Ecs Rant!

Cyberwiz01 · Jul 29, 2003

These boards SUCK!
I have gone through so many ECS K7S5A motherboards! I am NOT a newb to installing computer hardware, i know what i'm doing. Sometimes Fry's sells boards that have already been opened. I have gotten two with messed up ps2 ports, on one the keyboard wouldnt detect, and on the other, whoever had the board before me must have had the same problem because he bent the keyboard port so much that nothing would fit in it anymore. And then theres the problem of it not holding the bios as mentioned on another thread. And then when i do get one that works, it spontaneously goes out a few months later. My brother built a computer for his friend and used an ECS board, now that computer comes back to us to fix every few weeks. Those boards are horrible, ECS needs some serious quality control, i'm sure some people get decent boards from them, but so many of them have defects and flaws, it is a gamble to try to get a good board. Boooooo for ECS!

diddydo75 · Jul 29, 2003

im with you cyber.they are a pain in the **se!mine wont hold the bios.loses it about once a week.and nobody seems to know why.

TimWest · Jul 29, 2003

I have built two systems with ECS, first was fine, my second...is fine as long as I run 100FSB (underclocking :-( )

If you want good quality cheap motherboards......you can't beat Biostar!!!

aznchaos · Jul 29, 2003

L7S7A2 are very good i havent had any problems but i heard alot of problems with KS75A. But ECS isnt bad.

PDL · Jul 29, 2003

So, you people buy these cheap deals from Fry's and get refurbs and seconds and base your dislike for ECS on the resulting problems!

Go to newegg.com
There you get new products at very competitive prices, sometimes free freight.
And if you want refurbs, you can sometimes get those too. But at least there you will KNOW they are refurbs.

palee72 · Jul 30, 2003

PDL said:
So, you people buy these cheap deals from Fry's and get refurbs and seconds and base your dislike for ECS on the resulting problems!

Go to newegg.com
There you get new products at very competitive prices, sometimes free freight.
And if you want refurbs, you can sometimes get those too. But at least there you will KNOW they are refurbs.

I've gotten an ECS from Newegg, not a refurb, and it was DOA....And I know of pleanty of people who have bought ECS new, non-referb, that didn't work, or didn't work well.

I see you have 4 of them. Congratulations, you found a working combination. Share your secret. If you visit any motherboard forum that has an ECS section, I can tell you that you will find more complaints than praise for these boards.

You are entitled to your opinion, he is entitled to his.

aznchaos · Jul 30, 2003

Have any of you tried a L7S7A2?

YviE · Jul 30, 2003

I'm quite happy I only build one computer with a KS75A. It was for a friend, but he doesn't use the comp really often! Lucky him!

7keys · Jul 31, 2003

There was a time when the K7S5A first came out that it was a good buy. There was the AMD chipset and the VIA KT266 and SIS 735 could beat them both. But now it is a dog of a board and there does not seem to be a good reason to buy one as you can buy an older Via 266A or Via 333 chip set board for about the same price. Why bother with this board?

Pixel · Jul 31, 2003

they own if ur making a computer for ur grandma

35$ boards

AllenSmoker · Jul 31, 2003

Buying the board on its own is usually a bad idea, But often you can get a combo for a really good price. Fry's was selling the pro version with a 2400+ for $80 here. cheapest 2400+ on pricewatch was $75, so your getting a $5 motherboard. Use the chip on your nforce board or whatever and then pick up an old used duron or athlon really cheap and use the k7s5a for that. Its also a really good deal for someone upgrading an older p2/p3 system as they wont need to buy much more then just the combo and a heatsink.

timmy · Aug 1, 2003

my first ECS was a K7AMA

ALi Magic Chipset, SDRAM and DDR - 266fsb. I downloaded a hacked bios that gave me an option to run it at 146fsb. It works absolutely fine!

I still run this board today as my 2nd machine:

ECS K7AMA
XP2000+
384MB PC2100 Micron
13GB Fujitsu hdd

the XP2000 runs fine at 146fsb (1825MHz) but i have no need to overclock as i only browse the web on this comp.

Although i would never buy an ECS again there is nothing wrong with them, they are good, cheap and stable boards at a low price. Reason why i wouldn't buy another one is because they are down on performance when you compare them to Abit/epox.

gch3 · Aug 3, 2003

I've got two K7s5a's and never had a problem with them after I got the memory problems fixed and the updated bios's in.
I'm running one now in it's second year with no failures.
I'm with PDL, if your buying refurbished boards , you're buying someone elses problems. Just like buying a used car. You've got to expect to run into something and the source expects you to also. That's why the price is dirt cheap.
If it helps any, ecs K7s5a boards are very power hungry. I wouldn't run one with less than a 350w psu just to be safe. They're also quirky on fsb settings. I've got one that won't run at manufacturer's recomended settings of 133/133 but is sound as a rock at 138/138 and143/143. Go figure, but it's what got me into the word of oc'ing so I have no complaints.
This board is running a xp2600+ 266 ,not 333, at 143/143 fsb settings and coming in at 2300mhz which I believe is just over a 3200+ stock speed. It's a shame you can't tweak the board that much, but it's sound as a rock so I can't really complain.

diddydo75 · Aug 3, 2003

sorry...but mine was second hand from ebay.the seller did not not say thay this board was defective.so PDL ask before you make your judement.i was not after a cheap bargain,just an upgrade for my thunderbird.

aznchaos · Aug 3, 2003

That explains why it may not be working well.

Legend911 · Aug 4, 2003

ECS K7S5A

I had tons of problems with my board so I did the northbridge heatsink mod and that fixed the problem with it running at the speed. But I still had the restarts that didn't work well or that reset my cmos. After about 8 months of crying i put in a very cheap 500watt power supply for laughs. Now I have had ZERO problems since. Everything works perfectly now. That board sucks up so much energy that it has problems in random places. I suggest getting something else seriously

Da_Beeblebrox · Aug 4, 2003

You talking about the pro or not..

I have two comps, one with a pro and one just regular. The regular is running a duron and the pro is running an xp2400....

They seem great to me so i dunno whats going on here...

gch3 · Aug 4, 2003

We're talking K7s5a in general. As can be seen from Legend911 they are power hungry boards but givn the juice they perform quite well.

PDL · Aug 5, 2003

diddydo75 said:
sorry...but mine was second hand from ebay.the seller did not not say thay this board was defective.so PDL ask before you make your judement.i was not after a cheap bargain,just an upgrade for my thunderbird.

From ebay?? And you expected it to be new???
Have you recently gone to a garage sale expecting to buy anything new??
Now there's a case of 'buyer be e-aware"!!

And why would I have reason to ask you about your board? This thread was started by someone else!

bdf24 · Aug 21, 2003

Old thread I know. But I just wanted to post the problems I've had with the K7S5A board. I built one for a guy I work with. And it was'nt a couple of days after he called me up. The system would'nt boot up. Hung at the XP bootup screen. I set bios setting to default and it booted. It lost the settings in the bios. He's had this PC since October and I've had to fix it 3 times now. If it happens again I'm going to give him my L7S7A2 instead. Which I've never had any troubles. I do have an Shuttle AK35 laying around I can use.

Ecs Rant!

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