platformsdk/instmsi.htm

Do not browse for drivers or let Windows search until the CD is run 3-4 times.

Follow those steps and the system will be a rock.

[James Rutkowski]

Originally posted by Razielian
I LOVE this board.
I got it with my 1800 xp.
Its never given me any problems..
Everythings to be runnin fine with it..
Only bad thing about it.
Not user friendly when comes to overclocking your cpu.
Just remember to disable all the onboard stuff in the bios to make your board run better.

I've set the bios at 133/133 but!!!! I found out for some reason it would not retain it's settings, I took it back yesterday and got a new one, brought it home,installed it and it's working great now.....The other 4 have had no problems...Fry's electronics had them on sale with the AMD 1.8 processor for $129.00 so I bought 5 of them. If it wasn't for the bad board everything ould have been perfect.....

[Strawbs]

Glad to hear you got it sorted. :D

:t

[James Rutkowski]

Originally posted by Strawbs
Glad to hear you got it sorted. :D

:t

Appreceiate all the tips......Thanks

[muadib37]

Originally posted by James Rutkowski


I've set the bios at 133/133 but!!!! I found out for some reason it would not retain it's settings, I took it back yesterday and got a new one, brought it home,installed it and it's working great now.....The other 4 have had no problems...Fry's electronics had them on sale with the AMD 1.8 processor for $129.00 so I bought 5 of them. If it wasn't for the bad board everything ould have been perfect.....



I seemed to have lucked out and went to fry's on the correct day !!! I got my K7S5A and 1800xp for $79.00 (no rebates) Houston, TX :p

[Spazzy]

>As a matter of fact, download and burn The Windows Installer update to CD first - the CD needs it:<

How does one accomplish this? I have a burnt copy of an OS, do I just add windows installer to it? and if so, how is this done?

[BipolarBill]

You have to put it on another CD and install it after setting up Windows - and before running the ECS CD.

[lptech]

You said that you bought 5 of these and 1 failed. That's a 20% failure rate just in your case alone! I wonder just how bad a shape their Quality Assurance must be? At least you're lucky that you got 4 out of 5 to work. I bought one at Fry's awhile back but it turned out to be DOA (fresh out of the sealed brand new box)!
Needless to say, I'm not recommending that board to anyone!

Just wanted to point out the fact that ECS, Alton, Amptron and PC Chips mobos are all manufactured by ECS but with different model numbers stamped or silkscreened on them and distributed through various resellers! I just hope that they take more care in the Quality Control portion of their manufacturing process.

To me, having to deal with too many issues for a particular motherboard is just not productive in my view eventhough the price is very attractive! Just my 2 cents worth into the mix.:)

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by lptech
I bought one at Fry's awhile back but it turned out to be DOA (fresh out of the sealed brand new box)! I can say that about at least 3 brands of motherboard, including Asus, Soyo and Intel.

Funny - out of 12+ ECS boards, I've had zero defects and all are running fine in the field. Naturally, my opinion differs and I will buy every one that you don't. ;)

[Rugor]

Not if I beat you to them Bill.

The K7S5A Pro is a great board.

[embj]

Well, I am trying to build my first puter but, the ECS K7S5A Pro board that I bought didn't work. So I have to send it back to newegg and am getting another board. I am not sure what board I am going to get to replace it but, I am going to get something that supports DDR 400 so I can use that instead of SDRAM. I just sold my ATI Radeon 7000 64mb DDR PCI gpx card on eBay for 48bux and my Micron/Crucial 512mb PC133 SDRAM stick for 40 bux on eBay. Then I just sold one stick of Kingston 256mb PC133 for $18 on TechIMO. So now I should have enough money to buy some DDR 400 after buying an Athlon XP 2400+, a $100 case w/ mods, and after I buy my new board.:)

So seeing this was my first puter, it was a good experience for the mobo to be dead.:rolleyes:

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by embj
So seeing this was my first puterThat's a very telling statement.

Listen - I have personally built two Pros with ZERO problems. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you know absolutely everything there is to know about motherboards here and that's being very generous.

