Bought it as a used one in 2007 with Duron 900 and 256MB of SDRAM. Now it's running an Athlon XP 2400+ and 1GB of DDR400 with no problems. Huge compatibility, starting from supporting 2 memory types, to having a universal AGP slot that will fit any card. Chipset is rather colder than expected. Has onboard LAN. Could have had USB 2.0 and maybe a better onboard audio.

I have been running the Elite Group ECS K7S5A board since 2002, 3 years now. I had a problem with it showing drives that did not exist until up flashed the Bios with and upgrade and no there is no problem, exept the Ultra ata thing. A few months after purchase I had to buy a new battery. And twice in the passed year it said

Built this computer over three years ago, Elite Group ECS K7S5A, 256MB DDR ram, Western Digital HD, Nvidia Gforce 2 graphics.
This setup ran well for for me for a year and then I ran into some promblems, it started with installing and running programs, then errors while burning disks, finally boot up. At first I thought maybe a new malicious worm, so a reformate was in order, but it was met with little success.
After discussion with more adept computer friends, things were pointing in the direction of the HD or mainboard.
Not wanting to believe that only after a year of use my mainboard was fried, I forced the rusty gears in my head to start turning. Then the room got brighter as if a lightbulb had been turned on! Above what some poeple would call a block of dense iron wood ;)
I noticed that the more I rebooted the worst(or sooner) the errors became. This was most noticable during a reinstall of my operating system from Win 98 to ME back to 98, Windows 98 is a smaller OS and has fewer reboots during install compared to WIN ME. I also noticed that if the machine sat for a day or so it was less problematic (A battery due to it's chemical make up will gain a small amount of voltage if allowed to rest).
This lead to the conclusion that something was either heating up a circuit in the mainboard expanding a hairline crack or draining something like a BATTERY! So I had two choices to take 1)several pieces of papertowel sandwiched between the back of the mainboard and the case (to slightly stress the board to reconnect a hairline crack) to see if this made a difference in performance, if so a NEW mainboard would be in order. Or 2) replace the BIOS battery.
I decided on the latter, I ran down to my local electronics store bought a battery and put it in. All problems were solved and it's still running good two years later.

Elite Group ECS K7S5A - Built 3 systems with AMD 2400XP and 2000XP and the ECS K7S5A Pro Motherboards. One is using 768 MB SDram and 2 using 512 MB DDR. Loaded them with Win XP Pro. The systems do not like certain graphic cards. The driver caused instability and system lock. I had two older (2 yrs old) graphics cards (These were older high end gaming cards, one had 64 MB and another had 128 MB.) that refused to work on these systems without causing crashes and system lock. One stable system was using a new Nvidia MX400 with 64 MB and was stable as heck. Ran a battery of tests and remained stable. ...and they played my games with great graphics. I contacted Microsoft on-line only to confirm the driver is causing memory conficts. I contacted company "A" and could not get resolution. Rather than fight the driver software, I switched all the systems to Nvidia MX400 cards w/64 MB at $29.00 each and all the systems are stable. Previously, I was a great fan of company "A". Recently their drivers are causing issues even on my "I" based systems when the drivers were updated.

It is because of the stablity issues that arose during my system builds that I have setup my boot to be very conservative.

1) No fast boot. Always perform a system memory check. At times I have by bypassed this option with no ill effects after changing the graphics card.

2) I locked the system to operate at 133MHZ CPU and 133 MHZ Memory.

3) I have configured the bios for components in my system optimized.

4) I locked my bios so it cannot be updated or accessed from the outside.

There have been no problems with stability. This includes one system I have configured for my 2 yr old and 4 yr old daughters.

It's Paper_Sack again, giving my 3rd cent. My AGP card is fried. Not sure if this is related to the mainboard, say a voltage problem, but I have never had an AGP card fail. (LeadTek Winfast Ti 32mb ddr) PCI card I scrounged up works fine and board is still super stable.

I run my box as a server and have 2wk uptimes. Reset manually, still havent had a crash.

As for the manual, if you can't understand it, again buy a gateway or a dell. It's definitly sufficient Cord047. Your comment made me laugh.


I won't buy an ECS next time, I am not certain of their quality and am no longer in the bargin component market. I have built 3 systems for friends or family since then w/ ECS boards. No problems to report.

I have built 3 or 4 of these and have had no problems. The SiS 735 chipset is quite good. I love the fact that you can use DDR or SDRAM (don't mix 'em!). I built one computer for my wife using XP 1700 and two for my grandkids, using Duron 1.0Ghz processors. We have Win2K on one and Win98 or the others. Both OS's work great. I have not put XP on this MB yet. With onboard sound, 2 USB ports on the rear and a NIC, all you need is a decent video card and away you go! Hook up to broadband if you can afford it; if not put a V92 modem on it. Put at least 128 megs of RAM on it. The more RAM the better! I run 512 on all of them. Hey you'll have a decent computer without breaking the bank. I am putting one together today, using ver 3.1. I got the board for $29.00. The others were under $50.00 two years ago. Hey, cheap is good! Cheaper is better!

My brother in law wanted ca 2 years ago a budget system. After some search I found this Elite Group ECS K7S5A motherboard. In combination with a Duron 1 GHz and 512 DDR RAM it was a nice solution. certainly as it was pretended to be Athlon XP upgradable for the future (XP's at that time were new and very expensive.
With this combination we did have some intial stability problems. The combination of 100 MHz/100 MHz (CPU/RAM) was the most stable one and my brother in law was satisfied with it.
Last week we upgraded to an Athlon XP 2400+ after flashing the bios (checked first with the Duron).
The flashing went very OK (missing a backup option). The options of the new bios (k7s5a020809.exe) have increased significnatly and the first impressions that the Duron was now very stable.
After the flashing the installetion of the Athlon XP 2400+ went extremely easy. The system run in one time OK as it should do and looks so far very stable running on 133MHz/133MHz so getting the good values for this XP CPU.
After all: it was a cheap board and the upgrade did not cost too much as we already had the DDR memory.
For his sitution my brother in law can work again for a pretty long time with his PC.

