Who Is ECS?

Jake_Barnes · Aug 8, 2003

ECS (Elitegroup Computer Systems) is always ranked as a "1st tier" motherboard manufacturer by DigiTimes. I know Asus, MSI and Gigabyte - but who is ECS - do they make mainboards under a different name? <A HREF="http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/MailHome.asp?datePublish=2003/8/8&pages=PR&seq=206" target="_new">DigiTimes link</A>

I did NOT have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky ... - Bill "Cigar Man" Clinton

smitbret · Aug 8, 2003

PC Chips. Never had one, probably never will. They ran under the ECS name a few years ago, but changed their retail label recently. Seems like they never put out a board that anyone liked or trusted. Their biggest buyers are the OEM manufacturers (crappy boards, dirt cheap), that's why they are categorized as a tier 1.
-Brett

Flinx · Aug 8, 2003

PC CHips boards sucked!

Recent ECS boards like the P6STMT and K7S5A Pro are considered OK bargin/value boards, by me. Read your
own reviews on the net. Web site ok.

I read somewhere that the company that owned PC Chips bought ECS (don't know 4 sure). Now PC Chips sells ECS mobos on the PC Chips name.

I have dealt with 2 PC Chips boards in the past. They were pretty much expensive typewriters. (Just about ok for internet access, Word and some kids games). Web site sucked. Boards were ... Ok they sux!

ECS does OEM work for lots of big names like HP and Apple.
Very respectable volume on Mobos.Edited by Flinx on 08/08/03 02:25 PM.

pIII_Man · Aug 8, 2003

never owned one but i have heard the quality control is hit and miss....so i would stay away...

If i put my k6 in a Ferrari it would be faster than your your pentium 4 or Athlon XP :tongue:

Flinx · Aug 9, 2003

You expect alot for $47. (K7S5A Pro on Newegg)
Lets u run up to XP2600+ (266FSB)
And lets u use ur old PC133 memory to boot.
Damm you'd think I owned stock in the company.

And no!!! ur not going to overclock. Hehe

The loving are the daring!

pIII_Man · Aug 9, 2003

actually cas 3 this memory is good for 166mhz...so i could prolly go with a baron 3000+...wudda think?

If i put my k6 in a Ferrari it would be faster than your your pentium 4 or Athlon XP :tongue:

Spitfire_x86 · Aug 9, 2003

Their ECS K7S5A was so good that you will find countless "Problem with ECS K7S5A" thread in the mobo forum if you search.

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Flinx · Aug 9, 2003

Ok Spitfire, I will do that. Thx.
I'll look into what garbage is going to come down the pipe.

Been looking for awhile and this board does not seem that bad.
2 - cant find bios
1 - cant find drivers
1 - burn out, not bad for biggest selling board
1 - HDD failure
2 - sucky PSU - big graphics card

bunch that don't know how to set memory. 2x100=200 or 2x133=266

Edyen

Not the only good board, but certainly the best seller. If you include it's latest incarnation, the K7S5A Pro, it has sold more than any other board in history.

Crashman
(Honorary Guru of THGC)
06/14/03 00:01 AM
Re: Overview of current boards supporting SDRAM DIMM [re: J_N]

Probably the best SDR SDRAM supporting Socket 462 board is the ECS K7S5A. ECS is PC-Chips, and I hate to recommend their boards to anyone, but this was probably the best from a bad company.

fiask0
(enthusiast)
05/18/03 04:31 AM
Re: Problem With ECS K7S5A [re: JimmyDean]

These boards are EXTREMELY, let me emphazise, EXTREMELY picky about power supplies, memory, etc. If you get a board, get it running with a good power supply and awesome memory, this board will be fine for you, if you don't, you'll have problems after problems.

Do you have any links for bad reviews. I mean we know the board is suxy. But I mean customers being extremely unhappy if they know what they were buying?

The loving are the daring!Edited by Flinx on 08/08/03 08:37 PM.

Spitfire_x86 · Aug 9, 2003

This mobo may look good considering ECS standards. But in reality, this is NOT a good mobo.

This mobo is very picky about PSU and RAM. But this is a value mobo, targeted for budget limited people. These people don't buy expensive PSU and memory. A good low end mobo should always work at their best with low end PSU/RAM. If a low end mobo NEEDS high-end psu and ram, how can we call it a good board?

My current ABIT NF7 (and previous MSI K7N420 Pro) runs 100% stable with $8 300W genric chinease PSU and generic DDR RAM.

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vagabond · Aug 9, 2003

I don't know why people are putting this particular mobo from ECS constantly down. I've never had these (suggested) problems. I've got the first version. This one doesn't even have a version number. Just K7S5A and a little "XP" sticker by the ZIF.

I've ran this board with no-name PC100, PC133 and PC2100 RAM with no problems at all. I've ran Durons, Athlons B and C and T-breds. Of course I've had to flash the BIOS to get it to recognize any CPU over 1400. No problems. The 300W NO-NAME PSU has never had a problem with them.

I admit this board is not an OC'er's dreamboat but hey you don't have to use it.

When I was running this board w/ the Athlon 1000C and 512MB no-name SDRAM it'd take almost 24 hours to finish a WU @ SETI. Now that I have the 2400+ w/PNY 512PC2100 DDR I finish a WU w/in 5 hours.

That's like somebody in the States telling me they just bought a brand new BMW M3 with a stock 300+ HP and tuned it to over 600 with a blower. What for? You can only drive 75mph. I on the other hand got a 1995 BMW 318i w/stock 115HP but I drive on stateroads already @ 75mph. When I get to the Autobahn (hehe) you guys would get scared. You'd get scared driving with me on stateroads here in Germany.This baby is screaming to kill the rev limiter!!! OOPS! Back to the subject.

