What's wrong with this motherboard?

[paralazarguer]

So...to answer the name of this thread:
"What's wrong with this motherboard?"

1.The integrated sound does not work in Windows XP regardless of what the box says.
2.The heatsink on the chipset is attached with cheap tape and is practically falling off causing instability.
3.JP4 was in the clear position and this wasn't documented anywhere.
4.All of the pins for power and LEDs were labeled incorrectly (with no silk screening) and the power LED is non-standard rendering the case useless of other boards if you mod it.
5.In Jason's case, and in the cases of many on that troubleshooting message board for this MB, you need a crazy good power supply.
6.Required VERY expensive ram to be stable
7.If PCI video card is not disabled in the BIOS you will have trouble with stability and any PCI soundcard although this is not documented anywhere.

Sure is a long cry from my ASUS P4 board which was plug in and go....I guess it just goes to show that you really do get what you pay for...

 

[natopotato]

Originally posted by: FlorianRed
So...to answer the name of this thread:
"What's wrong with this motherboard?"

1.The integrated sound does not work in Windows XP regardless of what the box says.
2.The heatsink on the chipset is attached with cheap tape and is practically falling off causing instability.
3.JP4 was in the clear position and this wasn't documented anywhere.
4.All of the pins for power and LEDs were labeled incorrectly (with no silk screening) and the power LED is non-standard rendering the case useless of other boards if you mod it.
5.In Jason's case, and in the cases of many on that troubleshooting message board for this MB, you need a crazy good power supply.
6.Required VERY expensive ram to be stable
7.If PCI video card is not disabled in the BIOS you will have trouble with stability and any PCI soundcard although this is not documented anywhere.

Sure is a long cry from my ASUS P4 board which was plug in and go....I guess it just goes to show that you really do get what you pay for...

i've got some issues with some of your statements on the board

statement #1: I have had the K7S5A running XP before with integrated sound working flawlessly. i think your problem may come from the fact that the later revision boards(like yours and others with the red DDR slots) have a C-media chip onboard whereas the older boards had a realtek chip. make sure you use the C-media driver and not the AC97 driver(both availible at ECS's site)

statement #2: I have never seen nor heard of this happening before, perhaps the place you bought the board from tampered with the heatsink

statement #3: This is one of the reasons why i think people should stay away from the K7S5A unless he/she is an experienced system builder and/or know what to expect. this really is SOP for most board makers for reasons stated earlier in this thread, though it wouldn't hurt to document it.

statement #4: I don't even know how else to say this other than bull****, not only are the jumper pins correctly labeled in the manual, but there is also a silkscreen that is accurate as well. unless you got a very odd, very bad board, i'd say that they fault lies with you on this one. as for the LED connector being useless if moded, completely untrue, i just cut the connector in half, and stick the each wire on the individual pin, it isn't as nice or pretty, but useless is a grave exageration.

statement #5: The only statement i can somewhat agree with. this board does have trouble with more power supplies than most others. I wouldn't call some of the power supplies that do fine with it(enlight300w, sparkle300w, enhance300w) "crazy good" though

statement #6: I haven't run this board with anything but crucial or kingston but neither brand gives me any trouble and i wouldn't call either of those brands expensive.

statement #7: I don't have any personal experience with running the K7S5A with a PCI vid card and sound card at the same time, but i have not heard any other reports of such problems.


I agree that the board does not have very good documentation, and can be a bit unforgiving. However i don't believe that gives you the right to thrash the board over non-existent issues and user error.

 

[paralazarguer]

statement #1: I have had the K7S5A running XP before with integrated sound working flawlessly. i think your problem may come from the fact that the later revision boards(like yours and others with the red DDR slots) have a C-media chip onboard whereas the older boards had a realtek chip. make sure you use the C-media driver and not the AC97 driver(both availible at ECS's site)

Yes, I am using the C-media drivers which has been established very early on in this thread. If you would read my above posts rather than just commenting, you would see that I was aware of this and you would also see what drivers I have tried for it! This issues is VERY well documented on the K7s5a support forum linked above.

statement #2: I have never seen nor heard of this happening before, perhaps the place you bought the board from tampered with the heatsink

It's quite common with ECS boards. If you click on the link for the K7S5a support forum that I linked above and click on the section called "P0roblems with K7s5a" you will see that this is well known and that there are many posts about it.

statement #4: I don't even know how else to say this other than bull****, not only are the jumper pins correctly labeled in the manual, but there is also a silkscreen that is accurate as well. unless you got a very odd, very bad board, i'd say that they fault lies with you on this one. as for the LED connector being useless if moded, completely untrue, i just cut the connector in half, and stick the each wire on the individual pin, it isn't as nice or pretty, but useless is a grave exageration.

