ECS K7S5A mobo and modem arghhh!!!

[Major Kong]

Well I'm building my brother in law a new PC. He was on a limited budget so I went with an ECS K7S5A mobo, 1.1 gig Duron, 512 meg SDRAM (already had 2 sticks so it saved him some money, he can upgrade to DDR later), Windows XP - Home Full retail which was only $90.00 from newegg with the mobo. Everything fired up fine Friday morning. Did a complete clean install of XP, no problems. Called my brother in law and told him I would send it down to him this week. He informs me that he got rid of cable modem and needs a regular dial up modem. No problem I go down to CompUSA and buy him a basic PCI CompUSA modem for $19.99 put it in fire up the PC, nothing, nada, zilch! Take the modem out everything is fine. Try the modem in different PCI slots, still the same nothing - nothing. Next I have a real nice Supra Express 56K external modem hook into com1 no post, hook into com2 samething. Now I'm perplexed I go into the BIOS and see on board AC'97 modem enabled. Ah ha I thinks! So I disable the on board modem. Replace PCI modem, reboot. NOTHING AGAIN!!! Take out modem power up everything is fine. I'm about out of ideas here. It shouldn't be hard to install a modem. Any suggestions. TIA

[DocPC]

Had the same problem with a similiar ECS (K7AMA) board, Larry. Had to flash the BIOS and Go right into the BIOS setup. Disable on board and load.

Also worked once by re-setting the bios on yet another ECS board (K7SEM).

I guess they want you to use the POS CNR modem that usually ships with them.

[Major Kong]

Thanks Doc! I'll give the ECS site a look see on the latest and greatest BIOS update. I'll be bach with an update!

[Major Kong]

Well here's the update. It turns out the ECS mobo doesn't like the CompUSA brand of modems. I bought a Creative PCI modem, installed it and all is well. I found a little blurb through a Google search that told me that little tidbit.

[trinitro]

I actually had a somewhat related "experience" with an ECSM830LR board. The onboard sound supossedly works fine (everything works in Windows), but there is no sound coming out of it, so I'm guessing something is not working in the amplifier section. No problem I though, just took out my trusty cheap ALS4000 based sound card, pluged it, and I got beeps. Tried different PCI slots, no luck. Disable the onboard sound/modem, no luck. Plug in an older Creative card, works perfectly. So I guess ECS has "expensive" taste with peripherals...

[condor]

I built quite a few ECS K7s5a mobo's and they're usually very good. they so seem to dislike modems that are based on ESS chips and some Rockwells.

My best recommendation is to go either with a PCtel V.90 Platinum Series Modem (sells for around $9-$15) or An Intel/Ambiant HaM V.92 modem (sells for around $12) they work great with the board.