k7s5a ECS Motherboard

[wallie_x]

kvk007, what are r u using to monitor your CPU temp? Your stated CPU temps are not excessive, but almost all CPU temp utilities must be calibrated. If yours isn't you could be running much higher temps than you think. The Athlon Xp can't handle alot of heat because the organic pin array is made of fiberglass. Too much heat = melted fiberglass. The older T-Birds have a ceramic based pin array and can handle much more heat. The symptoms you stated sounded like high CPU temp lock ups and that was why I was warning you. An Athlon only requires a small amount of quality heat sink paste between the CPU and the sink. However, the sink must be properly seated to transfer heat and it must also be rated for (big enough to handle the job) the 1800MHZ rating of your Athlon XP. Also the arm that is used to anchor the sink onto the CPU has an offset pivot that is designed to be directly over the CPU. If any of the latter variables are not done correctly, you could possibly toast an expensive piece of processor. Follow this link and good luck. wallie_x
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...30_118_756_759^2983,00.html

[Til]

I have had my K7S5A running about 10 days now and the temp varies between 32 and 39 depending on the temp in the room. I am using the Volcano 5 with 2 extra fans blowing out in rear plus my ps fan. No troubles at all.

[kvk007]

Hi guys.

I am having problems... Now when i formatted harddrive (FAT32) when i tried installing winXP or win2k, COMPUTER keeps FREEZING at the middle of the installation... When i install win98, it gets installed but my sound card has problems

plz look at this for sound card

http://kvk007.tripod.com/sound.bmp

[gtr]

Yeah, i had the same problem with freezing. My problem was that my chip got too hot. I put thermo paste and it work in air condition room. Now i'm using a thermoright sk6 with a delta fan and have no problems freezing. I went with crucial with ram which got rid of errors while running windows. This board is a pain to setup and now everything runs well and stable. Form the experience with this board no more cheap generic stuff only name brand stuff.

[RalphArch]

Bryan24 - use a pin to raise the plastic tab holding outside socket in place, remove, and move it over to center spot

or cut it down the middle and use the 2 halfs

went fine except for one thing.....where the heck do I plug in my power led, the spot on the board has 2 pins and my case led has a 3 pin plug.

[Maximum_Confusion]

Check your jumper on JP4 BE SURE TO SET to NORMAL position. If this jumper is not set to normal it won't boot. G'luck

[godzilla]

K7S5A rev.5
AMD Athalon 1200 T-Bird 266 axia c(!)
Geforce 2mx 400 64 tv-out (having doubts about this thing)
256mb sdram

This was a first for me; i upgraded a PII400 with a K7S5A and an athalon 1.2 tbird and a new graphics card. I spent ages assembling it cause i didn't really know what i was doing. After putting it together i rushed (carefully!) through to the computer room plugged it in and fired it up and ....nothing! well the lights came but that was it and i dont even have a speaker to give me any bleeps. EVENTUALLY after spending days f*$ing about with the thing i found id put far too much gue between the core and the heatsink so after a lot of panicing i got it cleaned up, put a fresh blob on and this time it booted no probs. I tried to get hold of this cpu cleaning kit i seen on the web but cause im not in the usa i couldnt find any, i ended up just using them cotton wool buds u clean your ears with and some bog roll and blue tack.
while my pc was in bits i spent days checking out what i had bought on the web with my dads pc and seem to have bought quite a good chip to overclock, but when i try flash the bios with a different oc bios it keeps telling me theres a file missing when i try loading the amiflash program so if anyone else has had this problem please tell me whats wrong!
Also this graphics card sucks big time; from what i can gather theres no difference between the 32/64mb versions so ive wasted a few £ there and when i first got it running it would crash constantly. Again after much reading i got this gpu utility which gave me the clock/mem readings of a geforce2pro! and so did that other little program that goes in the display properties. I ended up with a program called power strip which i would recommend to anyone. its really a good one to have. My card kept crashing cause it defaults to a core speed of 200 instead of 166 or 175 or whatever its supposed to, but ive got it slowed down a little now. Also the fan on the card is making an awful racket; it seems to have come a little slack and is vibrating like mad. i got it from a computer fair and its made by a company called Mercury and they dont seem to have ANY customer support so dont go buy one of these things!
AND when i was installing the drivers i couldnt get the onboard sound working so i ended up installing the win95 version (i have win98) and it now works ok.

