K7S5A mainboard

Anyone know of any real serious problems with this board that would warrant me to steer clear. It won't be OCed and the components would be low-end with an Athlon 900.

Thanks.

Great deal for low end systems. I haven't had a lick of trouble with my Duron system. the problems I have heard are when people are trying to stick XP's in these with a bad PSU. For your intended purpose it would work great.

Cheers!

I think it's a great board for a great price! Mine was 100% stable with my FSB overclocked to 150. My KT7A won't even come close to that.

Thanks for the quick responses, and for the great input.
I think this one will be a go. Building one for my daughter.
Micropro has a barebone setup with this board, a 750 Duron, case & PSU,floppy,kybd and mouse for $207.
My fear is that it will show up my A7V133 system and I won't want to let it go...hehe!

Thanks again guys.

Heheh, it will, if you put DDR in it.. Might as well give your daughter the Asus board.. heh.. I love my K7S5A board.. It's in my main machine.. But I did mod mine for overclocking..

AMD dis-agrees with the above.

That board IS NOT on the AMD approved list for T-birds and Durons.

I don't care what ECS and their web site says.

K7S5A is only AMD approved of XP processors.

That may be so badger but i did a search on the forums for the board and most of the problems came from people with XP's who tried to unlock them. I guess I must me breaking the AMD law because I have an 800 Duron on a non-approved board getting power from a non-AMD approved power supply and have not had a problem. For this gentlemens intended purpose it is a very nice inexpensive setup.

Mine is running solid with a 1.2 thunderbird in it and winxp running on it. It is fast as well.

From what I understand the older revisions are OUTSTANDING t-bird duron performers. I think the rev 4 &5 is having difficulties though. I don't know what my three are, but I ahven't had hardly ANY problems with my 2 installed. I wanted tog et the third up an running by cristmas, but looks like that won't happen til new years...unless ram price is still inflated. Well I dunno since I don't want to open my cases right now and the one that isn't installed doesn't have the revision printed where I'm used to seeing them printed(near the pci's). It DOES have 2 things stickered on it...there is an XP sticker near the cpu slot and a 4 below and left of the pci's near the corner of the board. SOOO I willl "assume" it's a rev 4...Since I bought it at the same time as one of my other boards it stands to reason it would also be a rev 4. Again alot of assumptions here. My main system is an older k7s5a as I got it with those income tax rebate checks back in august. I had ony cdrom reconition initially, but after reboot it cleared up.

Both systems running have had NO problems related to the cpu or MB...windows related error from improper shutdowns...power outages really STINK. Both I feel have done EXTREMELY well for a $50 board...kors i paid $85 for one and $65x2 for the other 2.

Someday I will upgrade to another board and might be able to tell how good mine is relating to the newer, but when upgrading from a super 7 500mhz you can believe when I say it wouldn't take alot to feel like your using a super computer

I have NO problems with these boards, but AMD DID for some reason remove them from thier recommended list. Personally I don't care for some of the other boards out there that are on the cheap side. I like the soyo dragon plus, but other than that nothing rings my fancy.

I say get it,but personally I don't like barebone systems. The other equipment is just junk, in most cases. I bought one to build my first system from and it took me 2 weeks to get kinks worked out. I had to replace a few of the things in the barebones to get it running correctly. since then I decided I'd rather pay a tad bit more and buy all the parts seperately. I've learned alot int he last 4 years after building that first system.

The barebones system could be alright, but I'd seriously investigate what the power supply model was and what the other components were. if they're all generics you could ahve problems.

rev 4 and 5 boards are being sold today.
The review were done with rev 1 boards
if you have a duron or t-bird running "great" it might be a rev1-3 board or you are just lucky.
If you have a duron or t-bird get memtest86 and run it.

t-birds with rev 4 and rev 5 boards might have memory errors that you don't detect in normal use. These memory errors are usually a "lock up" for no good reason.

This board hates my xp 1600 at 133 fsb but it runs at 100 fsb.

I do not get memtest errors with the xp and this board on a 100 fsb. Please note that the memory is running at 133. it is OCZ pc2400 memory.

I was attracted by post similar to the above. It is working great for me! ya dude cheap and stable! ..... I have now found out that the reason AMD droped the K7S5A is its memory errors with the duron and t-birds. I would suggest asking people what there board rev they have. if it is rev1-3 then there experience won't help you because you can't buy that board anymore. the K7S5A used to be on AMD's list because it used to work. the drive impedance on the bus has changed. also there is noise leaking switching FET noise "leaking" onto the 12 V rail. read the ocworkbench.com forum.

I have never had a system not boot up at standard speed with all new components. PSU and heatsink are AMD approved for that speed and above.

I just found out that leadtek has an SIS 735 chip based board.
maybe that is the way to go?

read ocworkbench.com forum. the only people with rev 4 boards and systems that are working that I have read of our people using 900mhz and under processors and SDR ram. roll the dice and take your chances. AMD kind of knows what is going on and they droped the k7s5a for a reason.

PDL said:

Anyone know of any real serious problems with this board that would warrant me to steer clear. It won't be OCed and the components would be low-end with an Athlon 900.

Thanks.

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You don't need to go low end on this board. It will take whatever you throw at it . What I like most about it is the fact that it has most of the latest features and its low price allows you to put your money into the chip. Hypothetical: get an expensive overclocking board and pair it with a Duron or low end Athlon and overclock it to the point of thermal breakdown then buy a big cooling solution OR get the K7S5A and a retail High end Athlon (no overclock needed). The boards stability has never been questioned.

Badgers, I think in general that your experience is the exception, not the rule.

I built a box for my roommate with a Duron 700, this board, and 256 MB of Crucial PC2100. It all runs stock speeds and is a sweet setup. He was running the Duron on a KT133 board previously and says that he can tell the difference (well, he was running only 128 MB of PC133 previously).

It gives him less fits than my Shuttle AK31 rev3 gives me... same CPU, same RAM.... even when I'm not overclocked.

Yes. Leadtek has a SIS735 board but by my recollection I have run into one or two people who had it and it didnt benchmark nearly as well as the ECS.

I'm going to be building my mom a new computer, to replace her Pentium 133, because my Dad doesnt want to share his Dell and the P133 is not worthy of our sharing the DSL line. I'll probably get her a ECS along with, probably, a Geforce2 MX200 card and a TBird 850 or 900. Dad wants me to put 512 MB of RAM in it so that it runs fast enough that she will not complain. Bottom line is, I love the ECS in every way except I would not use it for my own primary box because I really need OC features and memory tweaks.

SickBoy

i in the process to move to AMD world this seem like a good and easy start.

should i worry about the ver? i mean should i only buy version 1 to 3
and skip on version 4 if i am going to put in a tbird.

off to ocworkbench for more reading.

thanks

dr0p0ut

Oh dear. I am getting the K7S5A for Christmas (my parents wont let me have it now ) and I was considering putting an XP1500 or XP1600 in it. All the reviews were fantastic. Would I be better off with a Tbird in it?

PS My next door neighbour has a rev 4 K7S5A and a Duron 800 - no probs.