Leadtek mainboards - good?

[Tea]

My Gigabyte rep called me today and they have sold out of the AMD 760 chipset boards that they were specialing out. This was inevitable, as they were going way below cost. But they have offered me Leadtek SiS-based boards at around the same price. We got one to try out a while ago and it seemed good. We sold it eventually and it was returned with a weird problem. something to do with IDE which I forget exactly already, and I haven't messed about with it to confirm if it's a genuine problem or a spurious one yet. The guy I (rather unwisely) sold it to is a positive genius when it comes to discovering weird problems that no-one else can get, let alone replicate, so I'm not convinced that there is actually anything wrong with it. On the other hand, I'm not going to ship it out again till I've tested rather throughly.

Anyway, anyone tried the Leadtek SiS-based Athlon board? I think that this is the link: http://www.leadtek.com.tw/www/Web_Leadtek/mainboard/7350.asp but being at home right now I don't have the actual board handy to check it against. (Bear in mind that this is a candidate to be our new lower-end board: for the higher end we will continue with the Soltek SL75DRV5 KT-333 for a little longer, and then probably transition to a KT400 board, most likely Soltek again but possibly Epox or Gigabyte.)

 

[Buck]

I have not tried this board from Leadtek, but if ECS can make that SIS chipset work, I don't see why Leadtek can't do a better job. How is the build quality when you take a close look at it? Having 6 PCI slots plus integrated sound and LAN is very convenient, although the CNR is obviously a waste. The CPU seems to be positioned the same way as on the SL74DRV-4 board, so that the heat blowing away from the heatsink hits the ports on the backplane and the memory slots. If I can see correctly, the HDD and FDD ports are located just like the SL75DRV-4 board. The board looks close to full size, but the capacitors seem to be crowding the ZIF connector. Darn, I wish they would have a better picture. Tea, let us know what your keen eye sees when looking at this board in person.

 

[time]

You want pictures? Have some pictures:

http://www.ocworkbench.com/hardware/Leadtek/WinFast7350KDA/7350kdap1a.htm

I'm inclined to agree with you, Buck. Those capacitors look too close to the cooler mounting lug. All too easy to break one trying to get a cooler on or off.

I also notice that the AGP card probably fouls the lever on the first DIMM socket, but I guess we're used to that.

 

[Buck]

Thanks for the pictures Time. The ZIF connector seems very close to the edge of the board too, right where a PS will be. That would make it a pain to remove the heatsink. Also, the ATX connecter is pretty close the CPU and in the path of heat coming off of the heatsink. I am glad to see only a heatsink on the southbridge instead of an auxillary fan. Having two audio connectors is nice, Soltek only provides one on the SL74DRV-4. (Why would you need two audio connectors you ask? Because some clients purchase CDR-Ws and a CD-ROM. It would be nice if both could play sounds.) No ferite (sp?) cores in the ZIF/DIMM1/ATX Connector-triangle. I'd side with you Time, we're getting used to AGP slots being in line with DIMM levers - what a shame too.

 

[CougTek]

I know people on Ars Technica's forum are all in love and admiration for the SiS735-based Leadtek motherboard. Here it is both very hard to find and on the expensive side, so I personally haven't tried it.

I'm not sure it is a good board for you Tony. It IS a good motherboard (from what I read), but since you seem to only like brain-less setup products, I don't know if this one will meet your criteria. It is a motherboard for tweakers and overclockers, keep that in mind. You might have to work on it a little to gain optimal performances. But since it's based on the SiS735, stability is a non-issue.

I would give it a shot, but I know we are very different people when it comes to hardware preferences.

Have you considered the Asus A7N266-VM for your cheapest systems? It isn't half bad you know.

 

[Mercutio]

The guy I buy cases from swears up and down that Shuttle AK31s are a solid product. At $56 a pop, they certainly qualify for "budget" status.

Asus makes a cheap board?

 

[CougTek]

Asus currently makes two cheap boards : A7S333 (SiS745) and A7N266-VM (nForce 220-D). The former sells here for around 105$CDN-110$CDN (~69U$) while the latter goes for 115$CDN (73$CDN).

