Pros: Cheap, quick performer, PC133 and DDR266 RAM, full featured Cons: Unstable at times (undetermined), Inconsistant problems with different users
UPDATE!!! Oct 27, 2002 - Please read after review.
Prelude
A friend of mine builds PCs for many people. As I was by at his house, I can't help but notice that the number of empty ECS Elitegroup motherboard...
Pros: SIS 735 chipset, stable, good as some motherboards twice as expensive Cons: None for me.
I got my first ECS K7S5A around last Christmas (2001) because I was looking to upgrade my Tyan Trinity 400 S1854 mobo to one with more "headroom" (upgrade potential): My 99PON version S1854 mobo maxxed-out with a PIII-866 and the last version of this...
Pros: Accepts both PC133 and DDR PC2100 RAM, inexpensive, integrated sound & LAN Cons: Large motherboard (full ATX size), good quality power supply needed.
I purchased my first K7S5A in September 2001 for about C$85 and liked it so much that I bought another one a month later. What initially attracted me was that I could use my old PC100 & PC133 RAM with this board until I decided to upgrade to DDR ...
Pros: cost, onboard features, supports two types of RAM, temperature monitor Cons: (few) compatibility problems, not easy to overclock
I bought a computer kit that came with the motherboard, cpu (Athlon XP2100), and case(midtower w/300watt power) all for $320. When I received the parts in the mail, I put in my video card (Voodoo3-3000 agp), sound card (soundblaster live platinum), ...
Pros: Inexpensive; SDR+DDR support; Speedy SiS735 chipset; USB support galore! Cons: No ATA133 support
A couple of weeks ago, I purchased an Athlon XP 2000+ processor and an Elitegroup K7S5A Pro motherboard to replace my old 1GHz Celeron and Intel i810E-based motherboard. I couldn't have been happier with the results!
Pros: Inexpensive, SDRAM as well as DDR support, On board sound, LAN and USB Cons: None observed except possibly a bad cell
Four months ago, I was looking to build a PC powerful enough for use at home using at as low price as possible. I got a cheap Athlon 1 GHz on ebay and my hunt for motherboard started. ECS K7S5A drew my attention as it had PC133 as well as DDR socket....
Pros: Affordable, adaptable, reliable; it's easy to set up and it holds its value well. Cons: None.
I graduated in computer electronics in 1983. I was quickly disappointed in the lack of forethought in the field - software and hardware that became outdated before it was on the store shelves. This disposability may be profitable, but it is certainly not...
Pros: Supports SDR and DDR RAM; onboard LAN; great SiS chipset Cons: This board can be finicky with RAM; I've had no problems.
I've now built three machines with this board, and one with the K7S5A Pro. I've been more than happy with every one of them and they are all still running strong.
One reason I like this board is that it is very affordable and you can start...
Pros: It works most the time. Cons: BIOS settings lost. Date & time clock is slow. No support. EMails ignored.
Sure it has a lot of features but what good is all that when there is a problem and ECS will not answer its online support! My K7S5A lost its BIOS settings 3 times and I had to reset them every time. The clock also keeps losing time. After searching...
Pros: Very reliable board. Good extras. Cons: Not much room for memory upgrades.
I was reluctant to purchase the board at first because i am a big fan of Abit. I needed to spend as little as possible because i was building a system for my sister. I read reviews about this and all were good. When i received, installation was simple...
Pros: Onboard lan, sound, price. Cons: UNSTABLE with XP 2000+ , 2x256 sd-ram and XP PRO.
I have owned this mobo for over two months. Since day one I have experienced nothing but problems, which in the beginning I thought could be dealt with.
At first it rebooted spontaneously. I replaced the cheap heatsink and then I started...
Pros: Cheap. Full featured. Cons: Intermittent operation. No support (do not answer).
Both the onboard sound and the keyboard port have been unreliable since purchase. I tried several keyboards and speakers, so the problem is on the motherboard. I was not able to return it to the store because it would not fail on demand.
Always like a backup plan,... by ra.bob_dt3000 ,Jul 21 '02
Always like a backup plan, just incase. K7S5A allows regular sdram incase DDR was to fuss about as with many other board with the DDR MEM..They've taken the one chipset(for north and South and kicked some serious butt. Runs 110 degrees socket cool.If BIOS upgrades bother you you might look else where,for without it, the board has just to many quirks to appreciate. Overclocking possible only with a third party Bios upgrade and that with the FSB only.It's been more like buying a really nice hot car in need of a serious tuneup. But once tuned.....woof!
