ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA

[lookin4dlz]

Got my board today. Newegg only counts business days, which they should've stated up front, and that still doesn't explain why the processor will be delivered tomorrow.

Also, it's been a couple of years since I bought a motherboard - shouldn't it be sealed in shrink-wrap? I thought my last board (Asus) was & also thought the anti-static package was closed with a small sticker/seal. Is this the way ASRock packs them?

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
Got my board today. Newegg only counts business days, which they should've stated up front, and that still doesn't explain why the processor will be delivered tomorrow.

Also, it's been a couple of years since I bought a motherboard - shouldn't it be sealed in shrink-wrap? I thought my last board (Asus) was & also thought the anti-static package was closed with a small sticker/seal. Is this the way ASRock packs them?

Not if you bought a open box. IF NEW, however, yes, it should of been done up in shrink wrap. Open box is luck of the draw, your buying used, someone returned.

Maybe you got the open box I was supposed to get when they sent me a new one in place of it

 

[lookin4dlz]

Originally posted by: funboy42

Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
Got my board today. Newegg only counts business days, which they should've stated up front, and that still doesn't explain why the processor will be delivered tomorrow.

Also, it's been a couple of years since I bought a motherboard - shouldn't it be sealed in shrink-wrap? I thought my last board (Asus) was & also thought the anti-static package was closed with a small sticker/seal. Is this the way ASRock packs them?

Not if you bought a open box. IF NEW, however, yes, it should of been done up in shrink wrap. Open box is luck of the draw, your buying used, someone returned.

Maybe you got the open box I was supposed to get when they sent me a new one in place of it

Thanks funboy, I figured this wasn't right. Newegg told me to contact ASRock to see how it should've been packaged - really lame customer service. This is the last Newegg transaction for me, they've messed up more than once.

 

[Y23KC]

I bought my brand new and it wasn't sealed or anything, but the accessories were. I've bought mobos in the past that were like this, so I wouldn't sweat it.

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: Y23KC
I bought my brand new and it wasn't sealed or anything, but the accessories were. I've bought mobos in the past that were like this, so I wouldn't sweat it.

Well someone there is doing things bassackwards for I was to have bought a open box Asrock 4coredual-Vsta, and mine showed up with the mobo sealed in a anti static bag smelling like new.
New-no bag flopping around in the box
Used-smells new, in a bag with a pink foam backing
That dont seem right to me

Were me, and customer service was playing around like that, for Im not bullsh!tting, mine came sealed in a bag with all the goodies, Id call them back up and tell them they can take the mobo back and pack it up their asses with sunshine, I will buy me another one somewhere else.

Or you can just take it on the chin, and pray the sucker still fires up, and if you have any problems they turn down your rma, because you didnt return the mobo back to them in a anti static bag, that it never came with

I have never bought, aside of open box items, a mobo that was not in a anti static bag, thats just silly not to be in one.

 

[Y23KC]

Mine came in the anti-static bag, but it was just folded over with no sticker or anything. Had it been shipped lose in NO anti-static bag, then I'd been pissed. I quit buying open box mobos from newegg a few years ago because of the IO backplate isn't guaranteed to be there.

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: Y23KC
Mine came in the anti-static bag, but it was just folded over with no sticker or anything. Had it been shipped lose in NO anti-static bag, then I'd been pissed. I quit buying open box mobos from newegg a few years ago because of the IO backplate isn't guaranteed to be there.

Mine had no sticker or tape either, forgot to include that as well. Just folded over, but you can tell it had never been messed with.

 

[Rosenrosen]

Since I installed my X1900XT on this board my system has been hanging quite often. It seems like it could be a driver issue because with the latest Catalyst and Omega drivers the system would hang on the Windows welcome screen. I'm now using the Omega drivers based on Catalyst 6.3 which at least gets me into Windows and if I'm lucky I can go for a half-decent length of time without a hang. Is anyone else using an X1900XT with success?

My other thought was that maybe my PSU wasn't providing enough juice but a 480W Antec TrueBlue should be OK right?