The A7S333 includes a relatively good audio chip and also LAN IIRC, but the SiS745 chipset isn't any faster than its predecessor SiS735 (actually, I think it is slightly slower when paired with DDR333 memory) so I don't like it much (although it is on par with the AMD 760 Tony used to use). The nForce 220-D µ-ATX A7N266-VM includes graphics (GeForce 2MX - nothing great but it works and it's still better than what's found on KM266 and SiS740-based motherboards), decent audio (with SPDIF out) and LAN. Basicly, you can get a complete system for much less when you use this motherboard. I find it ideal for light-use office PCs. There's an AGP slot on the motherboard if you want to improve the graphics in the future, so it's not that limited. The only little problem is that NVIDIA unified driver for all nForce-based motherboards requires Win98SE or above or else it won't installed. WinMe, Win2K and WinXP work of course.

IIRC, Tony doesn't like integrated graphics, but I also recall that he ships some of his PCs with old ATI Rage 128 cards or something similar. Personally, given the choice, I would get an integrated GF2MX with a spare AGP slot rather than a relic-like Rage 128 costing me more because it isn't onboard. Although I agree that ATI's cards have better 2D in general, most of people buying Rage 128 or GF2MX won't run their desktop at high enough definition to notice the crispness difference.

Just my 2¢

 

[Handruin]

To touch on what Cougtek said, I'm going to guess that most of the people who buy these systems do not spend a fortune on a high end monitor? If that is the case, how much difference will there be between an ATI and GeForce in the 2D department if the users monitor isn't top of the line to begin with? I had an ATI Radeon, and switched to a GeForce 3...I don't see a difference. Is it my Vision Master pro 450 is getting too old? I thought it was a good monitor...

 

[Fushigi]

Another question on the integrated graphics: Wouldn't having the onboard + adding a decent AGP card be an inexpensive way to get a dual-display? I have considered going the dual-display route off and on, but have not yet taken the time to learn anything about it.

I would consider on-board GF-type graphics for light-duty stuff & add something like a Radeon 9700 for serious work.

- Fushigi

 

[Tea]

Excuse me gentlemen. Tannin seems to have embroiled himself in the stupid political threads over at SR's Bar and Grille of late, and hasn't been giving me my fair share of the computer. Some random comments arising:

1: Comparisons to the utter crap made by ECS do not fill me with joy! Having RMAed both the ECS boards we tried early this year because of their gross instability, and having had both of them sent back "no fault found" we sent yet more time on trying to find some way to somehow make them work reliably enough to sneak them into a low-priority, low-workload job where they might not come back to haunt us. One is now in service, running Word and nothing else at all, and seems to be OK. In order to get it to work without crashing, we needed (1) a premium PSU, (2) a severe underclock - it's running a Duron 850 at 200MHz FSB, (3) the best A-grade DDR we have - DDR is completely wasted in this job, but they won't even think about running reliably with SDRAM, (4) very careful selection of video card. Needless to say, I sold it at a substantial loss and provided only a very short warranty. I have my fingers crossed. One down, one to go.

2: The ATI Rage cards have been a disaster! We used some ATI 4MB PCI cards some years ago and bar some driver weirdness they were good. These, however, were just good enough to fool me into buying another ten before we started having huge trouble with them. We have had to replace about six or eight of them with TNT M64s because of graphics corruption or sysem hangs. And it ain't just the drivers - the hangs often occur before you even get to load the drivers. People have started asking me about Radeons - after this experience, no way in Hell! (By the way, the video card that ran stably in the ECS board was an ATI Rage - sometimes two wrongs do make a right!)

3: Integrated graphics is the hallmark of the low-rent supplier. Sometimes it's possible to come up with a rational reason for building a UMA system - as people in this thread have pointed out - but to my way of thinking there are two hurdles for such a board to overcome: (a) technical merit, and (b) the market's (usually quite correct) perception that on-board video = cheap, nasty system. In other words, the case for a UMA board has to be quite compelling before I'll buy it.

4: The typical monitor for a low-end to mid-range system is, as Handruin correctly points out, not up to the task of distinguishing between most video cards anyway.

