Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2

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americanair

Junior Member
Feb 9, 2009
2
0
0
Hello,
I am new to this forum and hope someone will help with a few answers:) I have this board arriving today ASROCK 4COREDUAL-SATA2 with an E5200 Processor, 2x1 GB Corsair 667 DDR2 memory moduals (I will be buying 4Gigs of memory ASAP) and 2 Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives.
My question is this (by the way I chose this board because I have a Nvidia FX 5500 AGP Video Card 250MB) is this card going to slow down or "bottleneck" my E5200? Should I purchase a newer PCIe card? I am also planning on using a RAID 1 setup. I want a setup that is stable and as fast as it can be without any issues. I will be running xp pro sp2. It?s a business computer. Also I will try the Bios 2.13a that I noticed here on pctreiber http://www.pctreiber.net/datei_download_2999.html
Please if anyone can tell me about what will and won?t work as far as settings and hardware go, I will be most grateful. I know everyone here are oc?rs and the most knowledgeable, that?s why I chose this forum.
THX

This THREAD is DEAD!
 

doubleOseven

Member
Jun 23, 2008
113
0
0
Originally posted by: adihac
Does some bios see the full of 4 GB of Ram? 2.1 see only aprox 3.25 Ram and so does windows. In 2.1 bios the 2x2 GB are working in dual chanel mode.
Thx.

That's an OS limitation, not your computer's.
WinXP and basic versions of Vista "see" only 3.25 gb of RAM.
 

theAnimal

Diamond Member
Mar 18, 2003
3,828
23
76
Originally posted by: doubleOseven
Originally posted by: adihac
Does some bios see the full of 4 GB of Ram? 2.1 see only aprox 3.25 Ram and so does windows. In 2.1 bios the 2x2 GB are working in dual chanel mode.
Thx.

That's an OS limitation, not your computer's.
WinXP and basic versions of Vista "see" only 3.25 gb of RAM.

WinXP and Vista will both see the full 4GB, but the 32bit versions will only let you use 3.25GB.
 

Sektor2006

Junior Member
Feb 12, 2009
1
0
0
Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum and since I found this wonderful thread I thought I'd ask here.

I own one of these AsRock motherboards - 4CoreDual-SATA2 v2.0 and it runs great with a C2D E2180. Yet I want to get a Q6600 paired with 2x2 GB DDR2. I intend to run the chip at stock speed (2400 MHz) using the trick described here - manual FSB setting in BIOS at 266 MHz. Do you think however that this board will run the Q6600 at 2400 MHz plus 2x2 GB DDR2 in Dual-Channel mode using the modded PC Treiber BIOS or this will be too much for this budget motherboard, given the official AsRock 5% downclock when using quad core chips and the official 2 GB (2x1 GB DDR2) limitation?

Thank you in advance!
 

Hlafordlaes

Senior member
May 21, 2006
271
2
81
Originally posted by: americanair
Hello,
I am new to this forum and hope someone will help with a few answers:) I have this board arriving today ASROCK 4COREDUAL-SATA2 with an E5200 Processor, 2x1 GB Corsair 667 DDR2 memory moduals (I will be buying 4Gigs of memory ASAP) and 2 Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives.
My question is this (by the way I chose this board because I have a Nvidia FX 5500 AGP Video Card 250MB) is this card going to slow down or "bottleneck" my E5200? Should I purchase a newer PCIe card? I am also planning on using a RAID 1 setup. I want a setup that is stable and as fast as it can be without any issues. I will be running xp pro sp2. It?s a business computer. Also I will try the Bios 2.13a that I noticed here on pctreiber http://www.pctreiber.net/datei_download_2999.html
Please if anyone can tell me about what will and won?t work as far as settings and hardware go, I will be most grateful. I know everyone here are oc?rs and the most knowledgeable, that?s why I chose this forum.
THX

The video card will slow you down in 3D applications, such as gaming. It will also do nothing for helping the CPU to decode high definition video. I doubt you will be gaming on a business PC, but you could conceivably want to reproduce videos, for which any of the latest mid and low-end cards from NVidia or ATI will suffice. (You then need to enable GPU-assisted playback by using DirectX acceleration in VideoLan or Media Player Classic, or by buying a copy of Cyberlink's playback software.)