In fact, the manual is completely wrong in the function of the pins. There is no silk screening although I'm aware that there is supposed to be. Great quality control. If you look at the K7s5a support forums linked above you will see that it is common knowledge that the manual is completely wrong on every pin. They were kind enough to post the correct pin assignments for me.

statement #7: I don't have any personal experience with running the K7S5A with a PCI vid card and sound card at the same time, but i have not heard any other reports of such problems.

Very common issue. Easily the most commonly discussed issue on that board. It's not JUST when using a PCI videocard but also having the option enabled in the BIOS.

agree that the board does not have very good documentation, and can be a bit unforgiving. However i don't believe that gives you the right to thrash the board over non-existent issues and user error.

These issues are all valid as you can tell by clicking on the forum link above. All of them are well documented and well known. They are not non-existent and they are not user error.

 

[paralazarguer]

For those who believe the cheap tape used on the falling off heatsink is not normal I'll copy and paste this right from the horse's mouth:

It's time to once again put some focus on this subject.

Many posts in the "Problems with K7S5A" section about instability/freezing are in many cases directly or indirectly related to chipset overheating. The feedback from many users solving their instability problem speaks for itself.

Often, the chipset heatsink re-mounting is the last thing K7S5A owners try when working on an unstable setup. But it should really be the first thing to do (also on systems running just fine). Of course there will be situations where a (small) modification to the original setup of the board like the heatsink fix would be problematic, if for example you are considering an RMA. In theory, it will void your warranty, because it is a physical modification to the board. Some would say that it is not a modification, but more a needed fix for a production flaw at ECS. One can only guess why ECS (and many other motherboard manufacturers) uses double-sided tape to mount the heatsink, double-sided tape is not a good heat conductor, on the contrary. A guess could be that it's because is a relativly inexpensive way (massproduction-wise) to do it.

You can re-mount your chipset heatsink this way:

Gently twist off the small orange heatsink on the SIS735 chip. You must twist it back and forth a few times to get it loose. When you have it off, "roll" of the tape from the chip with a finger and try the same with the heatsink (the heatsink side will be more difficult, you may have to use some rubbing alcohol to get it off). When both chip and heatsink is clean, reattach the heatsink with a thin layer of thermal paste (the same stuff you use for your CPU) and four drops of glue in the corners to keep it in place. Apply pressure while the glue hardens.
You can also use a thermal adhensive (heat-conductive epoxy) to attach the heatsink without the use of thermal paste. If you plan to overclock a lot, or just want to be on the really safe side, you can also choose to mount a bigger heatsink, for example an old 486 og pentium heatsink.

If you touch the heatsink on a running system (under full load) mounted with double-sided tape, the heatsink will not feel particularly hot, only lukewarm. If you then reattach the heatsink properly and touch it again under the same conditions, it will be much hotter. This is an indication of the heatsink is now doing its job, not being held back by the tape not transfering heat from the chip.

 

[Drsignguy]

MuHAHAHA !!!! I love when someone backs their statements!

 

[paralazarguer]

MuHAHAHA !!!! I love when someone backs their statements!

One thing of note: The question asked was: "What's wrong with this board" not "what's wrong with every K7s5a." The issue with the pins being mislabelled in the manual may be resolved in a later printing of the manual (although I doubt that since my board is so new and the model has been out so long) but even if that were the case, we are talking about a particular board here: Mine. There is a fix for the PCI video card setting in a third party BIOS but I won't install a third party BIOS. ECS should provide one. Maybe soon this will be fixed. In the mean time, I just have to disable the option. Not that I'll be needing it anyway. They may resolve the issue in time but right now, for my board, these are all valid issues. I've been able to work around them satisfactorily however. I haven't yet bought a replacement sound card for it yet but I stuck my audigy in there and all the problems magically went away similar to the stability issues going away with the use of thermal adhesive. A third party sound card such as Phillips AE should fix the sound problems.

