ECS K7S5A Mobo

Hi guyz, i have had this mobo for sometime but yet only had it running for about a month or two until i got my P4. The mobo had problems then but it wasnt too bad really, now it has reappeared and is extremely bad.

When i restart or even turn the comp on after a shutdown, it does not boot up at all. It doesnt beep, but what it seems to be doing is keep reseting itself, like every 5-7 secs the cdrom lights start to flash and hard drives restart spinning up. Then i can turn the comp off, leave it for a couple of secs, turn it back on and it either does the same or starts up, it has been on 2 PSU's which somebody suggested it might be that, but i find it hard to believe it wont like both.

This is very annoying and i dont want to update the BIOS because i am scared that it may not boot back up which may brake it completely or would this not be an issue if it didnt start up again?

Plus replacing the board is going to cost £70 and thats far too much to spend.

Anyone any ideas on what it could be?

I would go thru and ensure all cards are seated correctly, and try reseating the RAM. Also, test the RAM using MemTest86.

Everything seated nicely, i may try messing with the ram but it was working fine on my asus p4s533 mobo before i got my 2700drr ram

Hello Mark .... I have almost the identical same system you do with the
identical same problem. Hit the power button and .... nothing, except the
disk and DVD led flash every once in a while. I was wandering the
Internet and saw your post. I now realize I don't have a broken mobo [its
only a month old]. We have to be dealing with a BIOS bug.

So I went to www.ecs.com.tw and search their support FAQ. Sure enough,
this problem is there with a BIOS update proven to fix this problem.
Go to
ftp//ftp.ecs.com.tw/bios/k7s5a021001.exe
I wouldn't worry too much about losing any data on your hard drive if the
BIOS update screws up. This may leave your mobo upable to boot, but all
the HD data is untouched. Just read and totally understand the
instructions before you do the update, follow them to the letter, and you
shouldn't have any problems. I've done FLASH updates for years without
problems ... all you have to do is leave it alone while its updating ... and
hope you don't take a power hit while its working.

Hi, I had the same Problem several times with that mobo. Got 20 Comps with the k7s5a in my Internetcafe. Just set the clear cmos jumper to clear all settings, switch on comp, then put the jumper to original setting and it should boot up again. the jumper is the red one near the battery. Hope this helps you out, in my case it did it quite often. Good Luck!

On my mobo, this is very intermittant ... I can just turn the PS off, wait a
few seconds, then power up and usually it always boots on the second try.
It isn't worth it for me to keep opening the case for a once a day problem
that's so easy to work around. But I'm hoping the BIOS update will cure it
once and for all.

Your a life saver man, thanxs

Well i updates the BIOS and still it wont boot sometimes , really p/s*ing me off now.

Marktait - just a hunch - have U tried turning it on, waiting for it to do it's usual nothing with occasional flashing of drive LEDs then hit reset?

Yes i sit and do this till it turns on , i updated the BIOS and this did not help at all. I think il be staying away from ECS in future, not just because of this but because you cant even upgrade your BIOS in windows. If you ask me, booting into dos and running your BIOS update from a floppy is dodgy stuff as floppy disks are very weird at times and cant read very well.

You don't list what PSU you're using in your sig - from what I've read, & given your symptoms, it wouldn't hurt to see if you can borrow another PSU from somebody & try that with it, or failing that try stripping your system down to the bare minimum [no drives, 1 stick of RAM, etc] & see if it still has the same prob. If you do that & it doesn't, try adding 1 device @ a time.

If the problem reappears after a specific piece of hardware is added, then try leaving that out & adding everything else. If you can do that with no probs then it's that 1 piece of hardware - either the device itself is faulty, or it's just too hungry for your PSU. If the prob reappears with multiple combinations of hardware, but not the bare minimum then I would be inclined to suspect the PSU.

I have tryed a 400watt Dual fan PSU, a single fan 400watt PSU, and a 300Watt PSU. It doesnt change a thing with any of them. It is using the 400watt dual fan now as it is noisy and i wont have it on my P4 coz of its noise. I will try taking things out tonight, i dont think it will be any hardware because i have ran all of it on my old gigabyte ga7dxr+ board which stopped working . Oh and merry christmas