Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films with high and same order of magnitude photosensitivity (-10^5) but different stability were prepared by using microwave electron cyclotron resonance chemical vapour deposition system under the different deposition conditions. It was proposed that there was no direct correlation between the photosensitivity and the hydrogen content (CH) as well as H-Si bonding configurations, but for the stability, they were the critical factors. The experimental results indicated that higher substrate temperature, hydrogen dilution ratio and lower deposition rate played an important role in improving the microstructure of a-Si:H films. We used hydrogen elimination model to explain our experimental results.