Good or bad choice for a motherboard?

[Zerotech]

I recently bought a Biostar M7NCD-A02 to replace my ECS K7S5A that's warning me it's about to die.

Is this a decent motherboard, any experiences?

Is the onboard ALC650 sound better or worse than a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz?

I know I'll have to re-activate Windows after changing motherboards (I planned on a fresh install anyway).

I'm typing fast because the forum software logged me out and lost the post apparently because I took too long.

TIA

[Archer]

You can do a repair install which shouldnt require a re-activation if you want to save time.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/replace_motherboard.htm

[Zerotech]

I've been running this installation for around two years, so re-activating with new hardware shouldn't be too much of a problem. I guess the people who wipe and reload every few months have the real trouble (if they don't save their activation files).

Plus, I'm changing from an SiS735 chipset to the nForce2. I was able to fool Windows when I changed a K7S5A for a K7S5A Pro at work; but now I'm shying away from the SiS chipset and ECS brand for my home system. Last I heard, the nForce chipset was the best for AMD processors. Wish I could have gotten the nVidia onboard sound, but cash was tight and Socket A selection is getting slim.

Why stay with Socket A? I need to transfer my existing parts and keep this system running until I can afford a whole new set-up (maybe Athlon 64 next time).

[Ruslan]

Is this a decent motherboard, any experiences?

Is the onboard ALC650 sound better or worse than a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz?

I'm not familiar with that particular motherboard, but BioStar in general just a bit better than ECS, IMHO... That is not an ASUS or ABIT motherboard (not even close to), but still better than ECS... I've been using BioStar motherboards since they were making 386s - they are cheap, but I haven't had any of them failed on me... so far... still use one - 7MIA (socket462, with built-in RAID) at work...

Do not compare Realtek on-board AC97 sound with Turtle Beach - first one is just only "to provide something what sounds"...

But that's exactly wrong with your current MB?

[Zerotech]

First the CMOS cleared itself for no apparent reason (one of the warning signs of these boards).

More recently, Windows wouldn't boot and gave an error message that a system file was corrupt or missing (that's what my K7S5A at work did very shortly berfore it died).

From time to time there is a noticeable pause before the board will POST.

I have been reading posts in several forums that describe all of these symptoms as warnings that the board is about to fail. Most of the posts say that the K7S5A (and the Pro version) lasted between 2-1/2 and 5 years before becoming unreliable. Combine that with the fact that I'm using a hacked BIOS to get the board to work with my newer video card, and I figure I've gotten the expected life out of the motherboard (the one at work lasted about 2-1/2 to 3 years).

I have an official BIOS I can revert to, but my experience with these boards is that when they give the warning signs, they will fail.

The Biostar board also gives me the option of CPUs with up to a 400MHz FSB as opposed to the 266MHz limit of the ECS board.

Thanks for the opinion on Biostar, Ruslan.

[confus-ed]

..Thanks for the opinion on Biostar, Ruslan.

Just to add to this, I get through a few of them ( a hundred or so I guess over the time) & they are indeed 'cheap & cheerful' but none broke here either yet & I've been using them for 2 & 1/2 years or so ..

[Ruslan]

First the CMOS cleared itself for no apparent reason (one of the warning signs of these boards).

More recently, Windows wouldn't boot and gave an error message that a system file was corrupt or missing (that's what my K7S5A at work did very shortly berfore it died).

From time to time there is a noticeable pause before the board will POST.

Just to warn you before it is not too late...
That delay before post usually caused by defective capacitors - check it out: http://forums.windrivers.com/showthr...ive+capacitors
I may be sound a bit paranoic , but that what my experience tells me ...
I fixed not long time ago the same motherboard (K7S5A) with defective caps, and it still working fine... So, it is possible to fix your MB by replacing defective caps... you can do it yourself or ask your friend who can do it for you.

But the real problem is - usually all these bad capacitors either caused by bad (cheap) power supplies, or by heat (not enough cooling) inside the case...
In second case you can just add extra case fan (fans)...
But in the first case (if you actually do have any bad capacitors on MB) - open the power supply and check if you don't have any capacitors inside with bulged tops or any burning signs on the PCB...

You can buy a new motherboard and leave an old PSU what already killed your an old motherboard... and guess what will happen next... right, bad PSU will kill again - this time a new MB... and that's the common mistake many users do - replacing died MB without analizing what caused MB's death...
Better to be safe than sorry...

[confus-ed]

..I may be sound a bit paranoic , but that what my experience tells me ...

