ECS K7SOM v7.5c

[yanz]

Only one badcap, although it's only a slightly bulging that my camera cant catch. Odd place for badcaps though. I've seen another version of k7som with OST caps on the vrm input and one is bulging and leaking .



This one come with Fortron FSP300-BT packed with three Jamicon TM 4700uF and one Teapo SEK 3300uF on the secondary side. They are all fine.

ECS marketed it as ECS K7SOM with onboard AMD Pro 1500+. That's a misleading advertising that i fought in some Indonesian Forum. How come a Duron 850Mhz be rated as 1500+ ?

There are also some ECS mobo with PRO (Processor Onboard) 3000+, 2600+, 2000+... you may guess what are the actual speed of those AMD proc, probably half of the rating. This way of fake rating is very succesfull and ECS become no 1 selling brand in Indonesia.

They who aware on this is not even 1% of the population and computer magazine is just silent or only made not so deep article about it.

[yanz]

The mobo is not showing any instability whatsoever. So i recap it as a prevention for future problem free. When recap your motherboard, always check the healthy of caps in your PSU. Minimize any potential problem as much as possible.

My tools:



Probably from all known member on this forums, i'm the one with the least tools here . Look at my soldering iron, it's a 2-year-old-still-good-cheap-$8 Goot (taiyo) 30W soldering iron, definitely a good quality stuff. The tip is another $3 japan made.

Digital Multimeter to check the vcore and psu rails voltage after recaping:

[yanz]

Here we go..

After recaping:





Ugly dust. Of course i dont forget to clean it after recapping done.

Notice that i add some heatsink to the hot spots. Applying the heatsink in the process:




Testing:



Memtest no problem:



I take the picture and post this thread in hurry, so the list of original caps and their replacment would be in my next post (probably tomorrow).

[Fatal0E]

I sold a ton of those boards, the cpu fan usually died before the caps.

I dont know how they get away with selling the cpu as a 1500+. There was also a duron 1000 that was sold as a 2000+. Now we sell one that has an Athlon XP Mobile 2800+ barton on it and its sold as such. There is also one available that says its a 3100+ but it is in fact a sempron 2600+.

[Rainbow]

I had one of these boards - but standard Socket A version, no CPU integrated. There were OST caps but they were all fine.

[MD Willington]

IIRC

M810D = K7SOM+
"C" denotes cpu onboard
"A" denotes socketed

[Rainbow]

I've read somewhere that there is even a version with some RAM onboard.

[thomasb0110]

The version with the on board ram is the ECS K7SEM v.3.0M. It has support for 256 integrated sdram, and one dimm socket for sdram. I have one of these boards that will not post, acts like the bios is bad.

[hkivan]

Originally Posted by yanz

ECS marketed it as ECS K7SOM with onboard AMD Pro 1500+. That's a misleading advertising that i fought in some Indonesian Forum. How come a Duron 850Mhz be rated as 1500+ ?

There are also some ECS mobo with PRO (Processor Onboard) 3000+, 2600+, 2000+... you may guess what are the actual speed of those AMD proc, probably half of the rating. This way of fake rating is very succesfull and ECS become no 1 selling brand in Indonesia.

They who aware on this is not even 1% of the population and computer magazine is just silent or only made not so deep article about it.

Their boards also appear in hong kong martket. Many novices brought them because of low prices. Actually, they didn't save a lot when they brought the boards & CPUs separately. With the quality of K7SOM and the like, it isn't worth the money, letting alone the fake rating.

When their low end boards can't compete with others and there are no rooms
to lower their prices. They just sell them wth the so-called pro processors,fake-rated CPUs.The fake rating is certainly a breach to certain laws but it seems ppls and the media doesn't care much about it. Tell your friends,tell the public, they are not upto their specifications.

[MD Willington]

I've read somewhere that there is even a version with some RAM onboard.

The version with the on board ram is the ECS K7SEM v.3.0M. It has support for 256 integrated sdram, and one dimm socket for sdram. I have one of these boards that will not post, acts like the bios is bad.

Yep seen those too

[MD Willington]

Originally Posted by hkivan

Their boards also appear in hong kong martket. Many novices brought them because of low prices. Actually, they didn't save a lot when they brought the boards & CPUs separately. With the quality of K7SOM and the like, it isn't worth the money, letting alone the fake rating.