5: Last time I bought ASUS SiS-based boards, they were low-end Socket 370 things, and out of five we had four go faulty. Still, we could take a look at them: ASUS have also made some great boards. I got a new ASUS price list emailed to me the other day, so I'll take a look at it. But over here, it's 75% certain that they will be asking a good deal too much for them, same as usual.

6: Unrelated matter: I happened to have a customer the other day who wanted a board with Firewire, or else just a Firewire card to go with his new standard board. I called Rectron (my Gigabyte distributor) and discovered that they do have a board, but that for the same money I could buy two standard boards - Gigabyte, not cheap crap - and two firewire cards with video editing software. So that was one of the easier purchasing decisions for the day. :wink:

 

[Mercutio]

Premium for a new product. The GA7VAXP has only been on the market for around a month.

My only negative from using one is that the damn thing has a fan on the northbridge. Granted, it's a nice-looking fan, but I'd rather have the heatsink the GA7VRXx used.

 

[Tea]

Update time. I think I mentioned that we eventually sold that sample Leadtek board, but it came back with a weird error. Well, the guy who brought it back is a known loonie, so we replaced it first and asked questions later. Then he brought the second board (a Gigabyte AMD 760) back too, and we swapped it again, for a Soltek this time. There was, of course, nothing in the slightest wrong with either board.

But, to make sure, we tested extensively. The Leadtek just worked. Eventually, even griumpy old Tannin was convinced, and I ordered a box of them. First one went just fine. Second one went just fine. Third one wouldn't run 133MHz front side, only 100MHz. We tried everything, it just wouldn't do it. Grabbed a different board: same deal. And another one! In the end, out of the box of ten, we have the following result:

3 boards: work perfectly. As stable and fuss-free as you could ask for.

3 boards: nothing. Zip. Power on, no picture, no nuffin.

4 boards: only work at 100MHz. Pop in an Athlon XP, switch it to the correct 133MHz clock, and they are as dead as a doornail.

I tried an extensive collection of different CPUs (all XP 1600s and 2000s), five or six different brands of RAM, several PSUs. No dice.

The thing that makes me wonder though, is that the ones that work, work perfectly. With total crap products (such as those ECS things of the Red Hill Hall of Pox Award, or a certain model MSI KT-133A that we got lumbered with a dozen of) you get semi-functionality: they boot, they seem to work, they lock up once, they work for another half-hour. Then they crash, or won't power up, and later on, for no good reason they work for just long enough to persuade you that they are OK after all. They wait till you decide to sell the damn thing after all, then play up.

But the four Leadtek boards that I do have in working order seem to work perfectly: no instability, no unexplained crashes, just old-fashioned plug-in-work.

Makes me wonder if I just struck it unlucky for a bad batch. Given that they are about 25% cheaper than fairly crappy stuff (Jetway and the like), and 40% cheaper than the real deal (Soltek, Gigabyte, and so on), I still hold out some hope for them. Have to wait and see what the response to my RMA is like, I guess. From my point of view, DOAs are bearable. You just grab another board and away you go. It's the in-service failures that worry me. And it's still early days, but I get the feeling that we are not going to have in-service failures with the Leadteks. But we sure do have a lot of DOAs right now!

 

[Buck]

In-service failures are the worst. But a high amount of DOAs aren't worth the hassle either. The odd DOA happens, but 7 out of 10?

 

[Jake the Dog]

Tannin, it sounds to me that you suffer through an awful lot of dud motherboards. surely this isn't normal...

 

[CougTek]

Tony has weird results with his motherboards. First, no matter how hard you can claim it, the ECS K7S5A isn't utter crap. I don't know what was your problem with it, but the opinion of people around the Net doesn't match yours. In a survey by one of my main suppliers, more than 80% of buyers were satisfied with their K7S5A. More than 800 customers answered the survey (800 different persons since you need a loggin to vote). Sometimes, when we don't want something to work, it just doesn't.

Now 70% failure rate, I've rarely if ever saw that for motherboards. It can hardly be just the boards. I had problems with many motherboards in the past, but 7 out of 10, nope. Considering the very positive opinions of many long-time members of Ars Technica's forum (not gurus, but still above-average geeks) about the SiS735 board from LeadTek, your weirdly high DOA rate makes me doubtful. Look elsewhere Tony. There must be something wrong, somehow, somewhere, around RedHill Technologies' testing lab.