This board is like my analogy of the BMW. This isn't the fastest or the best but IT IS A GOOD BOARD!!!

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VAGABOND

veni,vidi, and ended up in THGC

Nights_L · Aug 9, 2003

I think it's good board..from my friends that are using this board, it sounds a stable and solid board

Spitfire_x86 · Aug 9, 2003

This may be a good mobo if you can get it working. But the problem is...there's good number of people who can't get it working.

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lwj81 · Aug 9, 2003

You can overclock it,but you won't get much out of it.(100-200mhz).

vagabond · Aug 9, 2003

It is a good board for next to nothing. You don't have to be Crashman to get this board to run. No offense Crashman. ;o) And it'll run a 2600+ w/a 266FSB and 1 GB of RAM. With the updated BIOS of course. It's got onboard NIC which I use for my ADSL hookup. The only bitch I have about this board is the SiS 7012 Soundchip. When I have the headset on, the sound is weak coming out but I can live with it.

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VAGABOND

veni,vidi, and ended up in THGC

Flinx · Aug 9, 2003

Looks okay to me too Vagabond. Shakes hand!!!
Raises hand overhead in victory (we hope)

.

If I looked at all the problems people are having getting the memory or timings right I would be afraid to buy some of the motherboards out there that are being praised so much. Looks like it might be easy to waste $$$ on memory.

The loving are the daring!Edited by Flinx on 08/09/03 04:51 PM.

vagabond · Aug 9, 2003

Go figure. This mobo is one of the simplest I've used yet. My board before was the DFI AK74-EC, before that the Gigabyte GA-7IXE4, before that was the MSI 6340 where I didn't know which version to update because the damn board run under so many nomenclature. And last but not least a DFI CW35-L that ran my 500 Mendocino Celeron.

You can't tell me I'm the only one with a "good" K7S5A board. Read my last post, I ran three different kinds of RAM on it; four different CPUs in it and they all ran using the same no-name PSU. For a board this cheap, that isn't bad at all. I did a total of 4 CPU upgrades on this board and 3 RAM upgrades. No problems. Oh and not to mention the GPU upgrade. Went from a GF2MX to a GF4Ti no problems. A very versatile board if I may say so. What's more I got this board in exchange for my AK74-EC so there

!!! LOL The guy I traded with didn't know what he had. Now he's stuck at PC133 and a max of 1.4GHz on DIE.

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VAGABOND

veni,vidi, and ended up in THGC

superpsa · Aug 10, 2003

Buy an Asrock K7S8X(E) instead. Rock stable performance for next to nothing money. Much better than the ECS.

Incidentally, note there are a number of revisions of the K7S5A from ECS including the new "Pro" board. Maybe the old power problem has been fixed?

AMD Is An Anagram Of MAD, Intel Is An Anagram Of INLET, Cyrix...Ah Who Cares?

vagabond · Aug 10, 2003

That wasn't the point of conversation.
I know about ASRock. It's a subsidiary of ASUS if my memory serves me right. Not a bad Price/Performance mobo. That's what I mean by the ECS K7S5A board. I also know about the "Pro" version. Read my post; my K7S5A mobo DOESN'T even have a version number ie; 1.0.

Damn this must be a freakin' prototype I got. LOLZ

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VAGABOND

veni,vidi, and ended up in THGC

Flinx · Aug 10, 2003

<A HREF="http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread/t-6490.html" target="_new">http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread/t-6490.html</A>

<A HREF="http://pub140.ezboard.com/bk7s5amotherboardforum" target="_new">http://pub140.ezboard.com/bk7s5amotherboardforum</A>

Hehe.

<A HREF="http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=112&PageID=2" target="_new"> Amdmb</A>
The loving are the daring!Edited by Flinx on 08/09/03 06:39 PM.

superpsa · Aug 10, 2003

ASRock are not owned by ASUS. Originally they made cheap ASUS boards but now ASUS make their own cheap boards and ASRock run as a completely separate company (altho you can see there's a LOT of Asus bits used!!!)

LOL @ Prototype. I almost bought one once. They're dIrt cheap and do the job. And they're practically the only boards to use the SiS735 chipset. I think it's faster than the KT266A(?) so it makes a good deal if you want to build a cheap and cheerful system with SD or 266DDR.

AMD Is An Anagram Of MAD, Intel Is An Anagram Of INLET, Cyrix...Ah Who Cares?

vagabond · Aug 10, 2003

I stand corrected. I made a good deal with this board. It's cheap and cheerful! No nonesense mobo.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=23810" target="_new">My System </A>
VAGABOND

veni,vidi, and ended up in THGC

superpsa · Aug 10, 2003

The thing I DON'T like about the new K7S5A is the fact it's purple and not black. The Black PCB made it one of the sweetest looking boards on the market. I used to have a blue Jetway...now I have a boring green ASRock

Just ordered a new case tho so can set up the old Jetway board with an old Duron 800

AMD Is An Anagram Of MAD, Intel Is An Anagram Of INLET, Cyrix...Ah Who Cares?

vagabond · Aug 10, 2003

I've got the prototype (LOL) so it's black. Never really made a difference to me. I'm not into eye candy 'cause I can't afford it. I edge more towards versatility, dependability and reliability.

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VAGABOND

veni,vidi, and ended up in THGC

Who Is ECS?

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