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: Rosenrosen
Since I installed my X1900XT on this board my system has been hanging quite often. It seems like it could be a driver issue because with the latest Catalyst and Omega drivers the system would hang on the Windows welcome screen. I'm now using the Omega drivers based on Catalyst 6.3 which at least gets me into Windows and if I'm lucky I can go for a half-decent length of time without a hang. Is anyone else using an X1900XT with success?

My other thought was that maybe my PSU wasn't providing enough juice but a 480W Antec TrueBlue should be OK right?

Im using a X1900GT, the little brother to yours, works fine. I would pitch the omega drivers all together, install a ATI driver, and if you want to overclock use ATI tool.

As for your psu, depends on what other stuff you got in the case sucking on the psu teet. Too much stuff will bleed it dry, and having good amps is more important then watts. Its not the watts that will kill you in electrical, its the amps behind the watts

I use a PSU with 26a and 500 watts myself. never had a problem yet with any hanging running my x1900gt, 2 drives, 2 hdds, and a set of lights. Also make sure your running the newest drivers for the via 4 in 1 as well.

Other then that, put the board to bone stock, do the latest bios update, 1.7, and see if it hangs running it stock on stock ati drivers, and oc from there.

 

[lookin4dlz]

I decided to take a chance on that board from Newegg - once the e4400 came in I couldn't hold myself back.

Anyway, I stuck my OCZDDR400 in & my 9600XT AGP card along with my current boot drive, a WD 74GB Raptor. I was lazy/excited & just left the current Windows XP SP2 & programs on it - figured I should be able to see how well it runs before I reinstalled everything. The board posts fine, but I can't get into Windows - it starts to load then reboots at the Windows logo screen. I hope it's just a driver issue & that everything will work once I reinstall Windows. This same Raptor won't boot on my existing, old ABIT board unless I use a SATA add-in card - could it be the same on this ASRock board?

Any thoughts?

 

[cdmoore74]

I would like to thank everyone with their input on this motherboard but I do notice a problem. The board overclocks fine at a FSB of 295-300 with pc3200 ddr set to 400mhz setting. I can play games for long periods of times and the system appears to be stable but when running Orthos on "Blend-stress CPU and RAM" the program stops with errors after a few seconds. And when I run MemTest I will get errors after a few seconds. If I choose small FFTs-stress CPU everything works fine. So I dropped my memory to 133mhz with relaxed settings but MemTest and Orthos still fails.
So I backed the FSB down to 270 and Orthos blend will run for about 2 hours and fail. I then set the FSB to 266 and it's rock solid with Orthos running for over 15 hours! I was going to RMA the board but I have a feeling that the replacement board will have the same issue.
Does anyone have this board running successfully with an e4300 and pc3200 ram above 270-290mhz with Orthos blend passing for a long period of time? If so what are your settings? If the board is working at 266mhz then technically the board is working as advertised but I was expecting at least a stable overclock of 290mhz. It appears that the test are sensitive to higher FSB speeds.

Setup
e4300 (temps are around 49C at load)
2 gig of pc3200 (known to work at 435mhz)
Aiw x800xt agp
2 sata drives with onboard raid
audigy
lan card


disabled lan and sound, agp and ram voltage set to high, varied the fsb and memory speed (left most of the memory to auto/default)

 

[ronach]

I have the same problem [ If one wants to call it that ] with my listed system below, with one exception..my ram will run at about 332 mhz X2 of course. Cpu setting is 266..anything else will crash..BUT..rock stable at that setting.

I have found out something else, the Realtek onboard sound will not function in openal32 mode. If someone knows of a workaround for the sound problem..let me know. Sure would like to do another run through Q4 on my new sys, but it crashes with the openal32 problem as soon as the game starts.

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
I decided to take a chance on that board from Newegg - once the e4400 came in I couldn't hold myself back.

Anyway, I stuck my OCZDDR400 in & my 9600XT AGP card along with my current boot drive, a WD 74GB Raptor. I was lazy/excited & just left the current Windows XP SP2 & programs on it - figured I should be able to see how well it runs before I reinstalled everything. The board posts fine, but I can't get into Windows - it starts to load then reboots at the Windows logo screen. I hope it's just a driver issue & that everything will work once I reinstall Windows. This same Raptor won't boot on my existing, old ABIT board unless I use a SATA add-in card - could it be the same on this ASRock board?

