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Cheese ECS motherboard

I recently picked up an ECS A939 motherboard for the Athlon 64 FX which had failed for the previous owner. The failure was caused when the heat sink unit for the Northbridge chipset fell off, thereby allowing the chipset to fry.

I looked at the heat sink and it was glued to the chipset with double sided sticky tape. On closer examination I saw that there were spring arms that should have been attached to the MB via two loops soldered on the MB. The problem was that when the MB was manufactured one of the loops wasn't installed even though there were two holes and solder pads for the loop.

I guess that someone at ECS saw the problem and came up with the idea of glueing the heat sink which failed in short order.

Until recently Fry's sold a variety of ECS MBs but they seem to have switched over to Biostar (VIA).

Reply to
root
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root Inscribed thus:

Double sided adhesive tape is a standard method of securing heatsinks on chipsets ! Its cheaper than springs and loops ! In all probability the heatsink fell off because it wasn't pressed down firmly when assembled.

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Best Reagrds:
                        Baron.
Reply to
Baron

Not phase change thermal tape?

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Adrian C
Reply to
Adrian C

Silver loaded epoxy is infinitely better. DS tape is a JOKE.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

I agree ! But that is how it came from the factory.

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

He is talking about the chipset heatsink not the CPU one.

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:55:31 +0100, Baron put finger to keyboard and composed:

I've used thermal tapes such as the following. They are impregnated with metal foil, are very thin, and bond *very* strongly. However they are very expensive.

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(KOOL-PADS KA150-2AC)
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The Kool-Pads brochure talks about "HI-FLOW 105 'phase change' polymer coated aluminium designed to replace grease as a thermal interface". It has an adhesive coating. There is also "HI-FLOW 625 film reinforced 'phase change' material" with an adhesive coating.

- Franc Zabkar

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Reply to
Franc Zabkar

The Kool-Pads stuff is nice ! I didn't know about the coated foil stuff though. The film reinforced material is stuff I've used quite a bit. Very easy to cut with scissors to suit any particular shape. Also very good at high voltages (400-500) on SMPU.

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

You couldn't give me an ECS mobo. I've used them and had prolems right out of the box. Best board out there is Super Micro or MSI.

Reply to
Meat Plow

They are a bit naff ! But I've seen worse. Dare I say "PChips" !

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:27:19 +0100, Baron put finger to keyboard and composed:

PCChips and ECS merged in 2005. I believe the pair are now the number

1 or number 2 motherboard manufacturer.

You can find ECS and PCChips boards in OEM equipment such as IBM, Compaq, HP.

I'm using an 11 year old PCChips M571 socket 7 board for my Internet box and an ECS L7S7A2 Athlon XP 2500 box for multimedia.

My experience with PCChips and ECS has been mixed. ECS were the only company to offer me a motherboard circuit diagram (back in the 386 days), which from a support point of view was good. However, PCChips was involved in the fake cache RAM scam which was very bad. But my latest boards have been very reliable, as has my brother's Duron 850 MHz PCChips board.

- Franc Zabkar

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Reply to
Franc Zabkar

I didn't know that they had merged.

Its odd that you mention the M571 board because that was one of the worst boards I came across ! I returned a whole case of them because of corroded traces on the underside. I'm talking brand new boxed kit.

The suppliers eventually admitted that there had been "Quality Control Issues" during manufacture.

Based on the corrosion I would have said that the boards were either packaged wet or some etchant was still present when they were packed.

I agree ECS really bent over backwards to please. The trinkets that turned up in the packaging were nice as well ! I'm glad that your experience has been better than mine was.

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

Well I'm glad they finally got their collective shit together. I still prefer Super Micro and MSI. I've had 3 Intel made boards fail with bad caps but also 1 Super Micro custom made for a Mackie DXB. The board was 3 years old and was replaced free of charge. I like a company who stands behind their product like that.

Reply to
Meat Plow

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