I've set up a handful of these for my own use and for clients. The price is right, as a low end approach for XP1800's with PC2100 memory it can be quite sweet. The onboard sound is ok for me, and the 10/100 support works fine as well. There is a PC Chips 810LR board that is essentially the same, but it is more picky about booting up.
Great value for the upgrader... by pishta_dt3000 ,Jan 10 '03
Great value for the upgrader to wants to use the old memory. I have a gig of 133 and an XP1700 and it is very stable with XP corp. The onboard sound lacks a mic volume control, bad for netmeeting, with no upgrade available. Boot up is a tad slow with PC133 memory, but is speedy with DDR, my next upgrade. Didnt like my AVERMEDIA PCI video capture card in any slot and only 1.0 USB onboard. Great board for any price.
Not a single problem. Built... by wolfend_dt3000 ,Sep 17 '02
Not a single problem. Built system w/ $40 case incl. 300W AMD cert PSU, $44 256Mb DDR, $60 Nvidia G4 MX. Solid as a rock. On-board LAN works great. Used very old floppy, HDD, and CDROM w/no problems. Great system for the $$.
SIS chipset, and ability to use either SD-Ram or DDR-Ram, make this an ideal board to use if you "have" SD-Ram, but don't want to limit your options. Own 4, 1.4,1.2,1.2,1.0 and have used with 1.9 Athalons.... there may be faster, but, stability, ease of installation, make this a keeper
Saw this board at a recent computer fair, it came bundled with an Athlon 2000 XP and a fan for £140 bargain I thought. This board starts when it feels like, sometimes I have to switch my pc on and off a few times first. It won't recognise my 2 year old DVD rom drive or my second hard disk. If I have to restart the thing "forget it" I have to switch it off and wait for 10 mins or so. When it runs it does so without problem and faster than I have been previously used to but needless to say its going back for a refund or replacement. Overall I'd say I'm probably just unlucky and have bought a lemon.
Very picky about power supplies... by smoker_dt3000 ,Jun 20 '02
Very picky about power supplies so plan on upgrading to a high wattage name brand that costs around $100. That still may not fix all the problems. It doesn't like older floppy drives, the USB loses detection of devices, ships with a poor quality CMOS battery, audio is awful if you use a PCI graphics board so plan on buying an AGP, doesn't like you using 2 sticks of SD-RAM and is picky about the brand of DDR . . . there is too many known problems to list.
Not all boards are bad but it's too great a gamble unless you like to tinker a lot and sink a lot of money into trying to make it work.
easy to install, no problem... by chuckkn_dt3000 ,Feb 18 '03
easy to install, no problem with windows xp it runs great so far only used for one month but it is working very well with 256mb sdram from my old motherboard later i will upgrade to ddr and see the difference.good expansion capability with 5pci and 4x agp like it better then my old board which cost more and was supposed to be a better board but went bad in less then a year.
This board will NOT run... by pwyll_dt3000 ,Feb 09 '03
This board will NOT run with 2 ram chips and a high end (XP2000 in my case) processor. ECS tech support offeres only 2 solutions. Either underclock the processor, making it run at 1.2 gig or remove one ram chip. Neither is acceptable. Board is going back to the store tomorrow.
I upgraded from a pcchips 810 which had everything on board. I would have liked onboard network again, but is not available in Australia. Having said this I need all the slots I can get due to running firewire card, tv/vid capture, sound card due to internal not meeting my needs, so this board is a marked improvement over the last one which only has 2 extra slots. Other than some conflicts in the pci slots when using 2 network cards, the board is pretty good and meets all my needs. Pity about the size of the thing. Because of this I blew a $100 stick of memory due to damage caused by bad design. Great value for money and would buy again.
The problem with using 2... by wuzzers_dt3000 ,Feb 25 '03
The problem with using 2 sticks of memory in the DIMM slots leaves alot to be desired. I went from 1 gig (2 512's) down too 1 - 256MB stick to get any kind of stability with it. I think the USB that it offers must mean Useless Sound Board because the onboard sound and the USB both pretty much suck. I must give credit where due though, it comes in a really nice box!!!
