Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 + ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA + ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

[tcsenter]

I cannot burn those files with my Willem EProm programmer.

From my reading, unless you have one of the later PCB revisions of the Willem programmer (e.g. PCB 3.5 and later), it will have trouble writing most (or all) EEPROMs above 1Mbit because it cannot reliably support voltages required by these parts (e.g. 6.0v to 6.3V). The bios chip used in this board is 4Mbit.

 

[papas12]

Hello, everyone,

I know I am VERY late to the party here but I need some help.

I have an Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 motherboard and I want to install a Core 2 Duo E7600 processor and 4 GB DDR2. I know I must update my BIOS (which happens to be 1.70 - the very first version) to at least version 2.20A (the modded version) but quite frankly I don't know how although I went through this topic earlier today.

I have this BIOS version (2.20A) but I read here that I cannot use Asrock's BIOS flash utility since it will not install this version successfully. I also found a link that our friend Hlafordlaes has left here with instructions how to install 2.20A but unfortunately this link does not work anymore. I found AFUWIN 4.40 too but I don't know how to use it, besides I prefer to flash my BIOS in DOS mode. So it seems I am out of options now or maybe I am missing something.

I know that 2.20A can be installed and I am pretty sure it is not that hard but I don't know how and where to start. Any help is deeply appreciated - I really want to see this board running E7600 + 4 GB DDR2.

Thank you very much!

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Hello there,

Link to all my 4Core stuff. Cannot remember much, but I guess one of the flash tools in there ought to do the job (if you are still looking one year later). If not, hang on, because believe it or not....

* I just bought a 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 for my Retro Gaming 2 rig for Win98SE. I have all the other stuff I'd need, including a spiffy 7600 GT AGP.

I should be back in the thread from time to time now. Missed these quirky old mobos.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Pretty sure, there is a switch that lets you override protection/checks. Worth the risk, imo.

 

[B-Riz]

Bump, my ASRock 775Dual-VSTA, Q6600, WinXP setup still works.

 

[WT]

I actually pulled my retro rig off of the shelf last night to take some pics to show off the old Asrock rig. Its quite a rare bird with the AM2 riser card (Asrock 939Dual-SATA2) housing an AM2 5000+ Black Edition and a 7950gx2 video card. Also have one of the Ultra X-Connect 500w PSUs tossed in there that were free after MIRs back in the day. UV reactive cabling, fully modular, and with a few cold cathose tubes tossed in, it was offering up some pre-RGB bling before it was required in every build like we see these days.

Asrock 939 board with AM2 riser card

Nv 7950gx2 video card

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I actually pulled my retro rig off of the shelf last night to take some pics to show off the old Asrock rig. Its quite a rare bird with the AM2 riser card (Asrock 939Dual-SATA2) housing an AM2 5000+ Black Edition and a 7950gx2 video card. Also have one of the Ultra X-Connect 500w PSUs tossed in there that were free after MIRs back in the day. UV reactive cabling, fully modular, and with a few cold cathose tubes tossed in, it was offering up some pre-RGB bling before it was required in every build like we see these days.

Have one of those too. Never did get the riser card though. At the time, there weren't any practical way to get it here in Denmark. There were a few shops willing to take it home on special order, but it'd have been too expensive compared to a new AM2 mainboard. Same for importing it myself.

Ended up settling for a nice new AM2 mainboard instead.

Really miss those quirky off-the-wall mainboards.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I recently used DUET to boot Win10 from a PCIex4 card on an Intel 965 chipset LGA775 motherboard with a legacy BIOS and no EFI. It gets close to the rated 2 GB/s one would expect for PCI 2.0. Woot! Very nice for a motherboard whose SATA tops out at level II, and IDE at 130MB/s. Then, greedly, I did the same on a G41 board that only had a spare PCIex1 slot. Still, close to 400 GB/s on that board, with a G41 chipset, resulted. Better than anything else it has, and certainly better than the IDE to CF adapter on my 4CoreDualSATA-SATA2, another experiment. (Boots MS-DOS 8.0 fine, Win98SE install pending).

The 4Core is already slated to use 2x IDE to 128GB SD adapters on the other IDE cable, and I thought I was done. Now, I may just pop in the X800XT AGP instead of the current Gainward 7950 PCIe, though, and see if I can't squeeze some crazy NVMe speeds out of one boot OS or another (98SE, XP, 7) using a PCIe4x adapter in the video card slot. (Another recent nicety on the 4Core is a floppy emulator that works like a charm.)

