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ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 - Socket 939 with PCI-E and real AGP and Socket AM2 upgrade path

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Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
Alright, another question for those who have more experience than I...

I've been trying to flash the BIOS from 1.20 (which came with the board) to OCWB1. I've done the conductive pen voltmod and can't get it to even POST at 270x10 at max Vcore, ~1.57V actual (I'm at 260x10 at ~1.52V real Vcore right now), so that's why I wanted to try the different BIOS. I created a boot CD with Nero's DOS boot image (Caldera DR-DOS it seemed to be), then put the ASRFLASH.exe and the OCWB1.bin files on there. Set the CPU speed back to stock, then booted to the CD and tried to flash...nothing. After displaying two lines about the protected mode run time that the flasher apparently uses, it just sat there doing nothing for upwards of 5 minutes. I rebooted and luckily 1.20 was still there and worked fine.

So...why is the BIOS flash not working? Do I have to use a different version/type of DOS boot disk or something...?
Click to expand...

Try the instructions shown here.

http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/30/5535.html
 
You could also try the vcore mod without any soldering or conductive pen or paint.
There is a report if you remove the mod the 1.55v will still be present.
So what this means is that shorting VID3, or VID4, will do the job.
Here how you need to to do it.
the motherboard need to be connected to power and cpu , rams, vid card and a HDD installed. power on and hang the bios windows (press f2 as thu. you are going to bios).
Then carefully w/ a flat screwdriver short the VID3, or VID4. reboot, and there you have your vcore mod.
 
Originally posted by: designit
You could also try the vcore mod without any soldering or conductive pen or paint.
There is a report if you remove the mod the 1.55v will still be present.
So what this means is that shorting VID3, or VID4, will do the job.
Here how you need to to do it.
the motherboard need to be connected to power and cpu , rams, vid card and a HDD installed. power on and hang the bios windows (press f2 as thu. you are going to bios).
Then carefully w/ a flat screwdriver short the VID3, or VID4. reboot, and there you have your vcore mod.
Click to expand...

Are you sure that is a good idea? It might burn up the board. Have you tried it?

Thanks.
 
The computer is now be fixed all working OK. I solved the problem by loading default settings in the bios, which set the Crucial memory speed to 166mhz.

It would seem that the problem was with the Crucial memory in windows on this MB tested OK at 200mhz with memtest-86 DOS.

thanks for the help.

Simon
 
Originally posted by: Bad Dude
Originally posted by: designit
You could also try the vcore mod without any soldering or conductive pen or paint.
There is a report if you remove the mod the 1.55v will still be present.
So what this means is that shorting VID3, or VID4, will do the job.
Here how you need to to do it.
the motherboard need to be connected to power and cpu , rams, vid card and a HDD installed. power on and hang the bios windows (press f2 as thu. you are going to bios).
Then carefully w/ a flat screwdriver short the VID3, or VID4. reboot, and there you have your vcore mod.
Click to expand...

Are you sure that is a good idea? It might burn up the board. Have you tried it?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Why would that burn the board? those VID shorting w/ soldering is not burning the board, so why should this do it?
all you are doing is temporary shorting the VID3, or VID4 when the computer is booting, just as thu. you have done the mod(soldering).
No I havnt done this, I did solder. but there are people who reported that unsoldering their mod will not change back to original(with no vcore changed). This means the regulator has tripped to always showing the vcore mod even if you change back(unsolder).

 
Unless you're confident that you have a sharp eye and steady hand and you are willing to bet your board (and maybe some of the attached components) on it, this seems like a pretty bad idea. With the solder method you used, or perhaps conductive pen, you can always fix an error before powering up - make a mistake while working on a live circuit and you may not get a second try without buying some new parts.
 