Board has two choices for CD-ROM audio connection which I found allows you to connect audio to both DVD-ROM and CD-ROM using different adapters. Using more than the 1g allotment for your choice of RAM is a waste of money unless you are heavy on photography and graphics conversion detail. Board rock solid, no glitches. Audio 97 CODEC onboard is clear and can handle anything I have with my sub-woofer setup. Bootup and shutdown are fast. Board has some pickiness to floppy choice, but old floppy drive works as well as new one. It just has not liked my HP bare floppy that I scrounged from working system. This board is probably the best buy on the market at the price and may rival others costing much more. Not an over-clocker, but what practical value is that?
This is the first time... by razor_dt3000 ,Jul 08 '02
This is the first time I have used this product I would normally by the PC Chips 810 product.
At £15 less my board only had onboard sound No
graphics and Lan/Modem but it did have the DDR
slots which could come in handy in the future.
My only real complaint being the User Manual which was very poor. On the whole a good cheap product, if you are upgrading on a budget and you have agp graphics card and modem its well worth considering.
I have had two of these boards for over a year with no problems whatsoever. One is running Windows 2000 PRO with SDRAM, the other Windows XP with DDR RAM. Both are extremely stable, a little slow on boot up but runs the best 3D Games out there with no hiccups. Recomended for the budget computer group.
as far as stablity goes... by broan_dt3000 ,Aug 15 '02
as far as stablity goes i've had no problems what so ever out of this board I leave my computer running 24/7 the only break it get's is when i do my daily restart and hardware upgrades.... i've used this board with 2 differant PSU's and a number of other hardware device's ranging from a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive out of a 386...to a 120GB HDD the only thing i wish the board had was LEDs for the NIC.. the board really has some nice feature's....
This board has a run when it feels like it mentality. Running a 1.1 gig Athalon, 2100 256k ram, 32mb video card. Sometimes on boot, black screen and no boot. Sometimes runs like a champ. CPU runs extremely hot - 170 F, system runs over 90 F.
The onboard lan is smooth, and frees up a slot, the onboard sound isn't THAT bad either. I am running CHEAP Altec Lansing speakers with a subwoofer, and I am not disappointed with either of them except for no headphone jacks. As far as stability and heat go, no problems, with adequate cooling, smooth as silk with all my games and an xp1800, radeon 7500 ddr. I never run over 120f., with an intake, exhaust, processor, and power supply fan. I haven't had any memory troubles either, those that have, must have just gotten "Lemon" boards. I am running dual memory chips and no problem. The only problem I had was no boot with a creative modem, and occasional cmos clearing error, bad battery. Switched to a different modem and was up-n-running in short order.
When i saw this board... by havoc_dt3000 ,Sep 02 '02
When i saw this board i immedaitely thought Oh Yeah! Upon buying it and installing all the componenets i have found that id did not like my realtek LAN card that supplies my ADSL connection, after refusing to boot several times, the problem was found, the card removed and it worked. Then came the sound. The SiS 635 card is useless, even when the drivers were installed, it refused to detect and work. The modem was the same and the computer hangs during games when there are 2 chips of PC133 SDRAM in it. However i have overcome this problem by having just one PC133 256mb ram. The processor runs all intels chipsets dry, it completely wipes the floor with its speeds. I can play Medal of honor allied assault with full graphics options on and a PCI 32mb GeForce 2 with 256mb, Amazing!
This board is a good buy if you like the speed at low cost, but it requires a small amount of 'work' to make it work properly.
Built two systems for friends... by robin_dt3000 ,Aug 26 '02
Built two systems for friends using Durons(900 MHZ & 1.3 GHZ). Both worked well for their intended purpose. Both use PC-133 memory. All software worked fine the first time. Board had latest BIOS at get go from factory. Will buy again. Much easier set up than KT266A.
This is by far the best motherboard that I have owned. It was extremely easy to install and even easier to upgrade. This motherboard is for everyone ranging from novice to expert. I have no complaints with this except for the fact that it is near impossible to overclock with the current BIOS that comes with the motherboard. Although it does not have the greatest audio it is still great. It supports both DDR and SDRAM which is excellent. It has a 4x AGP port along with five PCI slots. I absolutely love this motherboard because it is reliable, fast, and easy to use. It comes integrated with two USB 1.1 ports and on-board LAN. Go out and buy this, you will not be sorry. I guarantee you.
