ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

[Rainbow]

This is ECS K7VZA/PC Chips M807 board version 1.0 (light PCB, non-A KT133). v3.0 has dark PCB and KT133A, although there are exceptions - dark boards with non-A KT133 north bridges marked as PCB 1.0.
The bad caps are G-Luxons - this type fails on many ECS/PC Chips boards. No MOSFET damage. The board is now recapped and works fine (no photos yet).

[MD Willington]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

Looks good!

Rainbow, do you post at the PCChips Lottery too?

[Rainbow]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

I did some time ago.

[Rainbow]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

Looks better now

[Rainbow]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

And complete scan of the board, featuring moved M807 sticker

[Chris1992]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

I see an empty spot for a 3rd SDRAM socket, wonder if that can just be soldered in?

[Rainbow]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

Maybe. I've tried google search for pictures of K7VZA and all of them have 3 slots. Then searched for PC Chips M807 and they all have 2 slots. So maybe they saved one slot to reduce the price.

[MD Willington]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

PCChips always goes the cheapest route, look at my PCChips M848, it's the super-cheap version of the ECS-748A

[gonzo0815]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

I have 2 of them from ECS. But they aren`t very stable at all. On of them are used as an office PC, all in all it will run stable enough. The other one is out of service due to uncertain instabilities. I alway thought this is due to the famouse 686B bug, but bios fix and latest 4in1 drivers had alway ben used. So far, may be i will recap on of them too. I always blamed that damned chip for alt that....but may be i should damm ECS for losey caps :-)

[Rainbow]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

You can test the 686B bug by transferring large amount of data from one IDE channel to the other one using UDMA modes - e.g. copy large files from CD-ROM to HDD connected to different channels and then check MD5 sums of the files. If they don't match, you have a problem. Try VIA PCI latency patch instead of 4in1.

[gonzo0815]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

what do you mean with via pci latency patch? afaik this was the first solutin to fix that, but it installs only if sb live card was in the system. as far as i know they integrated that fix into the via 4in1 drivers. And additionaly there are some new bios settings regarding that issue (PCI bussmaster timeout or so)

[Rainbow]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

That was just a shot in the dark. I'm afraid that the 686B fix in 4in1 drivers is broken as there are people with UDMA problems using 4in1 drivers.
Linux kernel contains a fix for the 686B bug - and it really works. I have a board with 686B chipset @work and I've never had any problems with that - burning DVDs, creating images, copying HDDs - and I use Linux only.

[gonzo0815]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

I guess in windows there aren`t THE solution to that bug. But may be i will test it, recaped an k7vza 3.0 for soldering skill testing ;-) . It has ben survied an now there are Rubycon MCZ cap on them. but only have an Duron 700 for testing.

The Caps are getting realy hot, may be due to that bad ECS layout, may be this is the real problem of those ECS k7XX boards. The cooling copper area of the mosfets and the coils are not seperated from the caps. So heat will transfered direcly to the legs of the caps. Even with an Duron 700, considering that those boards are desingt for an Athlon 1400 err

[Rainbow]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

And the VRM is not multi-phase - the 4 MOSFETs are all driven by one signal from TL494 - each MOSFET through its own set of two small transistors. On newer boards like K7S6A, there are only two transitors (but TO92 instead of SMD) that drive all 4 MOSFETs.

[MD Willington]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

Guys, could you check out this post for me regarding the power section of the K7S5A Pro...

http://www.rhcf.com/sisubb/ultimateb...pic/1/215.html

Got a guy looking for a Vcore mod.

Thanks

MD

[gonzo0815]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

Today i replaced the K7VZA from mothers office system. All VRm caps are bulged. Bad thing, i never thought on that. I replaced it with the newly recaped K7vza. but after that i realized that the vcore of that Duron 700 was increase to 1.7v due to Speedfan. I bios HW monitor it shows 1.64. Normaly this Duron should only hav 1.6v vcore. I messured the voltage with an DVM and it showed 1.66v. I duno know why. So i placed an better HSF and let em go. On a ceramic case there isn`t mutch funn in cutting bridges. The vrm circuit is not very cool, but any way, i hope the MCZ caps will last at least as long as the shit Gluxon has done. I noticed that there are no datacoruption anymore. I transferd an 700mb big rar archive to the K7vza machine (winxp, latest servicepack, no additional VIA driver) and md5sumed it. No differences even with ultra tight memsettings, which this board had never done even as it was new. Probably i have to change my mind over VIA a bit. Seems that ECS had blamed more than VIA to any stability Problems with those boards.

If this vrm circuit isn`t thre phase desing, than it is realy a bad thing. Any way, the vcore mod for K7s5a is same as for k7s6a, i ve done both.

[Rainbow]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

I don't mind if the voltage is off by 0.1V - it shouldn't cause any problems.
The 686B bug might be fixed in BIOS too.

[gonzo0815]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

But the Duron are getting very hot, the VRm circuit too. May be this is normal but don`t have dealt with old ceramik CPU`S for some time and the newer ones won`t get very hot, even if i oc them heavy. the ne HSF is an AMD sock cooler for an xp 3200. I expekted more cooling power from them. Anyway with that 80mm fan +80>60mm fan adaptor it now stays very cool at bearable nois.
The BIOS fix was already there before i recaped the board. But ok i think this will be a very stable via box.

[Per Hansson]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

a 0.1v increase is not any problems, it can actually be good, so you do not run on the limit of what the processor needs to function...

But the BIOS does not allow you to change voltages? Now that's really crappy...

[Rainbow]

Re: ECS K7VZA (PC Chips M807)

No, it does not - like most of standard boards. ECS was never overclocking brand.