Not quite an answer but I've heard these boards can be really flaky.
This is part of the reason why Fry's was pushing them so much about a
year ago. The case was apparently, you either got a good solid one or
you got one of the "bad" ones. I've been fortunate to get several of the
good solid ones myself, but I thought I'd pass the knowledge on.

K7S5A w/ Duron 1300, AthlonXP 1800+, AthlonXP 2000+

-Bryce

On Mon, 2003-11-08 at 00:27 -0700, Victor Odhner wrote:
> My motherboard is messed up, and it's time for me to replace it.
> I don't want to do this again soon, so I'm looking for opinions
> that may lead me to a *reliable* system.
> 
> What I have now:
>   ECS EliteGroup "K7S5A Pro" ATX, SiS735 chipset -- BAD.
>   512 GByte DDR RAM -- Apparently OK.
>   AMD Athlon XP 1800+ CPU, 1.53 GHz -- Apparently OK.
>      Fitted with a big ol' Volcano fan.
> 
> What I want from this machine:  It is is running Win98,
> dual booted with Red Hat 8.  I want to replace RH8 with
> a new distro for mostly desktop use, rather than caving
> in and buying XP Home.  Win98 is almost past toleration,
> since it's weak on USB and doesn't seem to properly
> support really big disk partitions.  I think the Linux
> desktop is almost "down" to my level in terms of
> friendliness to a non-sysadmin techie.
> 
> The old MOBO won't recognize my new thumb drive (yes, I
> did install the driver); won't tolerate *any* CD device;
> has a new problem with losing CMOS settings, and the
> trend says I might be off the air tomorrow.
> 
> I *think* I just want to replace the board, with something
> that I can stay with for as long as possible.
> 
> I also want to avoid spending more than about $100.
> 
> I've been offered two deals:
>    ASUS X Series, $89.  The folks at Computer Renaissance say
>       they have found this board quite solid.
>    Gigabyte Technology - $75, at PC Club.
> 
> Any input will be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Vic
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