The best thing about this... by jec1146_dt3000 ,Jan 11 '03
The best thing about this board is that you have both DDR and SDRAM slots (only 2 of each) so you can start off with cheap SDRAM and later upgrade to DDR. You do have to set the BIOS up right for best performance, but that is easy enough.
The only bad point is the on board sound is bad, really bad. So if you buy it and want to listen to some MP3's or play some games, get a simple $20 sound card and disable the onboard souns via BIOS. The sound does improve with the latest drives at the ECS website, but it still sounds worse then most on board sound, and lags up the computer a little at times.
THis motherbord will not run... by zakrak_dt3000 ,Feb 05 '03
THis motherbord will not run two sticks of ram if u do so it crashes runing an amd 1800 have to cut it back to 1150 to make it run. I had pc133 ram in it ddr makes no diffrance 512mbso i dont think this is a great value.Os is windows xp home Gforse ti4200128mb ram Us rob modem pro sb5.1 sound.400Watt power supply western dig hd 7200rpm hd.Well anyway Very unstable.Iwould not recomend this board to my worst enamy.
Elitegroups, unknown outside of Asia until recently, has released a real winner here in its inexpensive, yet feature-rich mainboard. 5 PCI slots and AGP 4x support provide room to grow for gamers and power0users, while the Athlon AMD XP processors serve as high performance and inexpensive altenratives to Intel's Pentium IV line. People on a budget will be pleased to know that the built-in ethernet support is fast and stable (at least with my ADSL connection) and that they can use their old SDRAM, while those with money to burn will be more than satisfied with a gig of PC-266 DDR RAM.
I have installed at least... by psmith_dt3000 ,Sep 04 '02
I have installed at least 2 dozen of these boards. The only problem(s)I have had is when I did not use AMD certified hardware or quality hardware keep it cool. AMD processors generate alot of heat. Spend the time learning your hardware and don't be cheap. This board has performance that outclasses many more expensive boards. I am overclocking, playing games, and I can run anything under the sun on my home unit. I own a K7S5a original version 1.0 and a 3.1 with XP 1800 . I will alternate from time to time to see which one is faster. My System Antec Case SX 830 "300w AMD certified power supply", DVD, 40X CDRW, 512mb Cruical DDR 2100, GeForce 4 Ti4200 video card "overclocked", and 2 hard drives. I would rate this unit a solid 5 but nothing is perfect. It is simply the best buy in all of computing. This system is faster and as stable as anything out there. I wish it did have more overclocking features like 1 or 2 mhz stepping, etc.
I was given this upgrade from a cheaper ecs board, and I'me glad they did, I have a cable modem, it didn't work that much faster than my dial up, when they installed the new motherboard wow, I went from downloading a 7 meg file in 8-min to about 20 sec. I would recomend this board to anyone just for that reason alone. So far no hard ware conflicts, I have an nvidia g4, sb live 5.1 and they are running fine.
Well, I am running a... by jamiek_dt3000 ,Jun 27 '02
Well, I am running a Athlon 1700xp and the preformance of this board is very good, even when put up against my other machine. It is a Athlon 1700xp running an MSI 745 ultra!! natually the S5A lacks some of the bells and whistles but it also lacks the price!!
I STARTED WITH A 900 DURON & 512MB SDRAM AND WAS AMAZED AT THE SPEED IT OFFERED.WHEN I INSTALLED AN XP 1700 & 256 MB DDR I COULD'NT BELIEVE THE DIFFERENCE. I TRIED WINDOWS 98 AND FOUND A FEW MINOR BUGS BUT OVERALL THIS IS BY FAR FOR THE MONEY THE BEST MOBO PERIOD!
This board is a fantastic... by thx1138_dt3000 ,Dec 04 '02
This board is a fantastic value. I bought two MB's w/Duron CPU ($70 at Fry's) to upgrade older homebuilt PC's. With all the money I saved not having to buy new memory I bought some GeForce 3 cards and more games ;-)
I was building an upgrade... by fbold1_dt3000 ,Mar 04 '03
I was building an upgrade system for my son and this was the ideal board to use. He has been using the system for 6 months with nary a complaint! This is highly unusual!! I also like the feature that lets you power up with a touch of the keyboard.
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