 

[P5-133XL]

Perhaps Tannin , given your problems it would be wise to deal with ESD protocols. Perhaps something unseen is causing your problems like static electricity and that the difference between good and RMA boards is simply how well the boards protect themselves from stray static charges.

You of course can rationalize the problem away by claiming it is the manufacturers duty/responsibility and simply deal with the returns. Is that a wise decision though?

It was because of return rates like what you are getting that I instituted ESD protocols in my manufacture of machines and it made a tremendous difference in returns. I do note that your scale of manufacture is much larger than mine because I only occasionally build machines and that may make a difference in the cost of implementation. However, I think the possibility and possible solution is worth considering.

It would be nice to be able to examine the boards and definatively determine a pattern of failure that would point to ESD or exclude it before expending the cost of implementing ESD protocols. Unfortunately I don't know of any inexpensive way of determining the failure mode. Determining the exact chip that failed and the examination of it under an electron microsocope does not seem reasonable.

 

[time]

Could be the weather.

It's pretty dry in Oz right now; ideal conditions for ESD. Maybe the cheaper boards just don't handle it as well?

OTOH, I had a 50% failure rate on some 486 boards some years ago. They were either DOA or partly failed soon after. The supplier had even worse trouble with an earlier shipment, with up to 90% DOA. These were the days when motherboards were starting to be manufactured in mainland China.

But the boards that worked, worked extremely well, and AFAIK are still going strong today. They supported HDD's up to at least 8GB (maybe more, who knows?). I sold them with AMD 586/133 CPUs, about half of which could be safely overclocked to 166MHz. Masively cheaper than the Pentium 75 of the time, so one of the best buys I've ever seen.

 

[Tea]

Coug, we go through a lot of motherboards. If there was a systemic problem here, you can be quite certain that it would have cropped up with some others of the thousands of boards we handle.

The ECS K7S5A most certainly is utter crap. Three things tell me that: (1) it comes from PC Chips, which is evidence enough. (2) They refuse to service warranties. (3) We tried two and they were both complete pox. PC Chips products are guilty until proven innocent (which practically never happens).

Now what is the difference between having two boards out of two fail, and seven boards out of ten? The seven boards are all from the same box, and thus from the same manufacturing batch. But the boards that we have that do work, work perfectly - not in the slightest like the ECS pox. This suggests to me that the boards are basically good and we simply have a bad batch with some sort of manufacturing defect - a faulty batch of capacitors that shouldn't have slipped through QC, for example. The track record of the company is a consideration too: Leadtek video cards are excellent; motherboards require a similkar set of manufacturing and design skills to video boards: ergo it is reasonable to expect that the boards ought to be good. The track record of the K7S5a manufacturer, in stark contrast, is of unmitigated pox from start to finish, some of it actually downright fraudulant.

The question is, assuming that this is a bad batch (which seems reasonable), if I order another box of them, will they be from the same manufacturing batch? Wait and see what response I get with the RMAs, I guess.

 

[Buck]

Coug, even if Tannin was the only one with ECS failures, he'd still feel the same way. Don't bother trying to convince him with everyone elses success.

 

[Tea]

Kristi just pointed out to me that the Leadtek boards seem to be one of the very, very few that actually work with those appalling ATI 8MB video cards we bought. (I think they must be clones using ATI chips - I can't imagine that ATI would make cards that bad. The drivers cause problems more often than not, but in quite a few systems they actually cause problems before there are any drivers loaded at all, even before boot. Some systems refuse to boot with these cards fitted!) Something else we like about them. I sure hope that their tech people discover the problem and fix it, because I'd like to go on using them.

 

[CougTek]

The ECS K7S5A most certainly is utter crap. Three things tell me that: (1) it comes from PC Chips, which is evidence enough. (2) They refuse to service warranties. (3) We tried two and they were both complete pox. PC Chips products are guilty until proven innocent (which practically never happens).

