Motherboard Worries

[CraigMc]

I recently bought a k7s5a and have had nothing but bother with it, so i am getting an exchange from my pc shop, The only other board in my price range with the features I want (i.e SDRAM no money for DDR) is the lex bn790e, I checked all over the web for any info on this mobo and all i could find was a page on the manufacturers site
http://www.linden-computech.com/pc/bn790e.htm (for anyone thats interested)
The board sounds perfect for my needs but as I have never heard of the manufaturer before and being unable to find any info on the web for it, I am a bit wary of buying it, So has anyone here on this forum had experience with this board or company, if so could you give me some advice on wether or not i should stick with the k7s5a or give the other board a shot.

Any advice from anyone with even the tinyest bit of info would be greatly appreciated

Thanks :D

[Monaco]

Welcome to the forums, CraigMc!

Well, the spec list looks pretty good- this board seems to have lots of good features.

But I would never ever buy it. Reason: who the heck is 'Lex'? I've never ever heard of that company before, and that's not a good sign. Most Brand-X motherboards like that are actually made by PC-Chips and rebranded by other companies, and PC-Chips does not make a very good motherboard.

I would keep searching until you can find a name-brand board. The Lex may work perfectly forever, but I doubt it.

[Da Whip]

What type of problems were you having w/ the K7S5A?
I have built 6 systems w/ that mobo with no problems.

[CraigMc]

Since getting the lex mobo i have had some other problems any help would be appreciated

I'll give a summary of a couple other posts i made elsewhere

1
I just installed a new motherboard and cpu to replace my ageing celeron 450, after installing the mobo and connecting all my periphials i turn on my pc and the bios runs detects memory,hd,cdrom etc then when windows xp should start loading the pc simply resets, There is nothing wrong with the hd as afterwords i reconnected it to my celeron motherboard and it works fine, Please help as i am stuck using my celeron 450

System Specs
Lex BN790E Via KT266a Motherboard
Duron 1.1ghz
196 mb pc133 ram
Geforce 2 mx
Soundblaster Live
56k PCI Modem
30gb Fujitsu hdd
350w psu
No Floppy drive

Please help, I am totally stuck and have no ideas at all about how to resolve the problem except for maybe format my hd, which i really dont want to do

2
I cant get into the setup menu, Once it should start loading Windows the pc resets holding f8 does nothing

3
When i boot with the windows xp disc in the cd drive and boot from cd it runs winxp setup for a bit then says, couldnt load xxxx.sys setup is ending

4
I have loads of stuff on my hd that i dont want to lose, And seeing as i have now way to backup the contents I'd be very reuctant to format the hd, Could not doing a clean install with the mobo cause the symptoms I described above??

5
Checked Bios HDD is detected fine, Im using it just now on the system i type this on with no probs, but when i connect to other mobo it resets after post, memory is working fine too. I dont want to format my hdd unless there is absolutley no alternative so can anyone out there tell me if my prob could be with windowsxp or if its the mobo

6
Can someone please tell me if installing a new mobo can make winxp installed on previous mobo, reset instead of boot and cause setup errors when trying to boot from winxp cd, i really need to know as i dont want to format my hd for it still not to work on my new mobo



I know some info repeats but thats basically everything i have posted concerning my problems

Thanks in advance
Craig

[tom kruze]

if you got a cheap pos harddrive like a 2 gig or something might want to look into is putting it in and formatting it and see if its the motherboard. I once installed win2k i believe maybe xp on a system and then switched the hd to another computer and it wouldnt work. So that might be your prob best thing to do would be get a small harddrive from a old computer or something try and reformat it and go from there. Sorry i cant be much help but thats my .02.

[Monaco]

ok, I see two things that could be causing you trouble.

One, you switched from one budget mobo to another budget mobo. The motherboard is the heart of your system- it is the one thing you should never skimp on. Still, even cheap mobos can be good ones and work fine. More likely the cause is

Two: you did not reinstall Windows when you swapped boards. These two motherboard, the ECS and the Lex, use different chipsets(SiS vs VIA). This means that when you installed Windows on the ECS, Windows found certain hardware in certain places and expects them to work in certain ways. Now, on the Lex, Windows is finding that some things are moved, some things are nonexistent, and none work in the expected manner. This confusion is enough to kill Windows, as it incorrectly attempts to access hardware.

Typically(IMHO anyway), when you swap mobos without reinstalling Windows, your PC will boot exactly one time before Windows royally corrupts itself. From then on, it's a deader :D

I assume you are using WinXP/W2K? Your only hope, now that you have already booted it, is to go thru the drive and remove all traces of Windows. I would suggest a DOS bootdisk, but I bet the drive is in NTFS...meaning DOS cannot see it.

First thing to try is remove NTLDR and rename your Windows directories. Hopefully, you can then install a fresh copy of your OS on the drive, and go from there.

[lonewolf1983]

i didnt even know that the kt266a could run with an SDR memory controller.

havent ever heard of that board, but you always have to format when installing a new motherboard, windows wont be happy otherwise.
Get a friend to copy off all your old data, then format and reinstall.
or get an old small hard disk to install windows on.

[John Jr]

Dude,
You gotta spend some cash for components. You, sorry to say, got some bad name brand stuff. Cut grass for several weeks after work or stand on a street corner if you got to but buy name brand stuff. If you don't you will be spending more in the long run than you should have trying to save cash by being thrifty.

[Breadfan]

Originally posted by Da Whip
What type of problems were you having w/ the K7S5A?
I have built 6 systems w/ that mobo with no problems.

Agreed, the K7S5a has been great to me...I've got one at home and my brother still has his and loves it. I've also used them multiple times at work.

The only issue I've ever had turned out to be a miswired USB extension cable...

Mike

[CraigMc]

Originally posted by John Jr
Dude,
You gotta spend some cash for components. You, sorry to say, got some bad name brand stuff. Cut grass for several weeks after work or stand on a street corner if you got to but buy name brand stuff. If you don't you will be spending more in the long run than you should have trying to save cash by being thrifty.

:D Totally right man, This system is only short term as i am financially strapped, The good thing is i can get an athlon xp 2000+ and some crucial or mushkin pc2700 and put them on this board and then when i get the cash get an asus or soltek mobo and use the better components with that, then if i am not on the poverty line :) I'll get a geforce 4 4600....Well thats the plan anyway