When their low end boards can't compete with others and there are no rooms
to lower their prices. They just sell them wth the so-called pro processors,fake-rated CPUs.The fake rating is certainly a breach to certain laws but it seems ppls and the media doesn't care much about it. Tell your friends,tell the public, they are not upto their specifications.

There are endless posts on the AMD forums regarding these things....

[Shroomie]

There's a PCChips version of most all of these.

This link includes a chart of the older boards with onboard socket As. I had a Duron 950 Spitfire (marked as a Pro1400+, ECS K7SEM v3.0C) and there's a PCChips M825 v7.2c with an onboard Athlon XP-M Tbred-A 1700+ in my lap as I type this. Both of them are dead, the PCChips I have no idea how, the ECS was partly my fault.

It is really sad though. These are capable CPUs, and if they had better than ARX Cera Dyna, thin, sleeve bearing fans over their heatsinks, and were on a socketed mobo, they'd be a lot better off. Just another sad case of a tech company capitalizing on ignorance - and saving <$0.25 a board in the process.

*Note: I haven't had much experience with ARX fans, the few I've had have been pretty cheap but have still worked.

[yanz]

glad to see people also recognize this mobo...

he version with the on board ram is the ECS K7SEM v.3.0M. It has support for 256 integrated sdram, and one dimm socket for sdram. I have one of these boards that will not post, acts like the bios is bad.

i've seen those too.

@ hkivan,
the board was so cheap, it was $60 - $65 no wonder people buy it. it run multimedia fine, also at least AOE 2 can play with it fine.

@ Shroomie,
i think they are not Spitfire based. i have strong suspicion that they are morgan with reduced multiplier, proved by SSE capability. i have heard that ecs group have buy some mediocre cpus from amd, underclock it so they could run stable, and sold them by integrating it in the mobos. btw thanks for the link.



the fan is so little and so loud, i hate it. i'll replace it with adda fan of the same diameter. with active cooling software such as cpuidle or cpuz it can even be more cool. hell, it can even do fanless...

There are endless posts on the AMD forums regarding these things....

that would be interesting to read.. *seeking

[yanz]

click image for large version:



Caps information:



That panasonic FC is rare item to me i can finally stock them. It's not easy to find >2200uF caps >10v in 10mm diameter. Price is about $0,4 per piece. They are in black like FJ and FM.

[tazwegion]

Nice bit of repair work there yanz... the ECS/PC Chips group have a lot to answer for, that fake rating system is a deceptive as the fake cache chip fiasco!

[MD Willington]

If you register you can check it out:

http://forums.amd.com/index.php?act=...=Pro3100%5C%2B



TAZ ??

Same one from AMD forum...

If so.. Hey there!

[tazwegion]

G'day M.D., yes it is I... bit of a melting pot this forum, I've even noted posts from OverclockersClub members

Thanks for that link, most imformative... I really can't understand the logic for further eroding their reputation in exchange for some fast bucks! a hacked BIOS to assist in misrepresentation of CPU id's?

I don't see how resellers of this 'junk' sleep well @ night? they obviously don't wish to stay in business too long!

[gonzo0815]

To be honnest, those boards are sufficiuent for about 90% of people. Most of them are doing only some office work, and to write a letter you don`t need a 100w wasting cpu.
Even some multimedia iwll work sufficient on those systems.
And to tink you gett an high end cpu + board for 60 bucks to play the newest 3d action game isn`t realistic either. So all in all, the buyers do know that this can`t be true - at least in my opinion.
And there are many people who can`t afford anything better. The market for those produkts are therefore not EU and USA.

[MD Willington]

They still have the combos at newegg here in the USA, though they use XP-M's and actually call them XP-M's not some weird name... They are actually a pretty good place to pick up a mobile socket A processor, then sell the mainboard and get some money back!

To be honnest, those boards are sufficiuent for about 90% of people.

Yes they are, I considered getting one for my parents, they are still using W98 and a K6-II-400 machine.

[gonzo0815]

Are those real Xp M's? And soketete not soldere? How mutch dos such a combo cost?
here in Germany all XP_M's are in most cases far more expensive then some faster 754 64biz semperons. As i have laying some socket a boards around i could certainly need some xp`s.