Now i have these problems sorted out i must say im rather chuffed with my K7S5A. it doesnt crash anymore, i have a slow graphics card which is a bummer but the thing is i dont need to go buy me a new mobo. when i next have some spare cash i can go get me a geforce3 and some ddr ram and i can even stick a faster cpu in which is nice

ps
an excellent site to check out is www.ocworkbench.com they have loads of info on a whole range of motherboards and its more than just how to install one!

[godzilla]

also i have a progra called sisoft sandra 2001 te standard which tells me all about my pc. it gives me a cpu temp of between 24-28oC where as in my bios its 43-48oC. In sandra it says the bios info its giving me may be incorrect so how do i fix this?
ive got a standard heat sink and fan and if anyone can recommend a cheap replacement which would cool it down more please let me know

Thanks in advance!!
god

[Robert Meldrim]

My patience worn thin on this problem. I'm trying to get another k7s5a board from my supplier....and I promise I will own up to whatever proves to be the problem...but I've sent the replacement board back and am having to wait, probably for a week or two, for them to ship me a new board.
Thanks all of you for your input, it was nice to see so many people helping, with their input!

Thanks
Robert Meldrim

[DaveJH]

Godzilla,

I suggest you try the latest drivers from nVidia. I have exactly the same components as you and I can assure this graphics card does not suck!

nVidia refernce drivers should do the job.

[setiguy2000]

Also, wallie and kvk i would like to know how EXACTLY to seat a heatsink and cpu since i ALWAYS seem to get higher than average temps when i build with 1.2ghz plus t'birds [/B][/QUOTE]

First of all, be sure you are using a top quality thermal paste such as Artic Silver II. Next, be sure that if you are using a spring clip mounted heatsink that the pivot point of the clip sits directly above the center area of the CPU. When applying the thermal paste, be sure to use only a "paper thin" layer, no more. There are more detailed instructions at Artic Silver's website.

Third, be sure the mating surfaces of the heatsink and the CPU are impeccably clean. Use either methyl alcohol or B-12 Chemtool (either one of these leave no residuals). Do not touch the surfaces with your fingers since even the oil from your fingers can cause heat transference problems.

I believe that CPU temps will vary even when using the same CPU, mobo and power supply. I know this because I use a Swiftech MCX462 heatsink (a monster) and have two case fans blowing in, two case fans blowing out (including the power supply fan), and I run temps a little higher than some other's with the same CPU. Naturally, cooler is better, but AMD states that as long as you stay in the lower end of 50 celsius or as close to that as possible you'll be fine.

An excellent site to view more about CPU and heatsink cooling is:
www.1coolpc.com

Good Luck,
Setiguy2000

[setiguy2000]

This is what I copied from: www.1coolpc.com

Application Instructions

1. Even though Arctic Silver II is specifically engineered for high electrical resistance, you should keep the compound away from processor, memory, and motherboard traces and pins. There is a possibility that dust or metal particles and/or shavings carried by the airflow inside the computer case could contaminate the compound and increase its electrical conductivity.

2. ONLY Arctic Silver II should be between the processor core and the heatsink.
Remove any thermal pads or other interface material from the heatsink before applying the Arctic Silver II.

