User opinion on ECS K7S5A ???

[jimmyhaha]

what is the difference between K7S6A and K7S5A ?

I am arguing myself is it worth $40 more for the leadtek ?

newegg is OOS of ECS
btw, anyone know if any motherboard is comparable to ECS

 

[Regalk]

From what I have seen the K76SA is either a myth or a revision to the K75SA to correct all the electrical deficiencies that board has - and believe me it has all kinds of quirks associated with it. Those who got it to run "stably" kudos to them - but for the hardcore guys around here who do numerous (re)installs of various OSes (for whatever reason) the board can't cut it.

 

[digme]

where's a good place to buy this board with a MB+CPU+Heatsink/fan combo.... also, am i mistaken in saying that this board will support duron as low as 750MHz? i am trying to build an economy system for my friend less $500..... i bookmarked the following threads for the ECS when i built a few systems sometime ago... i am pissed i can't seem to find them at all...

said, "warm ECS K7S5A+1.2G + FAN/HS"

could somebody please relay info? esp. there was one place called i think webuildpc or something like that?

also, where can i find a good cheap case/300Watt? hmm...thx guys...


I am real tired of the Forum's search engine.... DAMNIT

 

[jimmyhaha]

I am about to make my purchase on ECS...
I wonder will my enlight 250W PS can handle ECS motherboard with 1G T-bird ?

coz I heard ECS motherboard need at least 300W PS

 

[look30]

Make sure you get it from a place who has some kind of customer support.
I had no problems in two months but lately the battery is giving me some hard time and I heard that it is a common problem with this board.
My advice is to spend $20 more and get a better board. Some of the ECS are garbage and they don't have any kind of tech support.

 

[FrostyFlakes]

got four boards and all work well, and this mb is stable, every os i tried runs well, and i disagree with the statement someone said this board can't handle the numerous installs of os, i have reinstalled os serveral times and it always went w/o a hitch. recommended.

 

[vicdoc]

I have one, my first MB switchover, about 5 weeks. No real problems, using a Duron 850, SB16, and the on board lan, 256 mb ddr. My psu is a 235 w. and it seems stable enough. Can't complain, but I got it before I read all of those horror stories. I got it as an upgrade and I wanted a simple budget system. Since then I got an Abit KT7A for another system upgrade. I like to play with the clock, and I would at this point not buy the ECS because I am hungry for overclocking power!!!
Whereas the ECS is stuck at 850, I have my Abit using a Duron 750 clocked to 956 mHz, and stable as a rock after playing with the settings. It also uses a 235w psu.

 

[goog]

I'm also considering this board, but I am doubting I'll take the plunge.
The price is so cheap though less than 1/3 the price of the Soyo or Asus which do have RAID, plus the Soyo has true 6 channel audio.
Around here it's not even half the price of the Epox, Soltek, and Shuttle.

The you get what you pay scenario to some degree.

Edit for typo and post 500.

 

[Brix13]

I just got mine and I have to say that I haven't had problems with this unlike other mobos. Seems like in general a nice mobo for the buck!

 

[FunBuilder]

Very happy with this board
I built a system with this board about a month ago. I has booted up flawlessly everytime, and not crashed or done anything funny since I built it. I'm not overclocking it though.

For those who mentioned low end Durons, I'm usinging a Duron 800. I built this as a cheap system with some parts that I had floating around.

Two issues on build:

1.The two pin Power LED connector: I slipped an exacto knife under the LED connector and slipped the connector out and moved it to the center position. I was then able to connect it to the MB.

2.After formatting the hard drive and copying the system files, I re-started with the start up disk in and was ready to direct it to the set up files on the CD-Rom. Instead it skipped the floppy and I got a message that it had found the boot record on the hard drive. Then it just sat there and did nothing. I re-booted a few times and got the same thing. I had to go into the bios, set it to not boot from IDE, and choose boot from floppy as first device. After that I was able to continue and install 98SE. After I got it installed I changed the boot sequence back. Never had to do that before with four other builds.

It's been running fine ever since!

 

[hwstock]

<< I just RMA my DFI motherboard to newegg and need a new board
I heard mixed opinoins on this board..

for sure the price/performance ratio is very good for ECS...
any one commnet on it ? >>



K7S5A life/death statistics


...and for comparison:


AK31A life/death statistics

 

[Jayczar]

We have sold over 30 of these boards at work and believe
it or not we have not had a single one returned(yet).
BTW I have one running at home rock solid stable for
over 3 months. Really hard to beat for the price/performance.
Kudos to ECS for breaking out of the shadow of PCChips,
Amptron, Alton etc.

 

[osage]

I liked my first one so well that I got a second one. Then I convinced my bro-in-law to get one as well.

Mine are very stable, fast, and pretty much trouble free. I have used these boards with Durons,T-birds, PC133, 2100 DDR, generic 250 watt, Enermax, Antec AMD approved 350 watt psu . Nice boards, they offer a fair degree of flexibility,and features. Still the best bang for your hard earned buck.