Any thoughts?

You cannot swap drives with windows xp from one pc to another, unless both motherbords are exactly the same in drivers, chipsets, and what drives are connected to it. You will either not boot, like now, give the BSOD, or if your lucky enough to have it boot, will cause all kinds of errors and crap not to work right, ontop of it having you reactivate the copy within 3 days or lock you out out of it.

You will have to redo your copy of xp, in order to get it to work right, no two ways about it, not like back in the days of windows 98.

Originally posted by: cdmoore74
I would like to thank everyone with their input on this motherboard but I do notice a problem. The board overclocks fine at a FSB of 295-300 with pc3200 ddr set to 400mhz setting. I can play games for long periods of times and the system appears to be stable but when running Orthos on "Blend-stress CPU and RAM" the program stops with errors after a few seconds. And when I run MemTest I will get errors after a few seconds. If I choose small FFTs-stress CPU everything works fine. So I dropped my memory to 133mhz with relaxed settings but MemTest and Orthos still fails.
So I backed the FSB down to 270 and Orthos blend will run for about 2 hours and fail. I then set the FSB to 266 and it's rock solid with Orthos running for over 15 hours! I was going to RMA the board but I have a feeling that the replacement board will have the same issue.
Does anyone have this board running successfully with an e4300 and pc3200 ram above 270-290mhz with Orthos blend passing for a long period of time? If so what are your settings? If the board is working at 266mhz then technically the board is working as advertised but I was expecting at least a stable overclock of 290mhz. It appears that the test are sensitive to higher FSB speeds.

Setup
e4300 (temps are around 49C at load)
2 gig of pc3200 (known to work at 435mhz)
Aiw x800xt agp
2 sata drives with onboard raid
audigy
lan card


disabled lan and sound, agp and ram voltage set to high, varied the fsb and memory speed (left most of the memory to auto/default)

Cannot promise, but I will try to do this for you as soon as I can. I have but only 1 gig of ocz 400 ddr ram, but can let you know how far it will go. Just really busy, but be glad to help if I get a free chance to take apart 2 rigs to try this for you.

 

[timzak]

Originally posted by: cdmoore74
I would like to thank everyone with their input on this motherboard but I do notice a problem. The board overclocks fine at a FSB of 295-300 with pc3200 ddr set to 400mhz setting. I can play games for long periods of times and the system appears to be stable but when running Orthos on "Blend-stress CPU and RAM" the program stops with errors after a few seconds. And when I run MemTest I will get errors after a few seconds. If I choose small FFTs-stress CPU everything works fine. So I dropped my memory to 133mhz with relaxed settings but MemTest and Orthos still fails.
So I backed the FSB down to 270 and Orthos blend will run for about 2 hours and fail. I then set the FSB to 266 and it's rock solid with Orthos running for over 15 hours! I was going to RMA the board but I have a feeling that the replacement board will have the same issue.
Does anyone have this board running successfully with an e4300 and pc3200 ram above 270-290mhz with Orthos blend passing for a long period of time? If so what are your settings? If the board is working at 266mhz then technically the board is working as advertised but I was expecting at least a stable overclock of 290mhz. It appears that the test are sensitive to higher FSB speeds.

Setup
e4300 (temps are around 49C at load)
2 gig of pc3200 (known to work at 435mhz)
Aiw x800xt agp
2 sata drives with onboard raid
audigy
lan card


disabled lan and sound, agp and ram voltage set to high, varied the fsb and memory speed (left most of the memory to auto/default)

I have the same problem, sorry, no solution. When I first put my system together, I was able to run my FSB @ 266 and memory at DDR400. It ran Orthos for 4-5 hours before erroring out. Gradually, I got to the point where I get BSOD if I try to boot up at this setting. Now I am running my memory a DDR333 with fairly tight timings and it runs good, completely stable. I can run up to FSB 293 as long as I keep my memory at DDR333. I think I have to loosen my timings a bit to get Orthos stable @ 293 (can't remember, I'm currently at 266).