Yeah, right. Then could you explain me how ECS would be battling with Asus for the #1 spot in board shipments if all what they would make was utter crap? Seriously, think about what you write. People wouldn't buy motherboards, no matter how cheap they would be, if they would fail more often than they would work. ECS sure isn't all good. By no mean are ECS' motherboards comparable to those of Supermicro, TYAN or even GigaByte. In fact, most of their boards are a bit below average. But considering their cost, several of them are still good values. It seems your "conviction" about ECS is beyond reason. But that's fine. Please keep in mind though that it's not because you can't make it work that no one else can. You don't raise yourself by calling utter crap a motherboard many (from which I am) have used with success in the past.

IMO, saying that an ECS board is automatically utter crap is disinformation and I have a problem with that since this forum is supposed to be, among other things, a reference on computer related stuff.

Coug, even if Tannin was the only one with ECS failures, he'd still feel the same way. Don't bother trying to convince him with everyone elses success.

I know, thanks for reminbering it to me though. I have said what I needed to say and I'll consider the topic as closed .

 

[blakerwry]

Perhaps Tannin , given your problems it would be wise to deal with ESD protocols. Perhaps something unseen is causing your problems like static electricity and that the difference between good and RMA boards is simply how well the boards protect themselves from stray static charges.

You of course can rationalize the problem away by claiming it is the manufacturers duty/responsibility and simply deal with the returns. Is that a wise decision though?

It was because of return rates like what you are getting that I instituted ESD protocols in my manufacture of machines and it made a tremendous difference in returns. I do note that your scale of manufacture is much larger than mine because I only occasionally build machines and that may make a difference in the cost of implementation. However, I think the possibility and possible solution is worth considering.

It would be nice to be able to examine the boards and definatively determine a pattern of failure that would point to ESD or exclude it before expending the cost of implementing ESD protocols. Unfortunately I don't know of any inexpensive way of determining the failure mode. Determining the exact chip that failed and the examination of it under an electron microsocope does not seem reasonable.

p5, what is the bets way to deal with ESD? I know there are products such as a wrist straps, ground mats, and of course the ESD resistant bags.

But (1) What other measures should I take to prevent hardware damage? (2) How do I know I'm using these devices correctly and not rendering them useless by some fault of mine? (3) any other tips?

 

[P5-133XL]

What I did was buy metal tables, grounded them and permanently attached wrist straps. I also tried to force myself to always use the wrist straps whenever using the table. Then because I didn't like working on the metal (I didn't like the sound, or the feel) covered the tops of the tables with anti-ESD pads and grounded them to the tables. I also added a humidifier to the room. Note that I actually have multiple redundant methods of reducing the static so that even with bad habits it still works to a limited effect.

The point is to always be grounded, in some form when in contact with chips/boards. If everything that touches the board is grounded then the board is safe. The humidifer decreases the likelyhood of static buildup because water conducts electricity (not pure water, but even very small amounts of contaminates, like dust, allows water to conduct). The bags are designed for storage: They are conductive so that static can not accumulate on the bag itself and then discharge to the board itself.

Note all the above is for a shop. When you go out in the field, then take pads, wrist straps, and bags and do the same thing. Make sure that everything is actually grounded. Keep boards that are being stored in bags. Ground yourself and ground the pad, do all your work on the pad. Make sure anything touching a circuit board is grounded. Eventually the techniques become habits and you don't have to think about them.

As to how you can detect if these measures are working properly: You can always attach a multimeter to ground and the object and make sure that there are just a few ohms between the object and ground. Without a multi-meter, you won't be able to detect the system not working because you can't see, hear, feel the amount of voltage that can harm a chip. If you see, hear, or feel a spark at any time you will know that they aren't working properly.

 

[blakerwry]

One time at school we were burning our programs into an IC. I picked up my IC and then leaned against the wall. Conveniently there was an electrical outlet or a light switch(i cant remember) anyway, there must have been a hell of alot of static buildup on either me or the switch because I recieved a hell of a shock... truely...

I was worried the IC was damaged, but luckily the shock did not effect it and I was able to burn it in fine.

The IC we used was a programable kind that is suposed to be very shock sensitive. I don't think it was the reprogramable kind. It served as a means for displaying output to an LCD screen.

