Are ecs motherboards any good?

Mattiethomas · Post by **Mattiethomas** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 4:54 pm

I found a good combo for a pentium 4 3.2ghz and it comes with an ecs motherboard. The reason I might buy these is is because i need a new motherboard and processor, as mine is an AMD duron 1.2ghz. I'm not sure the specs on the mobo but I'm just wondering if ecs are decent motherboards.

Post by **|darc|** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:04 pm

I bought one a while back while making the transition between PCI and AGP. The motherboard had AGP, and it had PCI slots (of course). I was using a PCI graphics card and saving up for a nice AGP graphics card.

I finally purchased an AGP graphics card... and the AGP slot was dead.

By the time I purchased the AGP graphics card, the motherboard could no longer be returned.

Don't buy ECS.

Veggita2099 · Post by **Veggita2099** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:30 pm

I seem to recall owning a motherboard made by ECS a long time ago. It burnt up on me in less then 1 year and they wouldn't replace it. This was back during the pentium 2 500ish megahertz days.

Cyphix · Post by **Cyphix** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:09 pm

I dislike ECS too, crapped out on me a year and a half after I bought it.

I bought a nice ASUS instead... great mobo's.

Post by **melancholy** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:05 am

Heh, as if he needed more reason not to buy this board...

My friend owned one of those boards. Had it for about 4 months when all of the sudden something shorted on the board and took out everything that was attached to the PCI and AGP slots. It set him back for months trying to replace the parts. When he contacted ECS about it, they would only replace the board and not the components attached to it. I don't remember all the hoops he had to jump through, but he gave up since he didn't want another ECS board and was never going to get them to replace anything else. This was about 2 years ago.

mikozero · Post by **mikozero** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:52 am

ECS are not good boards, there are much better options even at the budget end (like ASRock)

theultimatechuff · Post by **theultimatechuff** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 3:22 am

Depends, I would look for user reviews on specific motherboards - some of them have been great value reliable motherboards (the old socket A K7S5A's were good). I would go for a more expensive reliable brand tho.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 5:04 am

ECS is value crap (and purple)

id suggest Asus as a first choice, and if thats a bit to expensive, Asrock will do nicely too (Asrock is Asus' budget division)

and unless you get a pentium D 805, id suggest against intel, rather get an amd64 on socket 939

Post by **Quzar** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 2:50 pm

Some of their boards are simply exact duplicates of other company's boards.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:17 pm

Quzar wrote:Some of their boards are simply exact duplicates of other company's boards.

called reference designs, supplied by the chipset makers, yet there still can be enough differences between brands concerning the component used, lower spec caps or Vregs can make a board less stable, same goes for the bios image

NiGHTSFTP · Post by **NiGHTSFTP** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 10:00 pm

In addition to Asrock, I can vouch for Biostar being awesome for a value board. I build an AMD/Biostar based system for my sister, and others I know have built biostar systems with no problems.

SadisticSaviorX · Post by **SadisticSaviorX** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 2:56 am

I would reccomend Asus or MSI.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 7:53 am

NiGHTSFTP wrote:In addition to Asrock, I can vouch for Biostar being awesome for a value board. I build an AMD/Biostar based system for my sister, and others I know have built biostar systems with no problems.

seconded, i havent seen any biostar boards myself, but i hang around an overclocking focused forum, and from what i read there, Biostar makes a mean mobo

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 12:31 pm

You can try Gigabyte as well. They are NOT for noobs in terms of computer building, but once you get one set up correctly -- that is, if you get it set up correctly -- then you've got a rock solid, powerful and cheap base rig.

Again, they are an absolute bitch to set up, but they are pretty decent boards.

Post by **melancholy** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 12:43 pm

SadisticSaviorX wrote:I would reccomend Asus or MSI.

I ran on an MSI board for a year or two. It held up pretty well.

The only bad experiences I ever had with motherboards is when I had a Soyo board. That thing was horrible.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 12:49 pm

Another brand you'll see a lot at the low end is "PC Chips". This is actually the same company as ECS (ECS is technically their manufacturing division in China).

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 2:11 pm

Nick wrote:You can try Gigabyte as well. They are NOT for noobs in terms of computer building, but once you get one set up correctly -- that is, if you get it set up correctly -- then you've got a rock solid, powerful and cheap base rig.

Again, they are an absolute bitch to set up, but they are pretty decent boards.

why would you say that? ive built a gigabyte K8NS based machine for my lil brother a while ago, the only trouble i had was that the PSU was a DOA...

gigabyte is about as mainstream as it gets for mobo's if you got trouble settings one of those things up, NOFI, but your a bit of a newb

Post by **|darc|** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 2:34 pm

melancholy wrote:
SadisticSaviorX wrote:I would reccomend Asus or MSI.
I ran on an MSI board for a year or two. It held up pretty well.

The only bad experiences I ever had with motherboards is when I had a Soyo board. That thing was horrible.

I've heard a lot of people complain about Soyo boards, but I never had a problem with mine, except the BIOS never let you manually select AGP 2x/4x instead of 8x. My Linux system had a problem with AGP running at 8x, so I wanted to step it down to 4x. So instead I had to physically cut the pin on the graphics card that signalled 8x support to the motherboard.

I've built a new computer since then and I love my DFI motherboard. They're more expensive though.

Post by **melancholy** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 3:01 pm

Darcus Magnus wrote:
melancholy wrote:
SadisticSaviorX wrote:I would reccomend Asus or MSI.
I ran on an MSI board for a year or two. It held up pretty well.

The only bad experiences I ever had with motherboards is when I had a Soyo board. That thing was horrible.
I've heard a lot of people complain about Soyo boards, but I never had a problem with mine, except the BIOS never let you manually select AGP 2x/4x instead of 8x. My Linux system had a problem with AGP running at 8x, so I wanted to step it down to 4x. So instead I had to physically cut the pin on the graphics card that signalled 8x support to the motherboard.

I've built a new computer since then and I love my DFI motherboard. They're more expensive though.

Mine would randomly decide not to boot. I'd press the power switch, it would light up and begin to post, but then turn right back off. Whenever it would do this, I would have to open the case, remove a stick of RAM, put it right back into the slot, then turn the computer on again and it would work fine. It didn't matter what stick of RAM and it didn't matter what slot it was in. I just had to remove it, then stick it right back in. Strangest thing I ever seen.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 3:11 pm

Disheveled DrFreeze wrote:
Nick wrote:You can try Gigabyte as well. They are NOT for noobs in terms of computer building, but once you get one set up correctly -- that is, if you get it set up correctly -- then you've got a rock solid, powerful and cheap base rig.

Again, they are an absolute bitch to set up, but they are pretty decent boards.
why would you say that? ive built a gigabyte K8NS based machine for my lil brother a while ago, the only trouble i had was that the PSU was a DOA...

gigabyte is about as mainstream as it gets for mobo's if you got trouble settings one of those things up, NOFI, but your a bit of a newb

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128301

Basically, the board comes out of the box with a function called "IDE-SATA RAID" already enabled. The system will crash or reboot itself repeatedly if this isn't off, and there's no mention in the manual of it being on.

Secondly, you have to install the RAID functions from a floppy disc (if it's a clean boot, otherwise you have to jump through XP hoops), and that doesn't always work either. Buggy crap.

I eventually figured it out (with the help of NewEgg reviews...-_-), but the documentation is quite poor, and it really wasn't any "noob-ness" on my part.

It's a rock solid board now, you just gotta know what Gigabyte (and other board makers) have set in the BIOS.

Oh, and my PS/2 based devices won't work in the back either for some reason. And yes, I checked the BIOS.