I haven't run this board with anything but crucial or kingston but neither brand gives me any trouble and i wouldn't call either of those brands expensive.

[sarcasm] Oh! YOU haven't! I guess that means that all DIMMS will work for absolutely everyone with every revision of the board! [/sarcasm]
They are not terribly expensive DIMMs but they are more expensive than the OEM samsung cheap-o dimms that work fine in my ASUS and MSI boards. They may not be the most expensive DIMMs going but they're more than I should have had to spend.

 

[AsukaStrikes]

ASUS is known as the best AMD mobo maker

stay away from abit & iwill, personal xperiences

 

[natopotato]

I haven't run this board with anything but crucial or kingston but neither brand gives me any trouble and i wouldn't call either of those brands expensive.

[sarcasm] Oh! YOU haven't! I guess that means that all DIMMS will work for absolutely everyone with every revision of the board! [/sarcasm]
They are not terribly expensive DIMMs but they are more expensive than the OEM samsung cheap-o dimms that work fine in my ASUS and MSI boards. They may not be the most expensive DIMMs going but they're more than I should have had to spend.[/quote]

i never said the board works with el-cheapo dimms. i was just pointing out that kingston and crucial, 2 household names that are pretty cheap work well. as for them being more than you should have to spend, i think that if you had done a little more digging, you would find that you do have to spend more on ram when dealing with the K7S5A.

 

[paralazarguer]

i think that if you had done a little more digging, you would find that you do have to spend more on ram when dealing with the K7S5A.

And how does that change the fact that it's a problem with the motherboard that I can't use just any PC2100?

 

[Jeff7]

Amazingly, the heatsink on the northbridge is falling off. Literally. You turn the board on its side and the heatsink starts to slide down. It looks like they used bubblegum or something

Wasn't it held on with little pins? A lot of mobo makers use thermal tape, which doesn't ever seem to make full contact with the chip it's supposed to cool.

The Power LED thing: the common 'solution' to this that I've seen is to cut the connector from the case right down the middle - that way you can plug each wire to the motherboard individually.

What version of the Detonators are you using for the videocard? Go to Guru3d.com and get the 30.82 drivers - I've found them to be quite good. There seem to be some issues with the 40.xx drivers at nVidia's site right now.

For drivers, I tend to avoid motherboard makers' websites - the drivers there are almost always outdated. Just stick with Cmedia.com.tw and Sis.com.tw for drivers.

Are there any AGP settings in BIOS? I've seen this board's BIOS, and it is pretty sparse.

I'll give a silver dollar to anyone here who can name ONE piece of hardware that doesn't have huge conflicts with VIA chipsets...think of it.

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz? It seems to be working perfectly on my KT266A board. Hauppauge WinTV-PVR - also working nicely. I personally never experienced that nVidia Infinite Loop problem either.


I'll also second what jna said about ECS not exactly being the best mobo maker; and also, the SiS chipset used here was one of their first attempts to stop making outright SLOW chipsets, like they had in the Socket 7 days.

This board has been through three revisions and a dozen bioses and supports thoroughbred Bs. That is why I consider it a mature board.

Age doesn't mean squat about maturity. Some people act maturely when they're 7. For others, it takes till more like 70. Or look at Windows ME - what it was based on first came out in 1995. Then there was Win98. Then 98SE. Then WinME - and it still had plenty of problems! 5 years and everything still wasn't right.

 

[wilenski]

Anyone with the K7s5a should re-do the chipset heatsink. Double sided tape which is used to attach the heatsink does not transfer/conduct the heat to the heatsink. This is a dumb manufacturing idea to attach this heatsink defect on the board. Saved the manufacturer 2 cents and cost you a properly working motherboard.

Here is a site for problems with this board:

http://pub27.ezboard.com/fk7s5amotherboardforumfrm10

I just setup one of these boards looks like a good board untill you have to go through all the problems with it. Don't even try PC133 memory using this board. I don't recommend the purchase of this board.


go here for information and problems:

http://pub65.ezboard.com/bk7s5amotherboardforum

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: AsukaStrikes
ASUS is known as the best AMD mobo maker

stay away from abit & iwill, personal xperiences

I disagree.