 

[blakerwry]

p5, I don't build alot of systems or anything... surely not... about 1 a year. But i tinker ALOT... I collect old parts and I work with mine an other peoples computers.

For me, not having a dedicted 'workshop' or anything... what do you recommend? Currently I have no anti ESD devices other than the billion ESD bags I've collected. My only rule of thumb till now has been to not work with computers if I feel staticy and not to wear clothes that build up static.

I could get a wrist strap and possibly a mat. I assume that both me and the computer would have to be on the mat for it to be effective. Is there any other way to ground a mat? If I use a strap, would i connect it to the computer case or to the mat?

thanks

 

[Tannin]

Sales figures mean nothing Coug. Utter crap such as all too many ECS products sells like crazy! Look at their famous fake cache 486 board: that was easily the best-selling motherboard in the country. Why? Because it was ultra-cheap, and every country has a huge popularion of poor, dumb suckers, and every country has its proportion of dishonest, incompetent and greedy dealers willing to take advantage of them.

"Seriously, think about what you write. People wouldn't buy motherboards, no matter how cheap they would be, if they would fail more often than they would work."

Ahh, but they did. In their countless thousands. And, it seems they still do. Do you even know the history of this fraudulant, dishonest company? Take a look for yourself, and weep for the credulity of consumers who are driven into buying truly appalling products all in the pursuit of a slightly cheaper price. Or take a look at the ECS K7S5A: measure the tissue-paper thickness of the board itself, look at the crude standard of fit and finish.

Now: as for motherboard failure rates: in a word: horseshit. We handle something in the rough order of a thousand motherboards a year. Our failure rate out of about 60-odd Gigabyte AMD chipset boards, for example, currently stands at zero. (Or maybe there was one - I forget.)

My conviction about PC Chips/ECS is based entirely on the facts, on their dreadful history, and on their manifest inability to change their spots. Crap is crap. There are no two ways about it. Suggesting that the products of this provenly dishonest and shonky firm are anything other than the crap they usually are is indeed disinformation.

 

[James]

Tony,

You should probably update your page on the subject given your recently (re)exhibited hostility to the ECS boards.

I run an ECS K7S5A board here with an Athlon 1000, and it has been rock steady - as I've pointed out before. The board is nowhere near as solid and heavy as the Tyan board I recently sold, but I haven't had a single crash with it in 12 months of solid use (my girlfriend operates her web consulting business from home on it, using it 8 hours a day).

Mind you I do build my systems very carefully - I can't stand random errors, blue screens, etc. - and I probably spend more time pre-empting possible problems than the majority of users.

 

[Tannin]

Hostility? Mmmm.... I think "disgust" might be a more accurate term, or "disdain", though that seems a little mild. And quite so: my initial semi-positive comments (as you can see, despite their appalling history I was willing to give them another chance to show that they had joined the ranks of the honest, decent vendors) did not survive the experience of actually trying to make salable, stable systems using ECS boards. If it was just a pair of faulty boards - well, every manufacturer makes an occassional dud, and two from the same batch proves nothing. However, their utter refusal to replace demonstrably faulty boards was the final straw.

My Leadtek guy, in stark contrast, faxed me today to say that, if they find the seven boards faulty, they will ship expedited replacements. (And if, by some chance, they don't find them faulty, I'll tell them to ship back the boards, complete with whatever the magic component is that makes them work: RAM perhaps, though we tried about five or six different brands. It's just possible that it so happens that our half-dozen different brands of RAM all happen to be incompatible, though it seems most unlikely, particularly given that we have four perfectly functional, rock-stable boards running on that exact same RAM.)

Anyone can have a screw-up: the two cases are very different, however; different three ways: (1) Leadtek have a decent reputation in the first place, and no history (so far a I know) of fraud and shonk. (2) Leadtek (it seems) are more than willing to work with me to resolve the problem, as opposed to pretending that it doesn't exist. (3) The Leadtek problem is clear-cut and obvious right away. When they work at all, they are trouble-free and I can ship systems with confidence and without inconvenience to my customers - nothing pisses people off more than having a brand new system that doesn't work. Whereas the ECS/PC Chips boards exhibit that worst of all syndromes, the intermittent fault that comes and goes. You just never ever know if you have the system running reliably or not yet, and it kills your workshop time budget, and screws up the trust you have spent all those years building up with your customers.

