Don't Buy ECS!

I purchased an ECS K7S5A motherboard online back in January of 2003...

It now no longer works... I get no screen... everything powers up but no screen... so I inspected the board (for the 1st time) and found a couple melted resistors(transistor?) on the board... I never smelled anything burning... was standing over the board each time I power up... so I figured I would RMA it... ya right!

Trying to find RMA info was like trying to find a needle in a haystack... Tech Support finally sent me a link to the RMA page. This is ECS' Warranty... from an email sent to me....


ECS manufacturer warranty is offered to direct customers with valid invoice only. Since our warranty is handled through the vendor channel, you need to contact your vendor for RMA. Your warranty is limited to the period offered by your vendor.


ECS does offer a fee based RMA service for indirect customers who are unable to get free RMA service from their vendor channel However, since your product now has physical damage, it voids all warranty options. We regret that we are unable to assist you any further,

ECS RMA Dept.


Thanks for the Piece of PCB!

I have seen and heard of a lot of problems from these boards (and others from ECS) so bottom line is... DON"T BUY FROM ECS!

Thank you, have a good day and save your money!

sounds like they are just telling you to go through the place you bought it from. Is it out of warranty or something? If not, the place you bought it from should give you a new one.

HEHE

i have ecs that works and the only thing it is good for is FOLDING for team 32 and AOL Instant messenge !!!!!!!!

I have had tons of horrow and suffering and pain with these boards in the last couple days. My next board will not be a ECS, no matter how cheap they are.

You get what you pay for and that’s why ecs is so cheap. Try Gigabyte next time I have made many systems and those motherboards are always top notch and never give you a problem even years later
[edit for link] http://tw.giga-byte.com/

mihne has worked fine for nearly 2 years now. not a single hickup. their quality-control is rediculous. But when you get a working one, it works.

Ridiculous is right, the K7S5A Pro I just has a non-functional CPU fan header.

And I think my 2-year-old K7S5A has died.

I have only had the board for 3 months... only in a computer for like a month... the last two months in the box in an anti static bag...

The vendor I bought it from gave me a 30 day garauntee but ECS will not give any warranty unless you have an invoice directly from them. If you notice my post the person talks in a circle to me...

No warranty - go to vendor - but we do offer RMA - but your board is now damaged - no warranty

I just feel they are crooks...

I have never run across a company that would not replace one of their own products that was defective (which this board is)... but they told me since there is physical damage on the board (couple little resistors melted on board) that they will not replace the board. My own fault for not carefully inspecting a brand new motherboard in the box.

I bought an ECS matx board about 2 months ago, had it a weekend and rma'd it. Couldn't get it to install anything. ECS is crap. Added to my list of manufacturers I won't buy from.

So are you saying you bought a mainboard from a vendor that had a 30 day warranty and left it sitting in the box for 2 months before setting it up to see if it worked?

Meaning

Actually he means two months ago he bought an ECS board. during that first week he found out that it was crap and rma'ed it but should have asked for his money back which was probably 50 bucks since they are cheap stuff. But hey mine is working fine as long as I don't restart it. restarting starts all types of probs.

actually i did return it, I tend to say RMA whenever I return a comp part. But right it was 2 mons ago, during the first week.

I had to underclock my memory and CPU to get mine to work.

I have an old K7S5A.....rev 1.1 or so

once I set it to 100/100 it works pretty well.

but that means I am running my XP1800+ at 75% speed.

Other then that.....it seems to be solid.

Thats kind of crappy don't you think? I mean if I would expect my board to at the very least run my system at stock speeds.

I have installed ECS boards, or renditions there of.... i.e. PC Chips, for people who want PC on a budget.

All are working fine.

The devil is in the details, always read warranty policy BEFORE you order from any supplier. A lot of the discounters buy products from manufacturers without warranty, opting to cover it themselves, which is one reason why they sell cheaper. Like they say, you get what you pay for. Warranty is always figured in to the cost of goods. So, if all other costs are relatively fixed, cut out or cut back the warranty to reduce price.

It's just like AMD OEM chips. There is technically no warranty from AMD. Why? Because they are sold to the reseller that way. They are cheaper than the retail boxed product, but no warranty and of coarse AMD retail product also comes with a fan and heatsink.

The problem is, most of you are only concerned about buying at the cheapest price... untill you encounter a defective product, then you get real concerned about warranty only to find out afterwards that your product came with little or no warranty at all. Then, you come to a forum like this and Gripe and Moan about how so and so supplier or manufacturer is a worthless piece of ____!


Sooo.... do I order an XP2100+ from NewEgg @ $78.00 OEM and a 30 day warranty ($5.00 extra for one year)or should I get the retail boxed one for $84.00 which includes a 3 year AMD warranty and a fan????

Yes, you get what you pay for, I agree.

But! At least other companies selling cheap junk will replace their cheap junk if it doesn't work... I think of Lexmark.... (I have also bought two(2) defective keyboards from Logitech in the past year... they sent me brand new ones both times with no problems).

Besides it is pretty crappy for a company to sell defective equipment, INTENTIONALLY, knowing there is no warranty. I see more than half the folks who posted on these forums are having at least some sort of problem with their board's functunality.. can't start correctly, won't run the chip at speed, cpu fan header no good, or just plain dead... that seems to be quite a lot of garbage for an item that you pay $50 to $60 dollars for. Great quality control! They should be put out of business!

This is why we have these forums, to let others know what they should look out for... BEFORE they waste their money. There are all kinds of people who want to build a cheap 2nd system or a simple PC for a relative or friend... the logical choice to them is to buy a fairly inexpensive board that does not have a ton of options. To them, a $60 motherboard is the obvious choice...

I have had a PcChips board, myself, (in my girlfriend's cheap pc) and have nothing but problems with that too... I should have guessed it was related to ECS in some way.

Bottom line is....

ECS are bottom of the barrel junk and ECS will not give you any warranty... you will have to RMA it back to the vendor you bought it from(if it's still covered)... so if you are thinking of getting a cheap board (something under $100) for your PC then stay clear of these... get a Aopen, a GigaByte, an MSI, whatever, just don't buy ECS.

Do you feel comfotable buying a $50 piece of PCB knowing that if it dies after a couple months that the manufacturer will just shrug their shoulders and tell you, too bad? I don't.

These are my opinions, we welcome yours.

I think I remember reading a review somewhere at the time saying it couldn't do 133 even though it had a KT133a and setting in the BIOS.

I just didn't want to deal with cross shipping. At the time I had two upgrade to systems at one time, so I was looking for a cheap way out.

I think I remeber saving over $150 going this route ( using old PC133 and cheaper motherboard price).

So even though it isn't running at spec. I am somewhat satisfied. I will make sure I will use quality products in the future. I choke it up to a lesson learned.

I went through the ECS hell my self with the system not running at 133 FSB and had to leave it at 100, every now and then it would boot at 133 but as you restarted...BLAMO!!!!!! no more functioning PC. Crap.

wow, I knew ECS products were cheap but I had no idea how bad! I think I'll be staying away from them in the future.

My k7s5a works perfectly, even at 150//150 fsb. overclocks fine.