What I'm getting at is that your board may have actually been a lemon. You don't justify your comments or bother us with details about what went wrong and that makes me suspicious. Anyway, feel free to relate your experiences with anything - but without a blanket judgement. The Pro doesn't "suck" because you had a problem with it. No one cares about game ports anymore, really. If we did, we can buy a sound card.

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=856443#post856443

First build. Geez.

[embj]

I didn't say it here but, I did say it here (http://www.techimo.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=580055). I don't come to Sysopt as a primary resource anymore. I use TechIMO as my primary resource because of quicker responses.

[BipolarBill]

That's just my point - you used a shim that was out of spec (I think shims are a bad idea anyway), burnt the CPU and are blaming the motherboard. BTW - an overheated CPU will indeed destroy the motherboard.

In the future, leave out the shim. The Tbred doesn't need one anyway.

[gjimene2]

I am having problems with the board. Setup for XP hangs like hell. as well as it giving me ACPI errors and all.

BPB, knows what I'm talking about. and I have tried everything.

Changing to different brands of ram. Only having a single hard drive and cd-rom drive installed with just a pci video card. and Zilch. I bought this at Fry's and the package looked in good conditions when I got it. Sigh, spend about all day trying various things. It couldn't even be my hardware since I switched back to my old mobo and it's working fine.


Anyways, where is what I wanted in hardware for it.


AMD Athlon XP 1800+ Palomino
PNY GFOrce4 420MX PCI graphics card
2x 512PC133 Sdram
1 Maxtor 5USB 2.0 card.
PPA Inch 6Ch sound card 5.1
Adaptec SCSI Card.
2 WD 60gig hard drives. one is a dynamic drive, has too much important info for me to loose, might have to back everything up :(
a Yamaha F1
Yamaha 2200EZ (both cd burners)
AMR modem
and a USB Bracket

and it sucks that I have built systems for clients plenty of times, a system that I build for me won't budge :mad:

(hears the boo's and laughter)

So,, what shoud I do?


oh yea, and sometimes during setu it would just reboot, and reboot, and reboot and reboot after it stated that it was starting windows (the dos setup part of it before you get to the menu to choose to setup a new one or repair or exit)

[thronka]

Hey Gabe. Sorry to see you are having problems. Frys, indeed, have these on sale. I was in today (at the dallas location) to get a game and a floppy round cable to test out how it looks and the airflow issue I have.

Frys had these boards in 5 stacks and they had them on sale for 55 with a AMD processor. Not sure on what the speed was, but no one was buying them. I guess you got a bad one.

If you return it and get another one and it doesnt do it again, it might be the processor. It might even be something else but the problems could be a number of them.. too many to list.

[gjimene2]

That's another mobo.

This one I have was 59.99 or 119.99 with a combo

[thronka]

I never did like ECS anyway. I know a friend who says they have pci slot one/agp slot conflicts. not to mention a high DOA rate.

why don't you try MSI? They have great boards and you can get one for a reasonable price at Frys. I saw one with the NForce2 chipset for 80. Great price and it accepts SDRAM and DDR.

[gjimene2]

next upgrade will be a complete mobo+cpu+ram+vid card upgrade
so I'm going to save up a bit and get going. BPB gave me an idea what to buy, but one thing,,,, why the 1700+XP Tbred?

[thronka]

TBreds are great overclockers. Although I would wait for the XP 3000+ Barton. Getting great reviews.

[gjimene2]

i can get one for less than $300

[BipolarBill]

Try another video card - I did have issues with a GF4 440 in one ECS board.

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by gjimene2
why the 1700+XP Tbred? It's dirt cheap and runs at 1700Mhz in the Ultra2. If you got money to burn, get a Barton. It's supported in the MSI too.

[gjimene2]

It's alrady packed up and I don't have anymore artic silver 3


btw, I noticed that AS3 runs a bit off the die, but it still leaves enough to cool the cpu, or did I just put a bit tad too much? lol.

btw, it has brought my cpu temp down big time!