I'm an ABIT man all the way. Have a BM6 which OC's an old Celly 400 rock stable and my AMD760 based KG7 is one of the nicest boards I have ever had the pleasure to use AND rock solid.

Only exception was the KT7a, that sucked nuts for bucks, but then it was a Via chipset board, hence the chipset choice on my current rig.

 

[paralazarguer]

Two guys that just posted obviously didn't even read a lot of what was already written. One made comments that have already been made (and debunked so they're not worth commenting on) and the other just linked to somethign that was already cut and pasted into the thread. I have a dream that someday people will read before commenting.

Age doesn't mean squat about maturity. Some people act maturely when they're 7. For others, it takes till more like 70. Or look at Windows ME - what it was based on first came out in 1995. Then there was Win98. Then 98SE. Then WinME - and it still had plenty of problems! 5 years and everything still wasn't right.

Yes, as I've already stated earlier. It's not the age of the board that I'm basing its maturity on. It's its number of revisions and bioses. Read next time.

 

[paralazarguer]

Wasn't it held on with little pins? A lot of mobo makers use thermal tape, which doesn't ever seem to make full contact with the chip it's supposed to cool.

No. There are no little pins. Take a look at the pictures I linked.

 

[PG]

Originally posted by: FlorianRed
So...to answer the name of this thread:
"What's wrong with this motherboard?"

1.The integrated sound does not work in Windows XP regardless of what the box says.
2.The heatsink on the chipset is attached with cheap tape and is practically falling off causing instability.
3.JP4 was in the clear position and this wasn't documented anywhere.
4.All of the pins for power and LEDs were labeled incorrectly (with no silk screening) and the power LED is non-standard rendering the case useless of other boards if you mod it.
5.In Jason's case, and in the cases of many on that troubleshooting message board for this MB, you need a crazy good power supply.
6.Required VERY expensive ram to be stable
7.If PCI video card is not disabled in the BIOS you will have trouble with stability and any PCI soundcard although this is not documented anywhere.

Sure is a long cry from my ASUS P4 board which was plug in and go....I guess it just goes to show that you really do get what you pay for...

Yikes, I think I need hip waders in this thread.

#1 - The onboard sound worked fine for me for a while, but then I wanted 4 channel sound so I got a different sound card.
#2 - That does seem to be a problem with some boards, but at least it's easy to resolve. Both my boards are fine but I run stock speeds.
#3 - There's no way you read the manual with a statement like that. See pages 16 and 17 of k7s5a10eng.zip
here.
And that's an old manual released last year so you can't say the newer versions finally document the issue. It was labeled in the manual from day 1.
#4 - Maybe you got a bad board, but if there was no silkscreening how did you know what JP4 was?
If you mod the connector it will still work for other boards. What will stop you? If you cut it in half you still have 2 pins with 2 connectors, or if you move one pin you can move it back, right?
#5 - So what does "crazy" good mean? What are the specs of the crazy good PS?

#6 - BS I run plain Crucial which isn't very expensive, in fact for a while it was the cheapest you could get and it's fine. Quality RAM is the key.
#7 - I have 2 of these boards and I think I have them set to PCI video in the BIOS even though I have PCI soundcards. No problems here.


edit: Just looked at the pics and I've never seen a K7S5A like that. I've had 3 and they are all black with BLUE DDR slots.

Also OCworkbench has the best forums and support for this board.

 

[paralazarguer]

I can't believe how DENSE some people are.

Okay. You have a different revision of the board. As you said

Just looked at the pics and I've never seen a K7S5A like that. I've had 3 and they are all black with BLUE DDR slots.

Different revision: different manual. Different sound chip. DIFFERENT

#3 - There's no way you read the manual with a statement like that. See pages 16 and 17 of k7s5a10eng.zip
here.
And that's an old manual released last year so you can't say the newer versions finally document the issue. It was labeled in the manual from day 1.

That would be a manual that's not for my board. Why would I read a manual that isn't for my motherboard? My manual is a revision 3 manual for revision three boards which doesn't state anything of the kind. Pages 16 and 17 of my manual are called "FP_AUD10: Front panel MIC/Speaker Out header."