Yes, get and install the latest modded BIOS. As for BIOS settings, perhaps no one answered your post quickly because that topic is quite dated and has already been discussed a lot. You can review earlier posts in this thread and the highly similar 775Dual-VSTA and 4CoreDual-VSTA threads for the settings. I posted a full list of mine in the latter.

And while you are at building your setup, you might want to upgrade XP to SP3.

This THREAD is DEAD!

Patience is a virtue.
 

Ileader36

Member
Aug 2, 2004
113
0
0
Originally posted by: americanair
Hello,
I am new to this forum and hope someone will help with a few answers:) I have this board arriving today ASROCK 4COREDUAL-SATA2 with an E5200 Processor, 2x1 GB Corsair 667 DDR2 memory moduals (I will be buying 4Gigs of memory ASAP) and 2 Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives.
My question is this (by the way I chose this board because I have a Nvidia FX 5500 AGP Video Card 250MB) is this card going to slow down or "bottleneck" my E5200? Should I purchase a newer PCIe card? I am also planning on using a RAID 1 setup. I want a setup that is stable and as fast as it can be without any issues. I will be running xp pro sp2. It?s a business computer. Also I will try the Bios 2.13a that I noticed here on pctreiber http://www.pctreiber.net/datei_download_2999.html
Please if anyone can tell me about what will and won?t work as far as settings and hardware go, I will be most grateful. I know everyone here are oc?rs and the most knowledgeable, that?s why I chose this forum.
THX

This THREAD is DEAD!


The only bottlenecking will be if You play games, and it that case the bottlenecking would be massive.
If You get a newer pcie card, get a 9600gt, or radeon 4830, as the 4x speed of the bus vs 16x will limit the graphics performance.
The AGP runs at a full 8x.
Try the boot image version of the bios, it is easier to install, but brush up on Your Dos skills first.

 

americanair

Junior Member
Feb 9, 2009
2
0
0
Thanks for the replies, a new video card it is.

Patience IS a virtue, and I use that with my large family.
Time IS money, and im running out of both!
 

Tantalum

Junior Member
Dec 11, 2007
23
0
0
Hey guys. I was wondering if anyone here has a 7900GS working in the PCI-E slot? I picked up a pair of these cards for cheap, but neither will work properly. I have read that the PT880 chipset is incompatible with some nvidia cards. I hope someone has a workaround for this, as I was really hoping to throw in one for a cheap PCI-E upgrade, and use another in a cheap machine I was building up with some leftover parts. Thanks.

Edit:

Found the problem. Set PCIE frequency to Sync with CPU and all corruption issues and blanking screen problems are solved. Not much of a performance increase over the 7600GT, but using it will allow me to torque up the AGP (Northbridge) volts to see if I can get any closer to 4GHz.

 

Luminair

Member
Feb 20, 2001
32
0
61
Originally posted by: americanair
Hello,
I am new to this forum and hope someone will help with a few answers:) I have this board arriving today ASROCK 4COREDUAL-SATA2 with an E5200 Processor, 2x1 GB Corsair 667 DDR2 memory moduals (I will be buying 4Gigs of memory ASAP) and 2 Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives.
My question is this (by the way I chose this board because I have a Nvidia FX 5500 AGP Video Card 250MB) is this card going to slow down or "bottleneck" my E5200? Should I purchase a newer PCIe card? I am also planning on using a RAID 1 setup. I want a setup that is stable and as fast as it can be without any issues. I will be running xp pro sp2. It?s a business computer. Also I will try the Bios 2.13a that I noticed here on pctreiber http://www.pctreiber.net/datei_download_2999.html
Please if anyone can tell me about what will and won?t work as far as settings and hardware go, I will be most grateful. I know everyone here are oc?rs and the most knowledgeable, that?s why I chose this forum.
THX

This THREAD is DEAD!

someone should have told you by now that using an old unsupported motherboard with an unofficial unsupported bios with cheap unsupported raid is the furthest thing from "stable and as fast as it can be without any issues"

I wish you luck, but stability is found on the beaten path, and you are not on it.
 

