ECS K7S5A pro

[bonestonne]

ok, so, i've got this habit of always getting decent to pretty sweet stuff for free. well, in my quest to round out my computer experience from only intel to a little AMD too, i've gotten two AMD boards. on i can't find a manufacturer for, it has a 700MHz AMD Duron, and it works fine.

however, this board, a full size ATX board has a 900MHz AMD Athlon XP. because i don't have a way to overclock my Intel Pentium 4, i want to try out this AMD. i plan on trying to get a new heatsink, and doing some extreme overclocking on this, maybe 1.7GHz is in sight?

problem is, it wont post at all. the board gets power, but i get nothing. tomorrow i can try with DDR ram if theres school [its starting to snow relentlessly] and that could be the issue. however, i did try it with some 133Mhz SD ram as i've read, and it got no where.

heres the thing: the microATX board had an issue where the jumper was on 133mhz instead of 100mhz...well, the ATX board doesn't have that anywhere i can find. when i switched the jumper to 100mhz, the board ran fine. on 133, it wouldn't post.

i've taken the battery off the board, switched the jumper to clear CMOS, and i still get nowhere...i've even taken out the bios chip..but still, nowhere. i'm a big fan of full size ATX boards, as my first build involved one, and they also have much more room for expansion. not to mention this ECS board will allow me to have front USB ports, onboard LAN, and onboard USB2.0...

i want to use this computer strictly for playing the SIMs, possible upgrading the CPU to a better Athlon, 3000+ maybe...we'll see...i need help getting it running first. does anyone know how i can do this? i don't want to say that one of the best boards i'll ever own is just dead..is there a jumper or something i should know about? i've googled the board quite a few times and found that there were issues with this board, but the Athlon XP didnt have the issues...this board will replace my Pentium 4, as it can hold more ram, and it will be easier to upgrade the CPU.

anyone have any ideas of what i can do to get it to post without anything special? or am i just a wishful thinker with a dead board.

[prx984]

Well, first off, if the Athlon is a palamino (most XP's are) your not going to be able to overclock much. Maybe 1ghz at most. My Athlon XP 1800+ will not over clock past 1.8ghz (1.53ghz is clock speed).

As for the ECS board, the chipset is SiS, and all I can tell you is the sound is a SiS 7012 Audio card

Drivers are available on SiS's website if you can get the board going.

Good luck.

[bonestonne]

well, thats ok...its 900 stock, squeezing it up to 1.2~3 will be fine for me...i'll probably get a new CPU for it anyway...more importantly i want some help getting it working...it doesn't post. i can get it some DDR ram to try out, but with SD RAM it refuses to post. i'm using a 420W PSU with it...

also, i'm going to need a new heatsink for it, does anyone have suggestions for that? the heatsink just needs to work with Socket 462...as the CPU will be replaced in time.

[CoffeeFiend]

possible upgrading the CPU to a better Athlon, 3000+ maybe...

Good luck with that... Can't find anything for socket 462 new, and the 2nd hand stuff usually sells for far more than it's worth. Last I've checked, those old Athlon XP 3000+ -ish CPUs go for about as much as a AM2 Athlon64 X2 3800+ costs nowadays (prices, old and new). I'd rather just buy a new AM2 motherboard (can be had under 50$). For the price of a 2nd hand Athlon XP, you could buy a AM2 Sempron 64 3000+ (43$ new at newegg) and motherboard... I just can't see a reason to invest anything in such an outdated platform (socket 462, AGP, no SATA, etc) If you're willing to buy 2nd hand (like you would for an Athlon XP chip) you can find even better deals... Same if you don't mind Socket 754 stuff: 73$ gets you a Sempron 64 2800+ (64 bit, 800MHz HT bus, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, NX bit, 62W) with a motherboard that has PCI express, 3 DDR memory slots, SATA and all (for which they still make CPUs); everything new with warranty.

i've googled the board quite a few times and found that there were issues with this board, but the Athlon XP didnt have the issues...

Can't tell for sure about the new Pro version, but the old was very notorious for problems like that (not posting at all). See "ZP fix". It didn't particularly like weak PSUs either.

or am i just a wishful thinker with a dead board.

