written by SalemCat on 03/02/2004
Good Points
Price
Bad Points
Unstable - Unusable
General Comments
I've been building and maintaining computers for nearly twenty years, and the ECS K7S5A PRO is by far the worst Motherboard ever.
It starts up fine, and even loads WIN98 w/o problems (usually). But try to upgrade to WIN98SE - forget it.
I haved swapped EVERY component, all of which tested good on other systems. I tried tweaking the BIOS every which way, and flashing the latest Version, of course.
Finally I got the Board to work by installing the OS and several programs with the HD in another computer and then swapping the HD to the PRO. But this did not satisfy the K7S5A for long!
Within just a few hours Registry Errors began occurring, and programs which worked fine before were failing.
I've owned ECS MBs before - I have an ECS K7S5A non-PRO for a year now. It's only issue was the Front USB Ports never worked - and yes, I know how to set these up - done it countless times successfully. Finally I decided Front USB was not important - but not before I wasted a few hours.
The K7S5A was simply annoying - but when I look at the hours I've wasted with this ECS K7S5A PRO - I'll never buy ANY ECS again.