Ileader36

Member
Aug 2, 2004
113
0
0
Originally posted by: Luminair

someone should have told you by now that using an old unsupported motherboard with an unofficial unsupported bios with cheap unsupported raid is the furthest thing from "stable and as fast as it can be without any issues"

I wish you luck, but stability is found on the beaten path, and you are not on it.

Your reply is pretty much useless.
Why even waste Your time typing that in?

Of course this isn't the greatest mobo around, but it's stable enough when setup correctly.
 

jimmor

Member
Dec 16, 2007
179
0
0
Originally posted by: Ileader36
Originally posted by: Luminair

someone should have told you by now that using an old unsupported motherboard with an unofficial unsupported bios with cheap unsupported raid is the furthest thing from "stable and as fast as it can be without any issues"

I wish you luck, but stability is found on the beaten path, and you are not on it.

Your reply is pretty much useless.
Why even waste Your time typing that in?

Of course this isn't the greatest mobo around, but it's stable enough when setup correctly.

Well said Ileader36 !

:)
 

doubleOseven

Member
Jun 23, 2008
113
0
0
My comment concerning Luminair's post....

Don't listen to him! I've had this board for a year. It has been rock stable for me. And I use it A LOT. Heck, I've owned supposedly high-end motherboards with premium Intel chipsets, and they were unstable! So high-end brand-name doesn't always mean good stability etc. This cheapo ASRock is great.

As for the RAID -- it works fine on this board. No problems (I run 4 hard drives, never a problem with RAID).

Additionally, the "unofficial" PCTreiber bios works like a dream (I use 2.12a)--4GB ram support, works stable. There is also good community support for this board (on this BBS and also with the PCtreiber site). As for being an unsupported board, give me a break! ASRock still updates their web page on it, and their latest bios even supports newer video cards like the ATI 4850... (which I have on this board, and it works fine, granted slower at only 4X pci-e bus). However, for what this board represents (a bridge of old and new), it does it VERY well.


 

Hlafordlaes

Senior member
May 21, 2006
271
2
81
Originally posted by: doubleOseven
My comment concerning Luminair's post....

Don't listen to him! I've had this board for a year. It has been rock stable for me. And I use it A LOT. Heck, I've owned supposedly high-end motherboards with premium Intel chipsets, and they were unstable! So high-end brand-name doesn't always mean good stability etc. This cheapo ASRock is great.

As for the RAID -- it works fine on this board. No problems (I run 4 hard drives, never a problem with RAID).

Additionally, the "unofficial" PCTreiber bios works like a dream (I use 2.12a)--4GB ram support, works stable. There is also good community support for this board (on this BBS and also with the PCtreiber site). As for being an unsupported board, give me a break! ASRock still updates their web page on it, and their latest bios even supports newer video cards like the ATI 4850... (which I have on this board, and it works fine, granted slower at only 4X pci-e bus). However, for what this board represents (a bridge of old and new), it does it VERY well.

Ditto for my 4CoreDual-VSTA version. Love it. Running 16 hrs/day for last 18 months, great performance for the investment, allowed my recent transition from AGP to PCIe, even takes R0 stepping Wolfdales with latest PCTreiber BIOS, along with Instant Boot.
 

Phatjayunoi

Junior Member
Mar 6, 2008
19
0
0
I've had my 4CoreDual-SATA2 since Xmas 2007 and it has been running perfectly stable ever since, even now that it is relegated to a HTPC.

Just because it is cheap does not mean it is unstable, its usually down to user errors anyways.

The support from ASRock has been top service and the community based around this board is doing a good job to keep it up with the unofficial BIOSes that work perfectly fine.

My board is happily running the E5200, 4GB RAM and HD4830.
 

vixensjlin

Junior Member
Mar 30, 2008
21
0
0
Originally posted by: doubleOseven
Originally posted by: adihac
Does some bios see the full of 4 GB of Ram? 2.1 see only aprox 3.25 Ram and so does windows. In 2.1 bios the 2x2 GB are working in dual chanel mode.
Thx.

That's an OS limitation, not your computer's.
WinXP and basic versions of Vista "see" only 3.25 gb of RAM.