I have owned my Elite Group ECS K7s5a motherboard for about a year now. I have had no problems with it, it has been very reliable. The SIS735 chipset is the best that I have used in a long time. I recommend this motherboard to any beginning computer junkies.

Ive used this Elite Group ECS K7s5a motherboard in 6 machines.Was very easy to set up works well with the gforce cards.Ive used sdram and ddr memory without any problems.I put in the athalon chip and the duron chip from 1.4s and up.Very dependable board they have been running for 2 years now.

I built my first computer,about 2 yrs. ago,and I have been using the k7s5a board all the time,when I first put it together,I was using a 1.3 AMD Duron,and it ran extremely well,no problems,except for the ones that the nut behind the wheel did.Anyway,,I eventually changed the cpu to an AMD Athlon 1800+ Thoroughbred,and I am using 512 mb. of sdram,(which will be changing to ddr soon)and I am using a GeForce 2 mx400 graphics card,,and using xp pro, and for an everyday computer,I think it's awesome,the k7s5a board has taken everything that I've thrown at it(within reason)and its still with me, so,,,yes,,,for the price,,,,,can't beat it,and the onboard sound has always worked ,and it sounds very good,,,all in all,,any body who is on a budget,,use this board or the pro version.

My son and I bought two Elite Group ECS K7s5a motherboards with Athlon 2400 XP processors a few weeks ago. They work great. I am extremely pleased with mine. We had a little difficulty with one board picking up the Athlon as 1000 Duron and running at only 1.00 GHZ. We're uncertain what the difficulty was but after swithcing CPUs between the two boards in attempt to decide if the K7S5A or the Athlon was to blame, and reinstalling the CPU fan with liberal heat sink compound, both boards run beautifully at 1.99 GHz.

for generic office use to 3d-gaming, this is a good, solid motherboard. earlier revisions of the bios are unhappy with certain system configurations, but once flashing to a newer version, all of these problems disappear.

the SiS735 chipset by no means competes with the nforce2 in terms of 3d gaming performance, but especially with using a modified bios (eg - Honey X) you can safely increase performance with this mainboard without unlocking the CPU.

i have used a k7s5a 1.0 since late '01, and it has never given me any problems. i'm pleased with this board.

I built a system with 2000xp processor. On occasion it boots only with 100mhz, instead of 133mhz, causing the pc to be recognised as 1250xp. It also re-sets the time and date.
I've tried re-setting cpu set up in bios.
It doesn't do it all the time, and I have put a new battery in.

Any one help?

Alot of people say this motherboard is not all that good,but I have had mine for about 8 months now and had no problems at all even when I upgraded the graphics card and sound card.And although the mb is not the fastest around I find my system [xp2000+,512mbddr,Geforce4200ti64mbddr] can handle even the latest games at very respectable fps and res.

I have had this mobo for about 6 months now. When i bought it i had everything built and I had the same problem with the power but no picture. I guess the the AGP slot on these boards are not great. I just kept messin with the video card and takin it out and puttin it back in and it finally worked. Only other bad points ( im not sure if this is the mobo's fault ) but my games crash a lot and ive had a few random reboots right outa nowhere. For the price its not bad but if your a gamer i would not recommend this board.

I am having Elite Group K7S5A with an Athlon XP 1700 for more than a year and I am very happy. The reason I am writting this post is for people who say that the M/B is not good and especially for those who say that it freezes. I had this problem too. The only thing you have to do is to update the motherboard's BIOS. You can find a newer version of the BIOS on the Elite groups website http://www.ecs.com.tw
Before you change it find somewhere instructions on how to do it (DOS only) because you may damage the BIOS or have a service department to do it for you. Meanwhile if your system refuses to boot to windows, change your CPU's speed to a lower. e.g. when I had this problem with the Athlon 1700, I changed it to 1100 Mhz and there was no problem.

I hope I 've helped you a bit ;)

I like a stable platform , this crashes on a regular basis whilst playing games

Good board. When you consider the price, the choice goes from good to Great. Have 2, one with XP1700+, one with XP2000+, both run with no problems. I leave the systems on 24/7 for months at a time.

A versatile board which will use either "old" SDR or "new" DDR without complaint. No speed freak but very stable & reliable - when treated right (see Power Supply & chipset cooling). Will run all 266FSB Athlon XPs with recent BIOS. Awesome "fan" support on the 'Net - great FAQs. This board has quite a "cult" of followers. NOT for the hardcore overclocker, but "loads o'fun" for the DIYer. A nice, inexpensive mobo and hence = Highly Rated - for what it is ...

Working in the I.T. industry, I can say that this board offers excellent value for money. As the cheapest board available in the UK (about £30 plus vat) you can not fault it. Onboard sound, Support of the AMD family of processors, DDR and SDRAM support make the board highly upgradable. Used in combination with a £35 Geforce 2 MX, SDRAM and a £50 XP processor you have a budget machine that will blow away most of the competition at the same price (all the competition will have integrated sound/graphics and not be upgradable to DDR). Ideal for the budget minded builder, holds on to value well (I actually sold a second user one for more than its new cost on eBay!!!)