ECS motherboards

[Dave N.]

Well I got a deal on an Intel E6550 core 2 duo with an ECS motherboard from FRYS and used the core 2 duo on another PC build.

Now I'm left with this ECS motherboard (945GCT-M) and was wondering if any one likes or dislike this brand? I have an old ECS K7S5A thats still going after 6 years. not too bad... I prefer the ASUS brand mostly but wouldn't mind hearing what other brand motherboards you guys like.

I may use this with a Intel Pentium E2180 Allendale processor for a cheap build.

Lets hear it from the PC builders, I know you’re out there.

I have sorta swapped building amps at the moment for PC building. The one thing I wouldn't mind learning is overclocking just for the heck of it.

Dave

[slacker190]

ECS aren't necessarily a bad brand, but most computer enthusiasts will say it is. It's a budget brand, often with less features and less options in the BIOS, such as overclocking. If you want a cheap board to experiment overclocking, look into the ABIT IP35 or IP-35E. They can be picked up for $50-75 with rebates. I have personally used many of those boards, and you can get great overclocking results. In reference to you E2180, I've had several of them running stable on the ABIT boads at 3.4Ghz, using aftermarket heatsinks.

Other good manufacturers are ASUS, ABIT, Gigabyte. Intel boards are well known for stability, but not overclocking.

As for overclocking, youll want some slightly high preformance memory that can handle higher speeds, such as DDR2-800, PC6400. 90% of the time I use the Crucial Ballistix 2x1GB set on Newegg thats on sale for $30 or so.

[Dave N.]

Hey Slacker,
Thanks for the info. I wanted to ask about the caps on the newer boards. I read a story that a capacitor manufacturer had their plans stolen from them and the culprets used copied the formula down wrong, then sold it to another manufacturer and these bad made caps wound up on lots of motherboard brands.

These caps would blow up after a year or so. have you seen this problem before? If so is this why manufactureres have went over to the newer conductive polymer caps.

Dave

[slacker190]

I can't say I've heard that rumor before. The new "solid capacitors" as marketed by many brands are supposedly more stable, and have a slightly longer lifespan. I cant say much about the stability, because I've never seen a cap of either type fail.

Just be sure to look around at reviews of different boards before buying.

[Brad1]

http://www.badcaps.net/

In there, you'll find the story, and if you dig down through the forums, you'll find a list of known bad brands, problem MBs, etc. These things were on a LOT of stuff from about ~1998-2002, and apparently, they say they still find some.

I just got laid off from a company that got bought by their competitor that provided server-residing hotel entertainment. They had main rack servers, multiple clients in each rack, satellite-catchers, front-desk computers, and other auxiliary computers. We owned the equipment, and repaired all of it.

Seemed like everytime we opened up something, we'd find bad caps. Not all the instances were caused by counterfeit caps, though.

We had MSI front-desk computers that got automatic full electrolytic cap replacement. These were a bad brand. I think "Teapo", or "G-Luxon" or "Lelon". Their eventual replacements' boards were no problem...until the Sparkle power supplies with the Teapo caps started blowing. We'd get back 20 a week sometimes. It never stopped. What does our QA guy do? Tells the distributor to warranty them with new supplies...and they send us the exact same supplies! (I refused to use them. I used the used client supplies, (down the list) instead. They tested good, and no more problems).

IBM X306 server boards had a "consistently-inconsistent" cap problem. We never did track the exact cause on that one down, and started using a later model anyway.

One of our older specialty $16K servers kept coming in with caps blown, people were just trashing the expensive boards...or even the entire server...before I started working on them. "No display...strip the good parts, send it off". On THOSE, I noticed that any that came back with blown caps, also had their cheapo Chinese-made CPU fan not working. Not the caps' fault. New cap job, new CPU fan...no problem. A few dollars in parts, 45 minutes labor above the normal (these things had 12 caps...in small holes...had to be careful), we just saved 98% of the $16K units that were destined for non-use. HUNDREDS of them.

Reworked thousands of $800 Shuttle brand clients with bad caps. Bad brand from the list, again.

So, what's the point of all this? Not all bad caps were caused by counterfeits, but a lot were. I got a lot of ribbing from people.

Me: "Well, here's what I found".

QA: "Is it bad caps, again, CapBoy?...HA-HA-haha".

Me: "As a matter of fact...yes!"

Before jumping to conclusions if you get bad caps, check out other things...(especially if the caps are not on "the List")...like AC power integrity, power supply integrity (brand/wattage/fans/etc), case and component cooling, etc.

All bad caps are bad, but not all bad caps are "Badcaps".

Brad1

[Steve A.]

You will find tall stacks of ECS mobo's at the Fry's stores- I just assumed that it was their own house brand, but they could just do a lot of business with each other...

Definitely not a premium brand (like Asus) but most of the boards I've bought seem to hold up well. You may have compatibility problems due to the supporting chips on the boards, but they eventually figure out something else which works better.

Fry's is always running special deals on CPU/mobo combinations, where you can save a bundle. I think they do that to get rid of their older CPU's to free up cash to buy the newer ones. The low end deals *always* include an ECS mobo, while they may also have a pricier deal with a brand name mobo.

I did have a problem once with a CPU/ECS mobo combo- I didn't put the computer together right away so the warranty on the CPU expired after 15 days! But the mobo was covered for a full year and they gave me a new one which fortuneately solved the problem.