& you have more experience of this than 'most' (certainly here, modest old ruslan knows his onions ! )- the pause between 'start & beep' getting longer & longer is indeed a classic symptom of failing capacitors, as they take longer to charge.. but I'm a bit puzzled ..

I always thought the actual cause though was the quality of the capicator itself not being able to take the full fluctuation of the current it was presented thus causing the elctrolyte to spill out, thus reducing its ability etc etc - so this is just consequential then ? (quality of capicitor needn't be the factor?) & that poor powersmoothing on the m/board or faulty psu will blow any capacitors sooner or later anyway, no matter ?

[Atodini]

-ed,

The electrolytic capacitors ARE the smoothing components on the motherboard. Generally, the caps used on motherboards are of good quality but if the power supply is not good, (over voltaging probably being the worst culprit here), the design capacity of the capacitors is exceeded and they overheat and eventually fail. Capacitors in general are very hardy devices and can often take abuse for years before failing but fail they eventually do. Of course a very "dirty" supply can also lead to premature failure but smoothing out the ripples and spikes in the supply voltage is their function.

You can often be able to detect if the supply output is too "dirty" as in tends to be audible, causing a hum through the speakers for example...

As Rus pointed out, if a board fails due to capacitor failure then the power supply must be the prime suspect. Quality power supplies are relatively cheap (compared to mobos, processors etc) so I always replace the PSU following a board failure.

Unfortunately, many manufacturers under specify their power supplies but it often takes until well after the warranty is out before capacitor problems emerge - we had three Packard Bell (AMD's) in last month, all with the same four blown electrolytic caps and all about 4 years old!!! In all 3 cases I was able to replace the faulty caps (and the PSU's!) and all are now working again.

John

[Platypus]

I always thought the actual cause though was the quality of the capicator itself not being able to take the full fluctuation of the current it was presented thus causing the elctrolyte to spill out, thus reducing its ability etc etc - so this is just consequential then ? (quality of capicitor needn't be the factor?) & that poor powersmoothing on the m/board or faulty psu will blow any capacitors sooner or later anyway, no matter ?

If I may offer some input here - it caught my interest having just finished replacing said capacitors on a batch of motherboards:

http://home.ripway.com/2004-11/207165/caps.jpg

The (low) quality of the capacitors (especially the capacitors with the faulty electrolyte) will pre-dispose them to failure, so they are more likely to go than better capacitors. But a low quality or faulty PSU can certainly be the trigger to precipitate the failures.

What stresses electrolytic capacitors in this application is "ripple current", the charging and discharging cycle the capacitors experience as they "smooth" the output of the SMPS (Switched Mode Power Supply) used in computers. The capacitors have to accept a "pulse" of energy tens of thousands of times per second, and release this again each of these cycles to supply the motherboard's current requirement while the SMPS builds up the field in its transformer for the next "pulse" of energy.

Capacitors have a ripple current rating to indicate how much current they can handle in this way without exceeding their specifications for temperature rise. Multiple capacitors are used on supply rails to share the ripple current load, and some of those capacitors will be within the PSU. A good quality PSU will have high quality capacitors of sufficient capacitance value so that they are doing much of the work carrying ripple current, and the PSU gives a very "clean" output. Motherboard capacitors don't have to work quite as hard smoothing the remaining ripple, so can be expected to survive better.

A poor quality PSU will have skimped on internal capacitors, so is relying more on the motherboard capacitors, they work harder, so can be expected to reveal any weaknesses they have. If they cannot cope with the ripple current they are being required to carry, they will overheat. They develop too high an internal pressure and the cases may bulge or split, electrolyte will be forced out, or like the tilted capacitor in the photo above, an electrode may be pushed out of the capacitor.

[confus-ed]

-ed,

The electrolytic capacitors ARE the smoothing components on the motherboard...

..they get used in timing circuits also on motherboards ? (with a resistor -which often gets blown ?) & filter circuits for ac & dc ? (though you would only have dc on a motherboard, I mean elsewhere like you mention in a psu for example)

..I didn't put what I meant well at all ! [edit: I see Platypus managed that much better than I ]- I've got leaky caps on lots of motherboards without psu issues (I know because I thought that was what it was ! )- they are just rubbish components & will die slowly .. so I think it depends where you find them - when I find leaky caps on an asus board, I think iffy psu - if I don't find them on pc chips boards (especially their early stuff), then I'm surprised !

[Atodini]

That's true, I too did not explain maybe as I'd meant, but the ones that I generally find expand, leak then die are more often than not the larger smoothing caps across the voltage regulators (normally adjacent to the power input socket and the fan headers etc).