#4 - Maybe you got a bad board, but if there was no silkscreening how did you know what JP4 was?

There was a little diagram in the manual with an arrow pointing to it that said JP4 clear bios. but it didn't state that it was in the clear position by default

Quality RAM is the key.

Yeah, that's exaclty what I'm saying. Did you not read what I wrote? I'm saying that this board needs quality ram while my asus and MSI boards will take anything that meets the PC2100 standard. What's so hard to understand about that? That's an issue with the board. Reading comprehension: needs improvement.

The onboard sound worked fine for me for a while, but then I wanted 4 channel sound so I got a different sound card.

Once again you have a different revision of the board which uses sound that's integrated into the chipset. Mine has a seperate C-media chip which has already been mentioned three times in this thread!!!!

#5 - So what does "crazy" good mean? What are the specs of the crazy good PS?

Keey your emoticons and semantics to yourself. Fact is that this board is well known for requiring a better power supply than most.

That does seem to be a problem with some boards, but at least it's easy to resolve. Both my boards are fine but I run stock speeds.

Once again, just because YOU don't have any trouble with it doens't mean that it's not a common problem. Besides which YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT BOARD!!!!!

 

[paralazarguer]

Did I mention that you have a completely different board?

 

[PG]

Haha, frustrated people are funny. I'm dense huh? I've built 3 computers with this motherboard. Mine are the newer Rev. but the color is different, that's all.

Go to my link again and read the manual. I was wrong about the page number, but I was looking at the PDF page number, not the actual printed page number. If you look at printed pages 12 and 13 it shows JP4 and describes it very clearly.


Are you sure you have the c-media chipset on the motherboard. Just out of curiousity, where is it?

 

[paralazarguer]

Haha, frustrated people are funny. I'm dense huh? I've built 3 computers with this motherboard. Mine are the newer Rev. but the color is different, that's all.

Go to my link again and read the manual. I was wrong about the page number, but I was looking at the PDF page number, not the actual printed page number. If you look at printed pages 12 and 13 it shows JP4 and describes it very clearly.

I'm not frustrated. I've worked out all my problems with this board. If your board is black, you have a revision 1.x. You have not worked with revision 3 boards since you said you've never seen one like this before. So you haven't built ANY computers with this board Different sound chip. Different capacitors, different PCB, different flash ROM, different board. It's not just the colors that are different. I'm sure that pages 12 and 13 of your manual for your board say that but...well, let me crack mine open here....nope...nothing about CMOS. In fact, I'll type the entire pages 12 and 13 in for you to see that this is a different board, different manual, different everything. I guess my explaining it just isn't enough. I geuss the pictures aren't enough to get it through your head that you haven't even seen one of these boards or its manual.
Page 12:
Intalling memory modules
The mainboard has two 168-pin/184pin DIMM sockets for SDRAM/DDR (double data rate) SDRAM system meory modules.

DDR SDRAM provides 800MBps or 1GBps data transfer depending on whether the bus is 100Mhz or 133Mhz. It doubles the rate to 1.6GBps and 2.1GBps by tranferring data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock. DDR SDRAM uses additional power and ground lines and requires 184-pin 3.3V unbuffered DIMMs used by SDRAM.

Installation Procedure
You must install at least on memory module in order to use the main-board.
Note: You cannot use DDR SDDRAM and SDRAM simultaneously.

Refer to the following to install the memory modules:
1. push the latches on each side ofthe DIMM slot down.
2. Align the memory module with the slot. The DIMM slots are keyed with notches and the DIMMs are keyed with cutouts so that they can only be installed correctly.
3. Check that the cutouts on the dimm modeules edge connector match the notches in the DIMM slot: (picture)
Page 13
4. Install the DIMM module into the slot and press it firmly down until it seats correctly. The slot latches are levered upwards and latch on to the edges of the DIMM.
5. Install any remaining DIMM modules.

