At wits end with ECS KA3-MVP V1.0

xaer0knight · Jan 31, 2016

Okay just a little background. Been a PC Tech for about 20 years and A+ Certified since early 2001. I keep the technology a little dated because I am not a hardcore gamer but I do enjoy games as new as They Bleed Pixels, Shovel Knight, Alan Wake, Dead Space 2, and Amnesia. I do watch a lot of Youtube HD and a lot TV on my PCs that are Internet connected. With that in mine, I wanted to get an Crossfire X board with a ton of options as a test bed and/or possibly my main machine.

So, here is the meat and potatoes of my situation. I found a great deal (?) on an ECS KA3-MVP V1.0 motherboard, everything has been tested and working great. The old MSI X300SE 128MB (64bit) DDR PCIe x16 (Version 2.0?) VGA/S-Video Out works great as a primary adapter which I must of pulled from an old HP dumpster dive special man years ago. But for the love of all things, I can't get any of my Radeon HD5450 cards to even work in it. I own a Gigabyte HD5450 GV-R545SL-1GI 1GB 64-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP and a Sapphire HD5450 1G D3 (SKU 11166-02-CPO) PCI Express 2.0 x16. According to both Sapphire and Gigabyte they are crossfire.

I can't get the board to boot with either of these cards? Is it the PCI Express versions flaky compatibility? Crossfire X580 compatibility issue?

Mr.Scott · Jan 31, 2016

It's more than likely a board issue. ECS is the absolute bottom of the barrel as far as manufacturers go.

Waza · Jan 31, 2016

xaer0knight said:
Okay just a little background. Been a PC Tech for about 20 years and A+ Certified since early 2001. I keep the technology a little dated because I am not a hardcore gamer but I do enjoy games as new as They Bleed Pixels, Shovel Knight, Alan Wake, Dead Space 2, and Amnesia. I do watch a lot of Youtube HD and a lot TV on my PCs that are Internet connected. With that in mine, I wanted to get an Crossfire X board with a ton of options as a test bed and/or possibly my main machine.

So, here is the meat and potatoes of my situation. I found a great deal (?) on an ECS KA3-MVP V1.0 motherboard, everything has been tested and working great. The old MSI X300SE 128MB (64bit) DDR PCIe x16 (Version 2.0?) VGA/S-Video Out works great as a primary adapter which I must of pulled from an old HP dumpster dive special man years ago. But for the love of all things, I can't get any of my Radeon HD5450 cards to even work in it. I own a Gigabyte HD5450 GV-R545SL-1GI 1GB 64-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP and a Sapphire HD5450 1G D3 (SKU 11166-02-CPO) PCI Express 2.0 x16. According to both Sapphire and Gigabyte they are crossfire.

I can't get the board to boot with either of these cards? Is it the PCI Express versions flaky compatibility? Crossfire X580 compatibility issue?

Little dated?
Those cards are old.. and slooooooow. You probably get better performance out of R7 240 than 2x HD5450 crossfired. Why don't you pick up something like used HD4870 for 20-30 bucks or HD7770 for 80 bucks or less.
I'm pretty sure that a midrange AMD APU will beat those cards crossfired.

xaer0knight · Jan 31, 2016

ECS, I have 3 boards and I love em sure beats the EPoX motherboards i had back in the early 2000's LOL
I stumbled upon this board by a friend that works at Used PC Shop, he actually recommended it to me because he know I play a lot of older games and do a lot of testing of "found" or "used" parts.

I like working on older/retro PCs and I find it daunting that I can not get this ECS KA3-MVP to work with the HD5450, if I clear the BIOS, it will work for the BIOS setup screens only. Once I reboot, It just sets there with a black screen. The Sapphire HD5450 PCI-e 16x v2.0, is setting in this machine which clocks it down to 8x and v1.1 works flawlessly. Is it a matter of PCI-e specification issues? I would just like to get just ONE HD5450 working and then I would go from there.

an HD7770? that would work on a Crossfire X580 (aka Xpress 3200)? I've been seeing these compatibility charts.. so many that make my head spin, version numbers, model numbers, and name changes *swoon* Here I have been looking at HD4650 and HD4870. I an just looking at Direct X 10.1 and Open GL 2.1...

Mr.Scott · Jan 31, 2016

LOL.
The Epox boards will kill anything ECS ever made.
Ever heard of a site called Classicplatforms.com?
They specialize in old and retro hardware. It's a site that I'm fairly familiar with.

I specialize in old and retro hardware.
ECS is junk, plain and simple. They made 2 boards ever that were worth owning.
ECS = PcChips in case you didn't know that.
AM2 hasn't made 'retro' status yet BTW.

Anyhow, on that ECS board, only 3 power phases. Can I assume that you're using the extra molex provided for extra power for your vid cards? You need to be.

xaer0knight · Feb 1, 2016

thanks Mr Scott. The videocards have no molex power connectors. HD5450 seems to be popular card for simple HDMI connections and cheap. 30 bucks brand new from ASUS to XFX to Sapphire. The motherboard itself has a Molex power connector and I did connect that. I have also have rebuild 2 power supplies for better filtering stages, one is a 475W Powercooler V2 and the other is a Chiefmax 650W V2... they work fine (Yes i know those are crap PSU companies) Just can't for the life of my why I can't get it to work, since the X300 doesn't have a power connector and works fine.

May I ask what are those 2 ECS boards you speak of?

I'll give classicplatforms a go as well!

Mr.Scott · Feb 2, 2016

xaer0knight said:
May I ask what are those 2 ECS boards you speak of? I'll give classicplatforms a go as well!

M863G Ver3
The only socket 563 desktop board ever made.
And one of the Black series boards, I can't even remember which one.

xaer0knight · Feb 3, 2016

I've actually worked on that board before about 8 years ago or so. The board had horrible capacitor rot and like an idiot, I tossed it

I didn't even realize its potential and thought "it must be crap because it's using a Mobile processor."

I do have an Athlon XP 3200+ Barton, gotta be one of my favorites...

At wits end with ECS KA3-MVP V1.0

xaer0knight

New Member

Mr.Scott

Beamed Me Up!

Waza

Member

xaer0knight

New Member

Mr.Scott

Beamed Me Up!

xaer0knight

New Member

Mr.Scott

Beamed Me Up!

xaer0knight

New Member

Similar threads