Funnily enough I don't ever recall having to change any capacitors on a PC Chips board!!

ECS, FIC, Biostar and particularly recently Asrock yes, plus a rare MSI, Asus or Abit..... Got me thinking now, going to search out the graveyard (in my shed) for PC Chips boards to look for swollen caps! From what I remember there's loads of them in a box in there - I've got to agree that they c**p by the way, hence the large number waiting to be skipped!

John

[Zerotech]

Wow! Lots of action since I logged off yesterday.

A few months ago, I replaced the came-with-the-case 400W supply (presumably a cheapy) with an Antec TruePower 430W supply. I didn't see any bulging capacitors then (ever since hearing about that problem, I make a point of checking), so I'm pretty sure the capacitors aren't the problem.

I'm mostly concerned about the "lost CMOS" and boot error issues, the slow POST is also a side-effect of the hacked BIOS I'm using.

Here's the readme from the file for the K7S5A Pro:

CheepoBios 1.17 beta for K7S5A Pro
Based on ECS 030120

chb0120.rom lan / non-lan Version
chb0120f.rom lan / non-lan Version with fastwrites enabled

Release notes:


- Adjust timing for stability and compatibility
- Fixed Athlon XP1700+ was detected as 1800+

- FSB modes reprogrammed:

"100/100 MHz" changed from 99.6 to 100.9 MHz
"133/133 MHz" changed from 132.77 to 133.9 MHz
"100/133 MHz" changed from 99.6/132.77 to 100.9/133.9
No more underclocking by default!

- Several FSB modes added. New list of available modes:

100/100 MHz
100/133 MHz
133/133 MHz
166/133 MHz (actually 166/125) -> Default modes


110/110 MHz
112/112 MHz
124/124 MHz
133/100 MHz (Now 133.9/100.9)
110/147 MHz
133/166 MHz
138/138 MHz
143/143 MHz
147/147 MHz
150/150 MHz
166/166 MHz
200/200 MHz -> New modes


The k7s5a Pro has a newer version of the ics9248-199 pll, different of the one in the basic k7s5a. Any feedback on the functionality of all fsb modes is welcome.

- Extra memory settings:
- RAS Precharge Time=2T
- RAS Active Time=4T, 5T

- Full screen logo can be enabled/disabled via bios menu

- A few hidden bios options have been enabled with amibcp. Please notice that none of these settings have been fixed or reprogrammed at all.

- PCI Latency Timer
- PCI slot #1 to #4 IRQ priority
- IO APIC

The default values for all settings remain the same as in the original bios.



I wish to thank Jinxter, tw.p, Bench400 and Beheerder: deblokker mij, fellow bios modders
at www.ocworkbench.com/ecs for their useful ideas, discussion and testing


Cheepoman, 19 February 2003



The speed bump-up may be stressing the board a bit, but it will run my GeForce 6800 with v67.03 or later drivers without spontaneously rebooting during 3D acceleration.

I was running stock BIOS/settings on the K7S5A at work when the boot error message started showing up (no lost CMOS) and the next morning the board was dead. The K7S5A Pro I replaced it with lost CMOS settings once a couple of months ago. From what I have gathered, this model board is great for the first couple of years, then gets more and more troublesome until it finally dies.

I would have bought a better replacement board but, as stated earlier, my budget is pretty tight.

I do appreciate all the in-depth information, though. I'm a bench technician with about 20 years off-and-on experience, so replacing capacitors will be a no-brainer (I even have a nice Pace desoldering station at work!).

Thanks again for the info/suggestions.

[confus-ed]

Wow! Lots of action since I logged off yesterday. ..


I do appreciate all the in-depth information, though. I'm a bench technician with about 20 years off-and-on experience, so replacing capacitors will be a no-brainer (I even have a nice Pace desoldering station at work!).

Thanks again for the info/suggestions.

he-he-he .. we are all pretty much pc/network techies .. you know the 'sort' ..they look at blown circuitry mutter a bit & get on the phone for a replacement, you on the other hand probably see this as a challenge & get busy with your multi-meter !

A 'small' diversion into discussuion on how to spot such things was kind of inevitable, as to most here its just 'faulty' & realising you can easily fix such things for 1c worth of solder & a 5c component, is to some extent a revalation !

Now what the hell were you asking again ?

[Zerotech]

This thread has made me fairly confident in the motherboard I chose.

Now it's just a matter of burning a data back-up DVD (yes I have that much crap to back up) and slipstream SP2 into my Win XP before reloading on a nice, new hard drive.

Thanks again everyone for all the information (it never hurts to review tips that are still very valid).