This is NOT OS limitation, I tried it with MS windows server advanced (w/ PAE) and 64bit Ubuntu w/ server kernel and still got ~3.25gb in both OS. The limitation is the chipset of this motherboard--VIA® PT880 Pro/PT880 Ultra , it only address up to 4GB and still need room to map other system resources (such as video card ram).

By the way, pctreiber got another update BIOS-- 2.13a, anybody know what's the "Improvement of fan control"?
 

doubleOseven

Member
Jun 23, 2008
113
0
0
That's good to know Vixen about the 4gig limitation of the PT880 chipset. However, even if it weren't for the chipset's 4 gig limitation, my understanding is that it can also be an OS limitation if you're running say Win XP Home Edition (to get the full 4 gigs of RAM to run on that would be a challenge)
 

Tantalum

Junior Member
Dec 11, 2007
23
0
0
Yes. 3.25GB of ram under XP x64 as well. I think I'll go for that new BIOS. Fan control leaves a lot to be desired as it takes forever to ramp up, and then ramps down again under heavy load despite still being well above setpoint temperature.

 

Mr Vain

Senior member
May 15, 2006
708
1
81
Originally posted by: doubleOseven
My comment concerning Luminair's post....

Don't listen to him! I've had this board for a year. It has been rock stable for me. And I use it A LOT. Heck, I've owned supposedly high-end motherboards with premium Intel chipsets, and they were unstable! So high-end brand-name doesn't always mean good stability etc. This cheapo ASRock is great.

As for the RAID -- it works fine on this board. No problems (I run 4 hard drives, never a problem with RAID).

Additionally, the "unofficial" PCTreiber bios works like a dream (I use 2.12a)--4GB ram support, works stable. There is also good community support for this board (on this BBS and also with the PCtreiber site). As for being an unsupported board, give me a break! ASRock still updates their web page on it, and their latest bios even supports newer video cards like the ATI 4850... (which I have on this board, and it works fine, granted slower at only 4X pci-e bus). However, for what this board represents (a bridge of old and new), it does it VERY well.

:D:thumbsup:
 

vixensjlin

Junior Member
Mar 30, 2008
21
0
0
Originally posted by: doubleOseven
That's good to know Vixen about the 4gig limitation of the PT880 chipset. However, even if it weren't for the chipset's 4 gig limitation, my understanding is that it can also be an OS limitation if you're running say Win XP Home Edition (to get the full 4 gigs of RAM to run on that would be a challenge)

Microsoft cut the support of 4G ram after 32bit-XP/SP2. Here I use IBM/Lenovo T61 with 4G ram to show you how 32 bit XP Pro/sp1 supported 4G before (not in SP2 or SP3). I cannot find 32 bit XP home for test now, but Microsoft apply the SAME memory support to all version of XP (all XP version use the same kernel, see http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/...server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx ).

32 bit Vista can only use ~3GB: http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/8898/vista32fh4.jpg

32 bit XP/sp1 can use all 4GB http://bayimg.com/DAhJNaabb

comparison: 64 bit Server2003 http://bayimg.com/FaHjaaABb
 

doubleOseven

Member
Jun 23, 2008
113
0
0
Vixensjlin -- So let me get this straight ... Windows XP Pro with the SP3 patch can't run all 4GB!?!? However, SP1 can?
If so, that's horrible of MS!!! I wonder why MS allowed this limitation to happen after SP1/2... (I have my theory that MS works inside a dark evil haunted castle)
 

JenSmith

Junior Member
Mar 3, 2009
1
0
0
Have a techie question; if anyone is able to provide some assistance that would be great.

I'm upgrading an older system, an Athlon XP 3200+. I only play the occasional game, it's not a huge requirement, and wanted to keep the expense down. Saw this ASRock board and looked like a good idea. Using an AGP 7800GS/OC which is a healthy "fast enough" for what I'm doing, just wanted to give the CPU a kick in the pants for a bit more performance. Also picked up a pair of 1GB DDR2-667 modules to replace the memory, rest of the hardware is original from the old system.