I tried two sets of DDR400 ram, same problem, so I'm pretty sure it's the motherboard. I've seen people with volt mods getting stable DDR400 operation out of this board, so I have a feeling that Asrock was too conservative with voltages and didn't give the end-user enough options through the bios to get things stable in an overclocked state.

What makes me believe this is if I run my system completely stock (E4300 @ 200 FSB and DDR400 ram @ 200 Mhz) it is rock stable. It's crazy: my ram will run at DDR400 @ FSB 200, but not @ FSB 266. The only difference is at FSB 200, the ram is running 1:1 while at FSB 266 it's running 4:3. I gave up a long time ago and just run my ram at DDR333.

 

[focussoft]

Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
Thanks funboy, I figured this wasn't right. Newegg told me to contact ASRock to see how it should've been packaged - really lame customer service. This is the last Newegg transaction for me, they've messed up more than once.

I doubt u can blame it on newegg , i had great experience with them in the past
I think they just have a bunch of boxes on a pile that they ship out
Someone in the packageplant of asrock must have taken a break and the band kept running leaving a load of boards unpacked or something lol
Lucky newegg has a great return policy in case of problems , and when u call customer support they are most willing to help u with any problems
Thats more then what u can say about other buisnesses

Not all mobo's i bought were shrinkwrapped, but all were in a antistatic bag closed with a piece of tape
Usually cable, i/o shield and screws are shrinkwrapped though like this picture shows

 

[funboy6942]

Now I dont know if this will help you out or not but I am running DDR2 667, and I hit a wall at 250 fsb unless I put my mem to 533 settings. Then I can take it to 315fsb before my pc says no more unless you give me more juice. But leaving my ram at stock setting, forget it, I cannot oc past 250fsb, must turn the ram down and underclock it to overclock the pc. No big deal for me doing that, may be a slight disadvantage on this board, but even still it smokes my old 4000+ set up.

When I can afford to get another mobo I will see if it is this one, but for the time being I am not going to complain not getting every drop out of my CPU with this board for I did alot of reading before buying it and knew it wasnt the best overclocker, but had the fail safes in place, and this was my first time overclocking a intel chip, I didnt want to mess anything up as I learned how to oc a intel. If you bought this board with plans of overclocking like a mother....shut your mouth...you bought the wrong board for that, and should of read up on it before buying it

its a good board to dip you feet into, or want something that will do agp and pci, and be solid as a rock at stock, or slightly over stock, but to buy it expecting mad oc's like the old 939 dual sata II would do, its not going to happen, without messing around, and volt modding, and alot of other stuff, and then even still with only a 4x PCI-E slot, your not maxing it out.

 

[cdmoore74]

Originally posted by: funboy42
Now I dont know if this will help you out or not but I am running DDR2 667, and I hit a wall at 250 fsb unless I put my mem to 533 settings. Then I can take it to 315fsb before my pc says no more unless you give me more juice. But leaving my ram at stock setting, forget it, I cannot oc past 250fsb, must turn the ram down and underclock it to overclock the pc. No big deal for me doing that, may be a slight disadvantage on this board, but even still it smokes my old 4000+ set up.

When I can afford to get another mobo I will see if it is this one, but for the time being I am not going to complain not getting every drop out of my CPU with this board for I did alot of reading before buying it and knew it wasnt the best overclocker, but had the fail safes in place, and this was my first time overclocking a intel chip, I didnt want to mess anything up as I learned how to oc a intel. If you bought this board with plans of overclocking like a mother....shut your mouth...you bought the wrong board for that, and should of read up on it before buying it

its a good board to dip you feet into, or want something that will do agp and pci, and be solid as a rock at stock, or slightly over stock, but to buy it expecting mad oc's like the old 939 dual sata II would do, its not going to happen, without messing around, and volt modding, and alot of other stuff, and then even still with only a 4x PCI-E slot, your not maxing it out.

I know what you mean. For a $60 board it allows me to upgrade from a venice 3000 proc and bring over my apg and ddr1 ram. Just thought these 290 FSB overclocks were 100% stable. Does anyone think I should proceed with a rma or is this just the nature of this motherboard (unable to run Otheos blend past 266 FSB for over 2 hours)? At least I have a stable overclock of 2400 with my e4300 and look forward to 3000+ when I slowly upgrade my components.