As you can see, I am trying to get all my legacy systems to transition to hybrid parts that I can still maintain well into the future.

If you want to go really retro, you get the HPIB to 2GB SD adapter that is coming in the mail for my trusty HP150 Touchscreen PC (DOS 3.0!), plus new caps for the damaged Tualatin PIII mobo that should house the HBIB to ISA card for directly attaching HP 150 drives to a PC.

**
Why so nuts? Just retired, and the mothballs are flying out of the closets. Yippee. There's also a fairly pristine 4CoreDual-VSTA waiting for attention, which I just had to source, as that was my all-time run-away favorite, quirkly little board for many a year, as attested in this thread.

 

[B-Riz]

I recently used DUET to boot Win10 from a PCIex4 card on an Intel 965 chipset LGA775 motherboard with a legacy BIOS and no EFI. It gets close to the rated 2 GB/s one would expect for PCI 2.0. Woot! Very nice for a motherboard whose SATA tops out at level II, and IDE at 130MB/s. Then, greedly, I did the same on a G41 board that only had a spare PCIex1 slot. Still, close to 400 GB/s on that board, with a G41 chipset, resulted. Better than anything else it has, and certainly better than the IDE to CF adapter on my 4CoreDualSATA-SATA2, another experiment. (Boots MS-DOS 8.0 fine, Win98SE install pending).

The 4Core is already slated to use 2x IDE to 128GB SD adapters on the other IDE cable, and I thought I was done. Now, I may just pop in the X800XT AGP instead of the current Gainward 7950 PCIe, though, and see if I can't squeeze some crazy NVMe speeds out of one boot OS or another (98SE, XP, 7) using a PCIe4x adapter in the video card slot. (Another recent nicety on the 4Core is a floppy emulator that works like a charm.)

As you can see, I am trying to get all my legacy systems to transition to hybrid parts that I can still maintain well into the future.

If you want to go really retro, you get the HPIB to 2GB SD adapter that is coming in the mail for my trusty HP150 Touchscreen PC (DOS 3.0!), plus new caps for the damaged Tualatin PIII mobo that should house the HBIB to ISA card for directly attaching HP 150 drives to a PC.

**
Why so nuts? Just retired, and the mothballs are flying out of the closets. Yippee. There's also a fairly pristine 4CoreDual-VSTA waiting for attention, which I just had to source, as that was my all-time run-away favorite, quirkly little board for many a year, as attested in this thread.

Nice! I have a near new 4CoreDualSATA-SATA2 that I have yet to use, was bought "refurb" from Newegg and never did anything with it.

I am shocked my 4CoreDual-VSTA is still going, but it has lived it's whole life running from a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 370.

I picked a PII 300 Dell from the curb last year, put a new CMOS battery in, then ordered a PCI to SATA card to run an SSD in it, trying to figure out if going to run Win98 SE or WinXP on it. Plus a few 12Mb VooDoo 2's if they still work...

I also have a Pentium 200 system that still works, at least it did last time I turned it on.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Nice! I have a near new 4CoreDualSATA-SATA2 that I have yet to use, was bought "refurb" from Newegg and never did anything with it.

I am shocked my 4CoreDual-VSTA is still going, but it has lived it's whole life running from a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 370.

I picked a PII 300 Dell from the curb last year, put a new CMOS battery in, then ordered a PCI to SATA card to run an SSD in it, trying to figure out if going to run Win98 SE or WinXP on it. Plus a few 12Mb VooDoo 2's if they still work...

I also have a Pentium 200 system that still works, at least it did last time I turned it on.

Sounds like a plan!

 

[Dublinio]

I bought a 4CoreDual-SATA2 from Ebay for a video capture system, aaaaand... proceeded to immediately drop it on a hard floor. Now the CPU fan spins up but I don't get any POST beeps or any video. Sigh.

I've bought a second one that should arrive in a few days and I can visually compare the two to see if any resistors got knocked off or something. But if I could repair the first one I would love to (assuming that it was the drop that broke it).

 

[PingSpike]

I had a 939dual-sata2, even bought the am2 upgrade card for it. It allowed me to sell my DDR1 while its price was high and switch to DDR2 while the price was low. I think I made enough money it covered the cpu change.

I sold the whole thing for not much money actually. I wish I'd held onto it because it a great little setup and would be awesome for retro games now.