I picked up an Intel Core2Duo E8400 (3.0GHz) before I realized that this board doesn't officially support it. By default, it's set to 266x9. I can get it up to 2.7GHz, and it seems stable so far, but anything higher just locks up like crazy. I had the bright idea of 333x9 is about 3.0, but just can't get it to run that stable.

I know just enough to be dangerous and not really know what I'm doing. I did manage up update the BIOS to the current as it was a little out of date. I'm stuck with the multiplier as it'll only go up to 9.

Is there any settings that I'm missing that would get it up to 3.0? I'm not going to cry about it if I can't, it's still literally clocking at a Geekbench score of near double across the board, pretty happy regardless, but would like to get it up to the 3.0 mark if at all possible. Not worried about going any faster than 3, if I can hit that, I'll call it done.

Much appreciated.
 

Budarow

Golden Member
Dec 16, 2001
1,917
0
0
Originally posted by: vixensjlin
Originally posted by: doubleOseven
That's good to know Vixen about the 4gig limitation of the PT880 chipset. However, even if it weren't for the chipset's 4 gig limitation, my understanding is that it can also be an OS limitation if you're running say Win XP Home Edition (to get the full 4 gigs of RAM to run on that would be a challenge)

Microsoft cut the support of 4G ram after 32bit-XP/SP2. Here I use IBM/Lenovo T61 with 4G ram to show you how 32 bit XP Pro/sp1 supported 4G before (not in SP2 or SP3). I cannot find 32 bit XP home for test now, but Microsoft apply the SAME memory support to all version of XP (all XP version use the same kernel, see http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/...server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx ).

32 bit Vista can only use ~3GB: http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/8898/vista32fh4.jpg

32 bit XP/sp1 can use all 4GB http://bayimg.com/DAhJNaabb

comparison: 64 bit Server2003 http://bayimg.com/FaHjaaABb

More and more reasons to LOVE MS:disgust:

 

sastusbulbas

Junior Member
Mar 5, 2009
15
0
0
Hi all,

I recently bought an Asrock 4CoreDual Sata2 motherboard, Rev2 bios P2.00

I have fitted an Intel E5200 running at 2.7Ghz and have 2GB of Corsair XMS Pro PC3500 DDR400 memory.

Graphics card is an HIS IceQ 3850 AGP, SataII 640Gb Hard drive and an IDE DVD drive. PSU is a Hyper 580w modular model.

I want to change the memory on this, I am getting some stutter during the Rome level on C&C Tiberium Wars, and cannot OC above 2.7. I think this may be due to the memory?

From what I can gather I will see no performance difference between DDRII 667Mhz and DDRII 800Mhz memory? But I can use both?

I had initially thought of getting Corsair XMS Pro DDRII 667Mhz with Leds but it costs £58

Other options are Corsair XMS DDRII 800Mhz Cas4 at £32 or OCZ Platinum DDRII 800Mhz Cas4 at £22

All 2Gb kits (2 x 1Gb) Any opinions?

I am curious about the Bios update though? How easy ad simple is this, and can it be messed up? Does it have to be through a floppy and does anyone have any links showing the process in easy steps?

Would I be better off attempting this and fitting 4Gb of Ram?

I am currently using Windows 7

Cheers,
Steve
 

Ileader36

Member
Aug 2, 2004
113
0
0
My e5200 easily did 230x12.5 2875mhz before I modded the cpu to boot at 266mhz fsb.
Try running your ram at 333mhz or loosen the timings to see how far you canpush it.
Just make sure whatever ram you buy will run the standard timings and speed at 1.8v,
as this mobo can not do 2.1v that some high performance ram requires.
My DDR Gskill will do cas 2.3.2.5 all the way up to 230mhz, or 460ddr, hence the easy
230fsb.
I am running the pctreiber 2.12a bios, there is a 2.13 I believe, You can either download
the boot cd version, or just put the files on Your harddisk and navigate to it from a dos boot cd like
Hiren's boot cd. You need dos skills though.

http://www.rapidsharedvd.com/S....7---200901041187.html

http://www.pctreiber.net/filebase.php?lim=20&cat=143 (the 2.12b bootimage might be easiest)

One other thing, go into the bios and put your AGP and Ram volts to their highest
settings, it helps the stability.