Originally posted by: designit
Originally posted by: Bad Dude
Originally posted by: designit
You could also try the vcore mod without any soldering or conductive pen or paint.
There is a report if you remove the mod the 1.55v will still be present.
So what this means is that shorting VID3, or VID4, will do the job.
Here how you need to to do it.
the motherboard need to be connected to power and cpu , rams, vid card and a HDD installed. power on and hang the bios windows (press f2 as thu. you are going to bios).
Then carefully w/ a flat screwdriver short the VID3, or VID4. reboot, and there you have your vcore mod.
Click to expand...

Are you sure that is a good idea? It might burn up the board. Have you tried it?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Why would that burn the board? those VID shorting w/ soldering is not burning the board, so why should this do it?
all you are doing is temporary shorting the VID3, or VID4 when the computer is booting, just as thu. you have done the mod(soldering).
No I havnt done this, I did solder. but there are people who reported that unsoldering their mod will not change back to original(with no vcore changed). This means the regulator has tripped to always showing the vcore mod even if you change back(unsolder).
Click to expand...

Do you have the link to those who claimed that?
Thanks.
 
Originally posted by: Bad Dude
Originally posted by: designit
Originally posted by: Bad Dude
Originally posted by: designit
You could also try the vcore mod without any soldering or conductive pen or paint.
There is a report if you remove the mod the 1.55v will still be present.
So what this means is that shorting VID3, or VID4, will do the job.
Here how you need to to do it.
the motherboard need to be connected to power and cpu , rams, vid card and a HDD installed. power on and hang the bios windows (press f2 as thu. you are going to bios).
Then carefully w/ a flat screwdriver short the VID3, or VID4. reboot, and there you have your vcore mod.
Click to expand...

Are you sure that is a good idea? It might burn up the board. Have you tried it?

Yes. read the 6th post on
http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/30/4975/6.html

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Why would that burn the board? those VID shorting w/ soldering is not burning the board, so why should this do it?
all you are doing is temporary shorting the VID3, or VID4 when the computer is booting, just as thu. you have done the mod(soldering).
No I havnt done this, I did solder. but there are people who reported that unsoldering their mod will not change back to original(with no vcore changed). This means the regulator has tripped to always showing the vcore mod even if you change back(unsolder).
Click to expand...

Do you have the link to those who claimed that?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
yes, read the 6th post
http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/30/4975/6.html

 
Question re: the use of the backplate. My Asrock didn't come with a backplate, but I had an old one from a Zalman 7000. I'd like to mount the 7000 using the backplate, but I noticed that there's some contact between some motherboard components and the metal part of the plate. Is it safe to use this plate? I noticed on some other pictures that the openings of the backplate are about the same size between different manufacturers. I dont' want to risk frying my cpu and mobo on the account of a faulty heat sink installation. Anybody have any suggestions?
 
Originally posted by: RichC
Question re: the use of the backplate. My Asrock didn't come with a backplate, but I had an old one from a Zalman 7000. I'd like to mount the 7000 using the backplate, but I noticed that there's some contact between some motherboard components and the metal part of the plate. Is it safe to use this plate? I noticed on some other pictures that the openings of the backplate are about the same size between different manufacturers. I dont' want to risk frying my cpu and mobo on the account of a faulty heat sink installation. Anybody have any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Put something thin non conductive in b/w the plate and board.
 
I am worried about the conductivity. Any suggestions about what to use? However, I'm also worried about mechanical force. I don't want to overtighten the backplate onto those (capacitors?, connectors?).
 
I'm using the CoolerMaster Aquagate mini on my board and the water block/pump combo is very heavy and uses a backplate. I used strips of black electrical tape secured to the case behind the motherboard to prevent direct contact and it seems to work fine.
 
I have not had a Build as easy as this asrock board. My Venice 3200 will run at 2.6 not that it matters to me just nice to know limits, got USB resolved
 
Dumb memory question here. I've a 3800+ X2. Is there any way to set the command rate down to 1T? Or is that not an option for some reason. I'm sure not finding such an option in the bios.

Okay, additional question. Should the PCIE and CPU speeds be locked? This sucker is set to 200 and 100 and will not change.
 
