Today ECS announced their “Nonstop Technology” platform for some of their premium motherboards. The Nonstop program involves using certified high quality components (like the super alloy chokes we mentioned a couple of weeks ago) and a new, more rigorous quality testing regime during manufacturing.
Boards from ECS that will adhere to the new standards and receive the Nonstop branding are all current Black Series motherboards, including:
- X79R-AX
- X79R-AX deluxe
- A990FXM-A
- A990FXM-A Deluxe
- A75F-A
- H61H2-A2 Deluxe
- Z77H2-AX
- Z77H2-A2X
- Z77H2-A2X deluxe
Future Black Series Motherboards will also adopt ECS Nonstop Technology, according to the press release.
ECS has been around for ages, and this has to be mentioned: They weren’t always considered a premium brand. Many builders who have been building their own PCs for decades have a long memory of ECS being considered a lower quality ” budget” brand. In the last few years, however, ECS has been releasing some very high-end, premium parts. Those same builders will also remember that motherboard brands rise and fall. DFI was once considered a terrible brand, then it rose to prominence as a premium brand in the LANPARTY days. Likewise, ABIT was considered top-tier at one point and then fell into “don’t you dare buy an Abit board” obscurity. ECS is in many ways like Gigabyte right now: Two formerly low-end brands that are now considered top-tier premium parts.
Initiatives like this are the right moves to get rid of the vestiges of ECS’ tarnished past.
Here’s the press release from ECS:
Every ECS Nonstop certified motherboard must survive the Super Marathon 3X Stability test, a military-level assault course of tests that checks and stresses critical components to ensure that they are up to ECS standards. The Super Marathon Stability Test is aptly named, because each board runs through the testing cycle more than 30,000 times in the course of a strenuous 72-hour workout. This testing regime is devised and guaranteed by more than 30 professional ECS testers.
In addition, every Nonstop certified board must undergo the Sahara Severe Test: a 50°C severe environment test. Running at 125 percent higher than standard high temperature tests, the Sahara Severe Test checks every boards’ ability to keep working flawlessly – even when handling supremely demanding computing tasks under the most extreme environmental conditions.
Only those boards which can pass the Super Marathon Stability test and the 50°C Severe Environment Test while still delivering the flawless, glitch-free high performance that ECS expects are ultimately awarded Nonstop Certification and allowed to reach ECS customers.
As well as standard ECS performance features, ECS Nonstop boards also include 100 percent solid Apache Long-life capacitors, to protect users from capacitor leakage and failure problems. This technology was developed by a team of more than 40 hardware experts.
In some competing products from other manufacturers, capacitors made with older, less reliable technology can leak, swell or even burst, causing hard-to-pin-down stability and performance issues, or even total failure. Apache Long-life Capacitors have a lifetime six times longer than traditional capacitors, putting all these problems firmly in the past.
The final, critical component of ECS Nonstop technology is Thor Ultra Protection comprehensive electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection. The 100 percent ESD protection on Nonstop motherboards is achieved with special circuitry, consisting of dozens of extra components, that protects expensive and delicate chips, like the CPU, DRAM and more, from static build up that can damage or destroy them without warning. Thor Ultra Protection follows the toughest NASA guidelines for preventing ESD Damage.
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