3. Clean the mating surfaces completely with a low residual solvent (isopropyl alcohol will work) and a LINT FREE cloth. (i.e. lens cleaning cloth) If the heatsink surface has had thermal compound previously applied, the surface should be thoroughly scrubbed and cleaned with a quality degreaser (Available at automotive stores.) and then followed with the alcohol cleaning step. It is important to keep the surfaces free of foreign materials and NOT to touch the surfaces (a hair, piece of lint, and even dead skin cells can significantly affect the thermal interfaces performance, especially on modern small core CPUs as the surface area is already severely limited). In addition, oils from your fingers can adversely affect the performance by preventing the micronized silver fill from directly contacting the metal surface. (Finger prints can be as thick as 0.005")

4. Cup the syringe in the palm of your hand with the barrel between your middle and index finger as shown in the photo to the right. Slowly squeeze your hand shut until the compound begins to come out of the nozzle.
Only apply the thermal compound to the top of the actual CPU core. (Also known as the slug or die.) In the photo to the right it is the small raised blue rectangle in the middle of the Celeron II processor. In the photos below, it is the small raised rectangle in the center of the AMD Duron processor. The Duron photo on the lower right shows the Arctic Silver II applied to the core.

The flatter the mating surfaces, the thinner the layer that is required. Stock processors and/or heatsinks with normal surface irregularities will require a layer 0.003" to 0.008 thick to fill the resultant gaps. (Equal to the thickness of 1 to 2 sheets of standard weight paper.) Properly lapped processors and heatsinks with mirror finishes will only require a translucent haze.

DO NOT use your finger to apply or smooth the compound (skin cells, and oils again). A razor blade or the clean edge of a credit card can be used as the application tool. You may use whatever tool you choose as long as it is CLEAN and allows you to control the application area and thickness.

5. RECHECK to make sure no foreign contaminants are present on either surface, and assemble the two surfaces.

6. PRESS the two surfaces together ONLY. Minimize any "twisting" or lateral "sliding" in either plane in an attempt to mate the "peaks" of the surfaces together. When you twist or slide one surface against the other, "peaks" on one or both surfaces will travel over areas where two "valleys" should come to rest. The peaks will scrape away compound that is needed to fill the void between the valleys that will oppose each other when the surfaces are in their final position and cause small voids (air gaps). ANY air gap will significantly increase thermal resistance in an otherwise GOOD interface. If the thermal compound is properly made and of the proper consistency, direct non-sliding pressure vertical to the mating plane will be more than enough to insure that the surfaces "bottom out". Additionally, "sliding" the surfaces together may cause one surface to scratch/gouge the other possibly opening up a larger inter-surface gap which will increase thermal resistance.

7. Secure the thermal interface with the supplied clips or other hardware.

Hopefully this will be of help to you and anyone else with hot CPU temps.

Setiguy2000

[analyst]

Originally posted by bryan24
Well luckily my installation of this board went fine except for one thing.....where the heck do I plug in my power led, the spot on the board has 2 pins and my case led has a 3 pin plug. Other then that I'm happy so far with it and my new 1.4 gig athlon. ( sorry if this is a dumb question...kinda new to this stuff).
On a side note does anyone have a link to a decent hardware monitoring program for this board ? I believe the only way to check it now is to enter set-up mode?
thx Bryan

Hi bryan24
since no-one seems to be responding (the thread seems to have gone off in another direction) I thought I'd throw in my bit

I'm new to this too, but I've just done my first build with this ECS board and I found the same problem, 3 into 2 won't go.

I looked for a while and decided that since there was only one end accessible I've got to work on that. So I "delicately" prized out and relocated the terminal to give two pins side-by-side on the plug and just pushed them on the board with a blank overhang.

All I can say is, work very carefully and it should work ok, mine did

BTW you really should also have a look here

I've installed an Athlon 1600XP with 512mb DDR 2100 Crucial ram
I've done the memtest-86 thing and got no errors - thank God!

Hope it helps

[godzilla]

ive tried loads of different reference drivers; im currently using 2183's, ive forgot my mad onion 3dmark2001 score just over 2000 i think. these seemed to be the most stable and fastest drivers i found

[jaytv]

In my experience with this board (believe me, I don't recommend it), when clients buy it as a part of a cheap Athlon/DDR Mobo combo, (usually at Fry's), it is very sensitive to seating of the cpu and doesn't work well with non-xp and non-mp athlon processors.

The Socket 462 ZIF on this mobo is rather cheap, and seems to allow the Athlon to not fully seat unless the athlon is pushed down as the locking lever is seated.

Try looking carefully at the way the CPU is seated.

Just my .02

computerconsultant@email.com