Originally posted by: DarkPenguin
Dumb memory question here. I've a 3800+ X2. Is there any way to set the command rate down to 1T? Or is that not an option for some reason. I'm sure not finding such an option in the bios.

Okay, additional question. Should the PCIE and CPU speeds be locked? This sucker is set to 200 and 100 and will not change.
Click to expand...

From what I've read, the 1.20 BIOS that ships with the motherboard (or at least, that's the version that came with mine) doesn't let you change the command rate, you'll have to use a later BIOS for that. Not 100% sure on that though.

As far as the PCI-E and CPU(/HTT/"FSB") speeds, you should be able to change those unless you have one of the very early BIOS versions that didn't allow for any overclocking at all. I think you'll want to leave PCI-E at 100MHz though.
 
You have to use a later bios than 1.20 to get the command rate line to show up for X2 processors. But for me (X2 3800+) and many other users it doesn't matter anyway because stability is reduced at 1T.

When you change your overclock mode in bios to asynch, you will be able to enter numeric values in the CPU and PCIe frequency lines.
 
Thanks for the help. That seems to (mostly) work.

Another question about this board. I currently have winxp installed on a regular pata drive. I have a shinny new sata ii drive (16mb cache, 3G, ncq and all that) showing up in the next day or so. If I want to ghost over to the new disk I can obviously run the sata ii connector in ide mode. Does this give me ncq and all the sata ii goodies once the drive boots? Or is it a dumbed down mode?
 
I tried to mod for more voltage. I got a piece of small copper from the fan wire and piece of tape to short the VID4 to ground but I did not get the 1.55V. I guess it would have to be soldered?
Now, how do I know when I get the 1.55V? Is it the board that reads it or CPUz can read it?

Thanks.
 
For this voltage mod, do you think I could just put a dab of solder between the two points (VID4 and SGND) without harming the board? Just want to make sure that solder that is semi-hot for a second or so isn't going to burn it up.
 
I have the Maxtor DM10 drive running off the SATA2 bus. This drive has NCQ I believe even though it is SATA1. I hadn't thought to check if NCQ is working and am not sure how to do that.

On the Command Rate adjustment in 1.20. I changed my command rate to 1T in the BIOS. It's not called command rate it's called something else. I'm away from my ASROCK right now and can't check what it says. It was something like "MA" or similar. The settings allow for 1T, 2T, and AUTO and the difference between 1T and 2T is about a 20% increase in measured bandwidth in SISSandra with no other settings changed. I'm not sure what I can use to check the command rate setting from within Windows and I was just assuming this was command rate (any recommendations?). Stability seemed good initially at 1T but I had a couple of random reboots that are likely proving that stability at 1T will in fact be an issue. At 1T I was able to loop several times through the default tests in memtest86 and play BF2 for extended periods but still there is the rare reboot at 1T. I'm using Corsair 2x1GB XMS Pro at 3,3,3,10.

On the backplate issue: I found my temps were running a little warmer than they should using the Aquagate mini water cooler with my 3700. I removed the motherboard and waterblock to find that the bracket mounting screws on the waterblock were making contact with the heat spreader on the CPU causing a poor contact between the waterblock and the CPU heat spreader. The two solutions were to remove the heat spreader and make direct contact to the CPU core or to drill out the mounting bracket on the water block to countersink the screws so they clear the CPU heat spreader. I decided to modify the mounting bracket instead of removing the CPU heat spreader. My temps are much better now.
 
someone please help...I've searched thru this thread and still dont see my particular problem...after starting up my new "everything" pc (processor..memory.. hard drive..sound card..floppy and mobo of course...) I got to the bios screen..set a couple things and now the pc is locking up...when re-starting... the keyboard will not work nor will my monitor.. I tried to do the cmos thing ..didnt help.. tried removing the battery..waiting 30 minutes then replacing... no help..what can I do?..
 
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