ASRock 939 Dual SATAII setup

[pkw111]

Parts are sitting at home in the box from newegg. :santa:
(new Fortron PSU, venice 3200+, asrock mobo, extra RAM)


I plan on doing the following tonight. If anyone has tips/suggestions please let me know asap. I won't be kicking the oc'ing into high gear for a few weeks to let it burn in.

1. Assemble mobo+cpu, reformat my 160GB SATA drive. (Not SATA II)
2. Install BIOS version 1.2 (this seems to be the way to go from what I have read around here and anandtech)
3. Install WinXP/SP2
4. Install ASRock/Uli chipset drivers. I got them from here.
5. Install ATI drivers
6. Install my SBLive! + drivers
7. Install everything else.


Do I need to tweak the BIOS settings at all before I get going?

 

[PingSpike]

I think the drivers you want are from uli's site, not asrocks. www.uli.com.tw I believe...1695 is the chipset IIRC. Disable the onboard sound if you're not using it.

 

[pkw111]

thats good info. Thanks! Why would I want those instead though?

 

[BlackPear1]

I think the ULi site always has the latest chipset drivers. If you've just received your board, it may have 1.20 bios installed, so step #2 may be unnecessary. I would stability test everything before installing SBLive! and drivers.

 

[PingSpike]

A lot of people were saying they were getting poor AGP performance using the drivers from asrocks site and that the uli reference drivers didn't have that problem, as they were apparently a newer version. If you aren't using AGP its probably a none issue though.