 

[time]

ECS K7S5A Feedback

• I thik this is the worst board i have ever seen and i am taking it back ... Only 133 or 100 so with a 15+XP CPU it has to be run at 100*100 and it is only runing at a 1000 if they are changed in the bios for 133*133 comes up as 1500+ but crashes all the time because the CPU is overheating so ths board is rubish
  
• I have to say this mb sucks. i have had nothing but trouble with it from the moment i turned it on. I am using windows 98 with 326meg ram, xp-1800, ati rage fury pro vid card, psc704 soundcard, 2 harddrives, cd-rw and a cd-rom. i have upgraded to all the newest drivers/ bios for all components. If i just use windows/internet explore it works great. If i play any games the piece of crap locks up. i have moved the sound card to each slot(after uninstalling) and have the same problem. i tried a new sound card with same results. I have built several computers and never had any problems what so ever. they say you either love or hate this board, well i hate it with a passion. I miss my AMD K-6. I gave it away and want it back.
  
• This board installs very easily like a few other computers I have built. I have installed various times and keep having lock up problems. I am still able to re-boot with ctrl-alt-del. The last time I re-installed I thought I identified the problem was with my DDR memory, I pulled that and installed SDR memory from another machine. It stoped locking up for a while but started locking up some and now keeps locking up. (I put the DDR memory in another 1.4gig machine and it worked).
  
• I'm running the K7S5A board with the AMD XP1500 on WIN98SE, 256M DDR.
  
  I'm having a problem when I shut the system down. Using the OS shut down option, the software shuts down and exits but when I press the on/off button on the case the system does not turn off. I just get a clicking noise. I have to use the switch on the power supply to completely shut down the system.
  
• Dear God!? This Board Got A Fair Review?
  
  This was the worst board I had ever had!
  
  Random lockups!
  Random Resets!
  Onboard Sound Failing!
  Onboard Lan Failing!
  Over Heating!
  
  There is not one good thing I could have possibly said about this board. I bought it after reading a few good reviews, and as soon as I got it I was having problems, I came here for support, and found that not just 1 or 2 people were sharing the same problems as me but 100s!
  
  I would not suggest that anyone purchase this board, never in a million years!
  
• Wanted to build a good system. Read the reviews for a few mobos. Decided on this one with and AMD K7Athlon 1.4GHz and 512 megs SDRAM. Ran good for about 2 months. Then it went to crap. Random crashing, random program errors, overheating, I couldn't even run a virus scan because the damn thing would die 75% of the way through! Downloading over broadband with the onboard Lan? Forget it, incomplete files, I/O errors in executables, I ended up D/Ling on my buddy's computer and burning to CD to bring to mine. Hell, I tried to make a system disk to flash the bios and I couldn't even do that! Games... what games? Any AGP video card I put into the board wouldn't work (including GeForce 2, 3 AND 4!). The only satisfaction I'm going to get out of this board is running over it with my car (repeatedly).
  
  So in ten words or less: THIS BOARD SUCKS!

Obviously there are plenty of other users who are happy, but I thought Coug was being somewhat disingenuous claiming that "the opinion of people around the Net doesn't match yours." Having said that, I feel Tannin is being a little harsh on the basis of a single shipment of two boards. But then I agree that having a supplier that jerks you around like that automatically rules out ECS as an option.

 

[Tea]

Yes, he is being a little harsh, but not without reason. The way we see it, it's like when you have a convicted criminal. He serves most of his term and then you let him out on parole, but the minute he shows one little sign of returning to his life of crime, you lock him up again and throw away the key. For an ordinary decent citizen, you cut a little slack. Not for a known habitual criminal with a nasty record.

 

[blakerwry]

time, where did you get that info. I would love to get the URL.
-thanks

 

[blakerwry]

nevermind, i found it. Know of any other sites like that though?


man, that hate post on the ECS mobo has got to be the longest thread on the entire board by far!.... even the people who were satisfied with the board still had problems...