 

[cdmoore74]

How many people here are running this board with a FSB of 270-300 with Othoes and memory test failing? Do you see any issues with everyday apps or intense games?

Or better yet how many people here are running this board at 290+ with Othoes and memory test passing for at least 12 to 24 hours? Did you have to mod this board to reach this goal?

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: cdmoore74
How many people here are running this board with a FSB of 270-300 with Othoes and memory test failing? Do you see any issues with everyday apps or intense games?

Or better yet how many people here are running this board at 290+ with Othoes and memory test passing for at least 12 to 24 hours? Did you have to mod this board to reach this goal?

I am going to try that first then tonight. I have never tried the Orthos test, as long as it is free, I will dl it tonight and see what happens. I have mine stable gaming and doing 3dmark 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, and prime at 310fsb, but will try this and see if I get any errors with my mem at that speed and post tomorrow if mine fails, and find out where at it wont fail if it doesnt work where it is at now.

 

[stevvie]

I have mine at 296 which makes my DDR400 run at 444 and memtest ran for about 13-14 hours without an error. Also as a footnote this is on a winXP that was origionally installed on an abit NF7s 2.0 board that I just went into safe mode BEFORE changing mobo's and removed all the stuff from that board in device manager and then changed the board and haven't run into any problems in about 6 weeks yet. I was planning on reinstalling windows but X64. I tried X64 on a spare drive first and couldn't find drivers for a few things and see NO improvements what so ever for general usagg.

 

[ronach]

Realtek sound problem with Openal32 workaround found..heh..I installed my old Creative Audio PCI 128 card after disabling on-board sound. Does the job and I don't notice any sound degradation since I am only using headphones and mic for Vent.

 

[lookin4dlz]

Yeah, I knew trying to use the same Windows installation would probably not work, but...

Anyway , reinstalled Windows XP SP2 on another drive & booted up at default settings except for setting ram voltage to high & disabling spread spectrum. Got up to fsb 295 which showed up in bios as 2.96 GHz I think. Tried the same settings at fsb 300 & it reset the bios.

 

[bigsnyder]

My 775Dual with same ultra northbridge is doing 300fsb without a sweat. I am running DDR2 memory at 1:1 which the via chips
prefer.

 

[Rosenrosen]

Originally posted by: funboy42

Originally posted by: Rosenrosen
Since I installed my X1900XT on this board my system has been hanging quite often. It seems like it could be a driver issue because with the latest Catalyst and Omega drivers the system would hang on the Windows welcome screen. I'm now using the Omega drivers based on Catalyst 6.3 which at least gets me into Windows and if I'm lucky I can go for a half-decent length of time without a hang. Is anyone else using an X1900XT with success?

My other thought was that maybe my PSU wasn't providing enough juice but a 480W Antec TrueBlue should be OK right?

Im using a X1900GT, the little brother to yours, works fine. I would pitch the omega drivers all together, install a ATI driver, and if you want to overclock use ATI tool.

As for your psu, depends on what other stuff you got in the case sucking on the psu teet. Too much stuff will bleed it dry, and having good amps is more important then watts. Its not the watts that will kill you in electrical, its the amps behind the watts

I use a PSU with 26a and 500 watts myself. never had a problem yet with any hanging running my x1900gt, 2 drives, 2 hdds, and a set of lights. Also make sure your running the newest drivers for the via 4 in 1 as well.

Other then that, put the board to bone stock, do the latest bios update, 1.7, and see if it hangs running it stock on stock ati drivers, and oc from there.

Just an update on this - I upped the PCI-E frequency and fingers crossed things have been OK so far.

 

[tigersty1e]

What would be faster for my system?

e6300
1 gig ddr2 675 ram


285 FSB with ram timing 4-4-4-12 or

300 FSB with ram timing 5-5-5-15


I cannot get the system to post above 301


Also, what changes can I make in the BIOS to get the FSB past 310? (besides modding)