Installing a Hard Drive Drive / CD-ROM

You mainboard has a primary and secondary IDE channel interface (IDE1 and IDE2) An IDE ribbon cable supporting two IDE devices is bundled with the mainboard.
If you want to install more than two IDE devices, get a second IDE cable and you can add two more devices to the secondary IDE channel.
IDE devices have jumpers or switches that are used to set the IDE devicee as MASTER or SLAVE. Refer to the IDE deivce user's manul. When installing two IDE devices on one cable, ensure that one device is set to MASTER and the other device is set to SLAVE. The documentation of your IDE device explains how to do this.

About Ultra DMA

This mainboard supports UltraDMA 66/100. UDMA is a technology that accelerates the performance of devices in the IDE channel. To maximize performance, install IDE devices that support UDMA and use 80-pin IDE cables that support UDMA66-100.

Installing a Hard Disk Drive

1.Install the hard drive drive into the drive cage in your system case.
2. Plug the IDE cable into IDE1
3.Plug an IDE cable connector into the hard disk drive IDE connector. It doesn't matter which connecot on the cable you use.
4.Plug a power cable from the case power supply into the power connector on the hard disk drive.

 

[paralazarguer]

I'm dense huh? I've built 3 computers with this motherboard. Mine are the newer Rev. but the color is different, that's all.

No. You haven't built any computers on this motherboard. I've said it a dozen times and I'll say it again. YOU DO NOT HAVE THIS MOTHERBOARD. It's as different from revision 1 as it is from an ASUS. You've never seen it. You've never seen the manual. All of your experiences with revision 1 do not apply to this board. They use different parts, they use a different sound chip, they have a different manual. To answer your question above, yes, yes, you very much are. You said " Mine are the newer Rev. but the color is different, that's all" That's wrong. You're reading the manual from revision 1 and and if it's black, it's not the new revision. All revision 3 boards have a new manual and are NOT black. All revision 3 boards have RED DDR slots. If you have blue DDR slots, you're using the old revision.

I've had 3 and they are all black with BLUE DDR slots.

They're all revision 1.x
ECS even has different product pages for 1.x and 3.x. GET IT?!

 

[PG]

My boards ARE Rev. 3.X
I know you won't believe me, but they are. Also, the exact Rev. is 5, something you can see on a little sticker next to one of the PCI slots.

One more thing, the pages I referenced WERE from the Rev. 3.X manual. I downloaded and looked. I also looked at my manual again and the CMOS jumper is mentioned on pages 12 and 13. The manual says K7S5A on the top left.

Oh, and just for the record, ECS uses the same manual for the Rev. 1.X and the 3.X.

edit: The more I look at that board the more I think it isn't just a K7S5A. Maybe it's a K7S5A+ or a K7S5A2. The ECS webpage has a pic of a K7S5A2 and it's not black.

 

[paralazarguer]

OMFG! Okay, on their site, they screwed up. They have a manual for 3.x but they link to the 1.x manual. The name of the manual is "of k7s5a10eng" yeah, that's revision 1.0 right in the file name. They just screwed up the link. It says right on the back of my manual revision 3.1. It's too bad that they can't get their manual links sorted out. Another problem with ECS. They have the same problem with some of their drivers...

 

[paralazarguer]

You can tell that I don't have the K7s5a2 by clicking here As you can see, it doesn't have the same audio chip, it has the floppy connector in the different spot. It has the ATX power connector is a different spot. Capacitors in a different spot. No AMR slot above AGP slot. Different kind of BIOS chip and no integrated LAN. Other than that, yeah, it's exactly the same as my board....holy crap dude.

 

[PG]

or maybe you got a PC chips board instead, but that makes no sense either since it was packed in a ECS box with ECS manual

http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=37&t=001361

edit: and your board has ECS on the chipset heatsink


yeah, that K&S5A2 has a very different layout. The AMR slot is in a very different place too. Looks like you just got an odd duck.

 

[paralazarguer]

Yes, that board has some striking similarities. It does have a different ROM chip though and the heatsink obviously plus the box and manual. My manual is very, very different than the one listed on ECS's site and I honestly thing that they just linked the wrong one. This manual is much more thorough than the one on the site (except for clear CMOS ;-)) and doesn't have any of the same wording or pictures. I doubt that it's some kind of odd duck since the manual is so different. I believe that what you are describing as a revision 3 board is not the same as what I'm describing as such.