IMHO

 

[DFranch]

Mine has been running fine for 3 months now, and I have no complaints. The KT266A is a faster solution now. The Shuttle AK31A is only $80 and has all of the overclocking options. The K7S5A is just not the best solution anymore.

 

[lotust]

Well I did love my setup with this board untill ---------> hard disk performance..

I think its hard disk performange anyways. But im no expert

 

[ELectroFlux]

got my new k7s5a 2 days ago i bought this board fully aware that kt266a is faster, also i even know shuttle kt266a is only 10 more then what i pay for my k7s5a. ( i pay 65 + 5.00 tax at local shop)

the board i got work so far without any problem. issue such as 1/2 hours between boot up, crupt bios file under win2k have not happen to me. i am only running duron 750 at 750 with 20 gig 7200 ata66 hard drive and 256mb pc133 ram. ( its for my bro's gf. she only go on the net, check email, chat. )

here is my own setup. dual pIII 993 running at d6vaa ( via chipset apollo 133a) with u2w 10k scsi drive. the first day i boot up k7s5a, this damn thing actually feel almost as fast as my own setup. lol.

like most people said here, if u lunucky and got yourself a bad k7s5a, just return it and get a replacement. with mess amount
of board been sold, there will be some DOA.

elf

 

[drake6]

Ok as of today I a very happy ecs k7s5a user ,but it took 2 trys to get it right. The first one I had was a verison 4 and it suffered from a bad case "I cant remember my bios setting blues ". So I returned it to Frys (sense they had nothing but open box returns ) I got a full refund . I went to a great local computer shop in arcadia ca (near were I live) Kommax and got the ecs k7s5a version 7 for 65.00 *frys it was 79.00* . Got home monday , and a hour later mobo installed in case , reformate and fresh windoze XP pro install, BOOM a rock solid , fast as all hell PC. I'm running amd xp 1800, 512 ddr ram, 2x7200 46.1 and 80gig hdrs, 12x plextor cdrw, 16x pioneer dvd, geforce 3 64ddr v/c . sound blaster live value, and using the onboard nic with windoze xp, Ive used sandra burn in and 3dmark 2001 bench market looping test for 8hrs runs with no crashes and my cpu temp never gets over 90f. So Im happy to say the least.

 

[drake6]

My Bump lola

 

[Pabster]

DFranch wrote:

"The KT266A is a faster solution now."

Ah, you must play your games at 640x480 as well. Let me guess, you can spot the difference between 202 and 220fps?

There is zero real world performance difference between SiS 735 and KT266A.

 

[Akhan47]

Eh, this board gave me problems from the get go. I tried two of them but they were DOA. Nothing but headaches, if it works for you great if it doesn't you've been warned

 

[dAv]

Nothing but headaches with mine. Notice that AMD only certifies it for XP processors.
If you have one I would download and use Memtest86
to see if it is OK. Corrupted data is a bad thing!:frown:

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

I guess you could call me the budget guy, my two boards are the Shuttle AK31 Rev. 3 for $80 and the ECS K7S5A second hand for $55. Both are working great. I'm still having some quirky problems with the ECS, but I like them both.

 

[jasonsRX7]

Typically, people encounter one of three problems with this board, I can tell you from first hand experience.

1.) System will not run stable at 133/133. Will fail Memtest86, usually at test3 or test5. Clocking down to 100/100 allows memtest86 to complete without errors.

2.) System reboots randomly, with no warning. It just reboots like the reset button was hit.

3.) System will not reboot after a warm restart. Power must be turned off for a few seconds before rebooting.

I had problems 1 and 2 with four different boards. Tried 3 powersupplies, 6 ram modules (ddr and sdram), 2 processors (1.4 and 1ghz), and different drives, ect...

The problems are well documented over at OCworkbench. Chances are, you won't have any problem since it appears to be related to a particular revision of processor in certain boards.

My board required a resistor modification to function properly at 133/133. The specifics of this are detailed quite well here. Not trying to talk you out of getting this board, just giving you a heads up so that if you have a problem, you'll know where to look Now that mine is running properly, I'm really happy with it. I just feel that I shouldn't have been required to talk a soldering iron to it to get it to work right.

Jason

 

[JediJeb]

I have had mine now for over 3 months, it runs 24/7 with absolutely no problems, always has Seti@home running in background even when doing image editing, no problems. I have used Win 95, WinNT 4.0 and now WIn2000, all worked fine. If I keep the memory settings conservative I can run 150/150 FSB, but have heat problems because of cheap HSF, I run at 138/138 FSB with no problems at all. Best board I have ever used.

My system:

ECS K7S5A
1G Tbird@1050
Generic HSF
512 Crucial 2100DDR
Matrox G450 16MB running Dual Monitors
Win2000Pro
8 GB Quantum Bigfoot and 6 GB Seagate ( next things to upgrade )
HP 9500 CD-RW
Hitachi DVD
Enermax 350W PS

 

[jimmyhaha]

Ah... got my ECS today...
no boot, CPU fan spinning..

no boot sound, no bootup screen...
Pls advice...