I wouldn't waste too much time on this. It's likely a dead board. And you only have a slow CPU for it anyways. And that board is not good for overclocking at all (even using 3rd party BIOSes) - you'll need serious luck to hit 1.2... And I don't see how this board will let you add more RAM than any other board you already have (just 2 slots one can use)...

[bonestonne]

any guesses or possibilities of what i'd get for it on ebay? if it isn't worth keeping, tomorrow i'm going to test it with DDR ram, if it works for that, then i'll sell it with the 900mhz CPU, with the notes of it only working with DDR ram, 184 pin...AGP4x, up to 10 USB ports..i guess someone might find it useful...i think the dollar could stretch somewhere?

and maybe that'll even pay for the ram and new CPUs for my server.

not too bad? i was hoping this system would have given me something. at least.

[CoffeeFiend]

I don't see using DDR making any difference. You should at least get "beep codes" or something. If it's not doing anything (not posting, not beeping), then it's most likely dead. DDR won't help at all.

any guesses or possibilities of what i'd get for it on ebay?

For the processor? There's some for sale for 10$ with no bids... Not surprising, who's shopping for parts to build such an old box? The only people interested would be those who just fried an old CPU and want a cheap replacement (without upgrading). You might have a hard time selling it, and after ebay/paypal fees, there's going to be enough left to buy a cup of coffee (if you manage to sell it). Odds are you'll pay for listing fees and such a few times, and never sell it too.

As for the dead board... Nobody's going to buy it (unless they don't know it doesn't work, and if you don't tell 'em, they won't be happy when they receive it, expect complaints and all). Even in perfect working order it wouldn't go for much (20$ maybe?) There's nicer boards around 40$ new...

Personally, I wouldn't bother even trying to sell this stuff anymore. Even listing the board in "uknown/possibly broken/no warranty" along with the CPU, after all fees, you won't have much left - definitely not enough to upgrade any desktop (unless it's a 486, and even then), much less a server. This thing (if it even worked) is about 4x slower than that 73$ combo I mentioned before (for which you'd probably get around 50$ for 2nd hand), has no SATA, no PCI express, less memory slots, CPU doesn't support modern instruction sets, no warranty, etc.

Keeping older stuff costs more (e.g. SDRAM costs more than DDR/DDR2), and is way harder to find. That's half the reason why I don't keep old systems around (that, and they're too slow, they waste electricity/creates extra heat pointlessly, and just means extra stuff laying around wasting space that I've got to look after). Parts for newer systems have far more bang for the buck, are way faster, more power efficient (for the most part at least), and are cheaper and easier to find (should anything fail) and upgrade.

I've given faster boards/CPUs away for free.

[bonestonne]

Keeping older stuff costs more (e.g. SDRAM costs more than DDR/DDR2), and is way harder to find. That's half the reason why I don't keep old systems around (that, and they're too slow, they waste electricity/creates extra heat pointlessly, and just means extra stuff laying around wasting space that I've got to look after). Parts for newer systems have far more bang for the buck, are way faster, more power efficient (for the most part at least), and are cheaper and easier to find (should anything fail) and upgrade.

oh, i know all that for a fact...new SDRAM costs the better part of $68 even at an expo...luckily i've gotten myself a gig of it for roughly $35. only one gig to go for my old server.

well, heres whats gonna happen, since the DDR isn't going to cost me anything, i'll give it a shot, its from a science teacher at my school, he upgraded to 1gb sticks, so he's not losing anything...he gave one to me before, but i had no ddr slots to fill at the time. i'll try it out, and if it works, i'll have my older sister get me a heatsink and Athlon 2600+ however she wants, and i'll throw it together. this whole thing is meant to play the sims, and i don't play the sims...my sister said to let her know if i needed anything, so the next time i see her [she's in her dorm right now] i'll talk to her about that.

if its all free, i think it'll be a decent replacement [so long as it works] compared to this original P4 1.4Ghz...

basically, if the ram works, its worth having someone else buy the CPU. for the game my sister wants, she needs 2GHz minimum...an athlon 2600+ will do that, so since i'm sharing it with her, i'll still have more access, as it wont be leaving this house until i move out.