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ecs k7s5a pro help

J

jclu

n00b
Joined
Mar 8, 2005
Messages
5
Hi, I'm a noobie to overclocking, having not been able to do so in the past due to a mobo that didn't support it. Now I have a ecs k7s5a pro mobo, and I am certain I can overclock it (at least a little bit), but am not sure how. I've done some googling, and it seems that most recommendations are to install a non-stock bios, but the procedure I believe is akin to flashing my bios, and I'd really rather avoid that.

I have an AMD Thunderbird 900MHz, that according to my mobo settings, runs at multiplier 9x, cpu speed 100MHz, and DRAM speed 100MHz. I rifled through the manual, and there seems to be no jumper settings that affect cpu speed (or even bus speed), but there are bios settings for changing the above vals. When I booted into the bios settings, the only val that I could change was a val labelled "CPU 100/100 MHz", which basically stood for cpu speed/dram speed. The possible changes were only incremental and were 100/100, 100/133, 133/133, 166/133. At first I tried the 100/133 setting, and my computer booted normally. I then tried the 133/133 setting, and it didn't seem to boot.

Well, it booted, but nothing showed on my screen (the power led just flashed), and as for my computer, after a noise that sounded akin to the scan of the floppy drive upon startup (for a boot disk), nothing. The fan still ran, but there seemed to be no disk activity, Crtl+Alt+Del didn't work, and I had to shut off the power switch (my case doesn't have a reset button).

Incidentally, my mobo manual mentions "If you manually set the wrong speed and the system won't run properly, press the Page Up key while the system is booting and a default setting will replace the incorrect CPU setting." After shutting of the power, and turning it back on, I kept pressing the Page Up key, but there seemed to be no effect (I think it's because my computer didn't even boot, let alone not run properly). Fortunately one of the jumper settings is to clear the CMOS, which is what I then did, and then reloaded the stock values in the bios setup.

After some consideration, I decided to changed the cpu val to 100/133, so I am still running at ~ 900MHz, but my DRAM speed is 133MHz.

If it makes a difference, I have two 133 SDRAM modules. Also, I only have the stock heatsink, so I am wondering whether perhaps my setting the cpu val to 133/133, I am attempting to run the cpu at a speed that's too fast for the heatsink. In a case like this, would the computer just basically not boot up?

Thanks for any help.
 
I have had a few of those boards and basicly your not going to be doing any OCing until you flash the bios. Just follow the instructions to the letter and everything will be okay. It gives you a bunch of options between 100-166mhz for fsb although i never got 166fsb to run on any of the k7s5a boards i had. If you really don't want to flash your bios you could do the wire pin mod on your cpu and change its voltage/multiplier. Thats alot more dangerous than a bios flash though. Obviously if your trying to oc with that mb and cpu you don't have alot of money to upgrade anything, so your only option is really to install that bios, good luck.
 
in all honesty...get a new mobo

As the l33t n00bs would say:

"ECS is teh sux0r!!!1!"
 
Even if you flash the bios to Honey-X's version (which I have some experience with), you wont be doing much OCing. You should go on and invest in a cheap NF2 Ultra 400 motherboard, which will allow you to OC the chip.

Trust me, the ECS K7S5A Pro is junk. I tried upgrading to DDR in that board when I had it a couple years ago, and it wouldnt even boot unless I used SDRAM. It's a great board at first, but when it ages, it ages [H]ard.
 
Some people in this forum are so pigheaded. Dude is trying to make due with what hes got and their is obviously some headroom in his CPU and motherboard. The ECS K7S5A was the first motherboard that had ddr support with significantly better than SDRAM performance. It was also the first single chip solution for socket A i believe, which greatly helps reduce latency which us AMD ocers should be particularly familiar with. All my k7s5as were good for 150mhz FSB if the cpu could handle it without any extra voltage. Some of the bioses available slightly overvolt so look for one of them.

I had 2 512's of geil blue shield ddr3200 in mine and then in a freinds k7s5a and it worked good in both.
 
PS...the "Milt" mentioned in the quote above...he's in Ontario too...

7718...I'm 80 miles south of you...in the armpit known as Pullman...
 
I drive by pullman every couple of weeks going to either my parents (walla walla) or my inlaws (graingeville/lewiston). Eastern WA in da house.

Maybe someday we should get the pacific northwest [H] gamers together for a LAN?
 
The ECS K7S5A Pro board is different than the non-Pro boards. The non-Pro boards have more flexibility with OC's than Pro boards.

Dude, flash the BIOS with one the Honey-X BIOSes, they are more stable than the default one ECS gives you.

(Trust me... I have one myself)
 
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