I guess you can order similar deals through their website but if you need to return something it is so much easier if you can just drive to their store.

I've had more problems buying memory from them over the years. The first time I did business with them I drove down to their store- 40 miles each way! I bought RAM from them at about a third of the price I'd pay locally, but my computer would only recognize half of the capacity! 40 miles to bring it back and it tested out fine in their machine on the customer service area- some compatibility issue so I had to spend more to buy a pricier brand. They eventually opened up a store in my hometown so it's only a 5 minute drive but I've had new mobo's not boot up because the RAM wasn't compatible so I'd bring it back.

But the ECS mobo's are usually pretty dependable and dirt cheap if you need to replace them (I've damaged a few myself, pushing too hard when inserting chips or plugs. )

Steve Ahola

[Dave N.]

Update,
I installed the ECS board in an old PC case, added the Pentium dual core
E2180 and put in a new 480 watt PS . Added 2 gig ram PC5400 at 667mgz. New WD sata 160 gig hard drive. A Visiontek 2400pro graphics card. Loaded XP and Drum roll................


New system runs fine. Gave it to my daughter for her to use for homework and such.

not a bad build. Pretty fast and if it keeps working it was a cheap build for around $270.00 but using old PC mid tower case and two optical drives.

I think if I had to buy ECS on a budget maybe I would but if I had the cash asus or gigabyte would be better.

These new mother boards have between 5.1 to 7.1 surround sound and the new graphics cards support hi def with HDMI out so the next build will be the home theater PC.

But I'll give that maybe a year to see what changes happen on the HTPC market.

Now to get back to ripping my albums too.


Cheers...

[Neal]

Okay, guys, what's the trick to replacing caps on the motherboard?
We had a pc go down at my workplace. Got quoted 300 bucks for a new motherboard, or else buy a whole new pc. I peeked inside, and could visually see 3 blown caps. I talked to the boss, and took the pc home one night. I got the 3 caps replaced, and the thing works fine now, but what a PITA! I couldn't get the solder to melt, solder braid didn't want to suck it up, and it took some serious pressure to pop those cap leads out of the motherboard. I ended up drilling out the holes with a tiny drill bit so I could insert the new caps.
Note... this is an old pc, probably very early 90's, so I didn't think it'd have the new solder used, but I might be wrong.
Is there a secret to this cap replacement thing?

[dai h.]

in an older thread I discovered that using a flat blade screwdriver tip for your soldering iron (that is wide enough to touch both leads of the cap you are desoldering) will make this REALLY easy (touch both leads at the same time when pulling out the cap). (I think the problem with *trying* to do one lead at a a time is that the heat gets heatsinked via the body of the cap which is liquid plus aluminum foil rolled up plus the power and ground plane. So basically all the metal keeps the temperature from getting to melting point. Also, if there is residual flux in the hole that wasn't supposed to help either.)

[Steve Conner]

Enzo probably knows more tricks for desoldering components than me. But I have to say, BE VERY CAREFUL drilling out holes on these boards! Modern motherboards can have 6 layers or more of tracking: top, bottom, and several more embedded inside like a club sandwich.

If you drill out the hole bigger than it was, you'll remove the through plating in the hole, breaking any connection it might have to those inner layers. There is no easy way I know of to repair that. So basically your motherboard is now a nice tea tray. The previous poster probably just got lucky!

[dai h.]

when I was websearching for info on how to desolder the caps, I did encounter some people who were apparently using a pin vise (this vise thing with a handle in which you can hold a drill bit, for those that don't know) to drill out the solder, but as Steve mentioned (with the existence of the connections) I was afraid of damaging the through hole, so I thought about it but didn't. Also, I get a email newsletter from this Japanese guy who is a soldering pro/expert and the way I did was the way he suggested trying in one of his newsletters. He also suggested cutting solder wick into a sharp point for when removing the solder from the hole.

[Neal]

Thanks for the tips, guys! I agree, I got lucky.... however, the motherboard was destined for the trash can anyway, so I figured I didn't have anything to lose.
As far as drilling out the holes, I did it by hand, and actually used a push-pin. It seemed the same diameter as the holes, so I ground a bevel on the end and twisted it by hand. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.
Thanks, guys!
Neal

[Zephyr]

Hi,

I've done a few cap jobs on motherboards since the badcaps epidemic.
Here's what works pretty well for me. Found most of it on a website...
I use a Weller WTCP with a fine conical tip - 800F. To remove the cap,
one lead is heated(from the bottom side) while putting a slight tilting
pressure on the cap (top side) to allow the heated lead to pull up out
of the hole.
Then the process is repeated for the other lead.
Have to be careful just to apply heat just until the solder melts enough
to allow the heated lead to move.
To clean out the hole on the board the website recommended heating
the solder and inserting a fine dental pick then removing after the solder
cools. The solder won't stick the steel dental pick.
I found another method to clean out the holes. Raided my wife's sewing
kit for some steel straight pins. Hold them with needle nosed pliers while
heating the solder just barely to the melting point. Then, just as the solder
melts the pins will slide in. After the solder cools, the pins can easily be
rotated to pull them out.
The straight pins are pretty much the same size as the cap leads so the
holes are full of solder and it takes very little solder to install the new caps
The key is to work quick and to heat the solder just until it melts.


Hope this helps...

[miketyson]

Hi,
You are absolutely right, Asus motherboard is one of the best.It gives very good performance in speed and graphics too. And intel original (not chip set) is also too good.