 

[P5-133XL]

p5, I don't build alot of systems or anything... surely not... about 1 a year. But i tinker ALOT... I collect old parts and I work with mine an other peoples computers.

For me, not having a dedicted 'workshop' or anything... what do you recommend? Currently I have no anti ESD devices other than the billion ESD bags I've collected. My only rule of thumb till now has been to not work with computers if I feel staticy and not to wear clothes that build up static.

I could get a wrist strap and possibly a mat. I assume that both me and the computer would have to be on the mat for it to be effective. Is there any other way to ground a mat? If I use a strap, would i connect it to the computer case or to the mat?

thanks

Start out with the assumption that at all times you are "staticy". You can not feel the amount of static necessary to do damage. With that in mind - Always use a wrist-strap (they are very inexpensive) and ground it. If you are working on a computer get in the habit of touching exposed metal as often as possible to ground youself. Since you have a bunch of ESD bags already, when a board is removed from your computer (even for short time periods), put it into a Anti-ESD bag rather than just laying it out on a table/floor.

ESD mats are good but like the wrist strap they need to be grounded. The ones in stores tend to be too small to be of much use. Observe your normal working habits and how you spread out and that is the size of mat you need. If you normally use a table then that is the appropiate size.

I hope these suggestions are more of what you needed, than the last.

 

[blakerwry]

if you are working on a computer get in the habit of touching exposed metal as often as possible to ground youself.

Yeah, I that is something I always do before working on the computer. As soon as i open er up, I touch the bare metal near the expansion slots(does anybody still call em that?)

 

[James]

David,

To be fair I bet you that if you named pretty much any board you'd be able to turn up a seething pile of hatred expressed in postings on the 'net.

Problems at 133MHz?
http://forum.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=27&t=001070

They're also running a poll :
http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=004848

Given the usual preponderance of people who complain vs. those that praise, it's not doing too badly in that poll.

 

[blakerwry]

Don't you think it's kind of odd that most of those people are using 400+ watt PSU's to power a cheap mobo with an athlon processor.

In my opinion you should be able to do that with a 250watt PSU made by a reputable company such as Antec.

Even my 1700+ with 512 PC2100, 4 PCI devices, 1 agp, 3 HDD's, 2 opticals, 1 floppy, and 1 font USB/Smart card reader all runs happily on a 300watt Antec PSU.

I'm willing to bet I have alot more in my case than most of these ECS users



Soyo Dragon +
Athlon XP 1700+ Palomino
512MB Micron PC2100

Geforce3 Ti200
Matrox Millenium PCI
Netgear FA311 10/100 NIC
Turtle Beach Santa cruz
ATi TV wonder
*Additionally I use the onboard NIC, SM card reader, and Promise Fastrak 100


2 x 15gb 75GXP
1 x 3 platter WD1200BB

LiteOn LTD122 DVD-ROM
LG 8160b CD-RW

Soyo front mount USB/SM card reader
Generic 3.5" floppy drive

 

[time]

To be fair I bet you that if you named pretty much any board you'd be able to turn up a seething pile of hatred expressed in postings on the 'net.

Okay, I name Soltek. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to find people who hated one of their motherboards, or failing that were at least unhappy.

Just in case you thought that thread I quoted from was only an isolated instance:

The damnable K7S5A from ECS

 

[Ekaf-Ami]

Excuse me for speaking in this thread, gentlemen and ape, but is of noticable to me that typing "ECS very reliable" into Google Search Engine yields a total of 543 links, wheras typing "ECS crap" into same Google Search Engine as previously mentioned yields 2870 links.

 

[blakerwry]

That is a very interesting and creative idea Ekaf-Ami.

 

[P5-133XL]

Excuse me for speaking in this thread, gentlemen and ape, but is of noticable to me that typing "ECS very reliable" into Google Search Engine yields a total of 543 links, wheras typing "ECS crap" into same Google Search Engine as previously mentioned yields 2870 links.

Microsoft crap = 116,000 vs very reliable = 419,000
Kia crap = 3,010 vs very reliable = 8,630
Hyundia crap = 20 vs. very reliable = 51
Compaq crap = 10,700 vs. very reliable = 54,800

Make your own conclusions as to the validity of this survey method.