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

[logicmaster2003]

Windows normally only run on the motherboard/cpu where it was installed with. So if you're gonna be working on new motherboard and new cpu.. u have to re-install windows.

Windows is not a "portable OS" like linux where it doesn't care what machine its running from.

but 2 pages ago.. this is what Killrose wrote..

If its a retail version I beleive it is registered to the Person not the Hardware. Therefore you can changeout as many motherboard as you want with a Retail version. OEM is registerd to the hardware, i.e., Motherboard and is only good with the same type of Motherboard. That is my understanding

 

[Gbaby1008]

i know that but my main problem is it won't post with my 5900xt but runs fine with a tnt2

 

[Somniferum]

Originally posted by: Gbaby1008
i know that but my main problem is it won't post with my 5900xt but runs fine with a tnt2

With the TNT2 installed, go into BIOS and you can try changing the values that relate to your video card. Try disabling Fast Writes, setting AGP to 4x, make sure Primary Graphics Card is set to AGP ... that kind of thing. Then put the 5900xt back in and see if it will POST. Keep trying different settings and hopefully you will eventually hit on the magic setting that works.

If possible, test the 5900xt in another system just to make sure it's not a problem with the card.

 

[Gbaby1008]

i got it working when i set it at 1x agp and enabling fast write, but the heatsink fan wont spin on it (video card) now, and it only works when the extra power connector isn't plugged in

also i noticed that the bord doesn't suppor 3.3v cards & what do ya know my 5900xt is a 3.3v card, but what confuses me is the tnt2 is 3.3v

so it looks like i'm gona need a new video card

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: logicmaster2003
Windows normally only run on the motherboard/cpu where it was installed with. So if you're gonna be working on new motherboard and new cpu.. u have to re-install windows.

Windows is not a "portable OS" like linux where it doesn't care what machine its running from.

but 2 pages ago.. this is what Killrose wrote..

If its a retail version I beleive it is registered to the Person not the Hardware. Therefore you can changeout as many motherboard as you want with a Retail version. OEM is registerd to the hardware, i.e., Motherboard and is only good with the same type of Motherboard. That is my understanding

The problem is going to be with call in activation of the OS. OEM version WinXP re-installs
will require call in activation, and when the MS operator looks at your DeLL OEM WinXP number code and looks at the hardware (motherboard) you have installed that is now totaly different than OEM as delivered by DeLL, they will not activate it.

You will have to buy another copy of WinXP and decide on an OEM vers which you will have to buy again on your next motherboard up-grade, or a full retail version which is licenced to the user, not the hardware and can be used indefinately.

This is they way I understand it works and I may be wrong on some points.

 

[Gbaby1008]

Problem solved! picked up a radeon x700pro pcie
runs perfectly

 

[Gbaby1008]

New problem Now everytime i try to install drivers for my new video card i get the blue screen of death, any ideas? ..

nvm all problems solved with a clean install, and i'm lovin this board

 

[nealh]

I ordered this to replace the mobo for my wife

I need a stable Bios...I was going to use OCW beta bios

doe sthis board under or over volt at all....does it supply 1.45v

I have a winnie prime 95 at 2.4@1.45v on Neo 2 Plat right now

I will be running KVR ram that is running at 200mhz on Abit IT 7 max2 rev2...

I will be using the onboard sound

So do I need to do anything special on install
Components:
Antec 400w psu
Asrock mobo
A64 winnie@2400 1.45v hopefully with XP90, got a backplate
2x 512mg KVR
9700 pro
Benq 1620 dvdrw
onboard sound
80gb 7200rpm WD hdd
160gb 7200rpm maxtor ..using abit sata adapter run on sata

do have to lock sata ports?

thanks guys

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: nealh
I ordered this to replace the mobo for my wife

I need a stable Bios...I was going to use OCW beta bios

doe sthis board under or over volt at all....does it supply 1.45v

I have a winnie prime 95 at 2.4@1.45v on Neo 2 Plat right now

I will be running KVR ram that is running at 200mhz on Abit IT 7 max2 rev2...

I will be using the onboard sound

So do I need to do anything special on install
Components:
Antec 400w psu
Asrock mobo
A64 winnie@2400 1.45v hopefully with XP90, got a backplate
2x 512mg KVR
9700 pro
Benq 1620 dvdrw
onboard sound
80gb 7200rpm WD hdd
160gb 7200rpm maxtor ..using abit sata adapter run on sata

do have to lock sata ports?

thanks guys

As far as I can tell, the board overvolts slightly. Sounds like you've got everything lined up for a good build, just remember to install the AGP drivers before your video card drivers. I'm not entirely sure about the SATA ports and locking, I know the AGP and PCI buses are locked (divided down from the PCI-E bus I think I remember reading?)...the SATAII port is on the PCI-E bus I think, but the others are probably from the chipset. For what it's worth I haven't had any problems with my Serial ATA hard drives and overclocking (they're on the regular SATA1 ports, one of which is IDE using an adapter).

Edit: And yeah, you should be able to do 1.45V on that CPU without modding. I had some strange problems with the OCWB1 BIOS (like warm boots not working), I'm using the official 1.50 right now and it seems to work fine. There's no harm in experimenting though, if you know what you're doing.

 

[nealh]

thank you very much

can you flash from winxp...are the bios files a .bin

also does anyone have a bootable cd with the bios es on there?

there is one over at DFI...for DFI mobos

 

[professor1942]

Yeah you can flash from Windows... they have both Windows and DOS versions on the Asrock site.

But uggh, I just can't get my cheap memory past 200 Mhz with this board (2x512 Kingston Value, 2x512 Samsung)... I set it to 205 and horrible things happened which resulting in me having to use fixboot from the XP cd. Funny because those DIMMS ran perfectly in my old P4P800 board at 215 Mhz.

Also, 166 Mhz with the divider turns out to be only 157, so I'm looking at setting the CPU clock pretty high to get any real advantage

Otherwise, a nice board....

 

[Bad Dude]

After playing around with it a bit, I finally got it to run 9X294 but it has a warm boot problem. It would play games fine but when ever I reboot, it just won't boot up. I had to turn the computer off and wait a few seconds then it will boot up fine. I also have tried 11X240FSB and 10X264FSB. Also which I had to use the high Vcore of 1.55V. I did the mod by shorting VID3 with a tiny piece of copper wire and some tape which works well. No need for soldering b/c I did not want to spend $12 at Radioshack for a conducting pen. With any high FSB overclocking, I get the warm boot issues.

 

[nealh]

Originally posted by: professor1942
Yeah you can flash from Windows... they have both Windows and DOS versions on the Asrock site.

But uggh, I just can't get my cheap memory past 200 Mhz with this board (2x512 Kingston Value, 2x512 Samsung)... I set it to 205 and horrible things happened which resulting in me having to use fixboot from the XP cd. Funny because those DIMMS ran perfectly in my old P4P800 board at 215 Mhz.

Also, 166 Mhz with the divider turns out to be only 157, so I'm looking at setting the CPU clock pretty high to get any real advantage

Otherwise, a nice board....

thanks..I just hope the KVR does 200mhz like it has for the couple of yrs..

 

[Eserim]

Ok, I've got one of these and *think* I have issues with the SAT-II speeds.

I've read half the backlog on this forum, but as I am being called away from the PC for the rest of the day,I thought I'd post anyway, apologies if this has been dealt with before.

Anyway, Sandra tests of my old PATA and SATA-II show similar overal values - this is the latest for my SATA-II


Benchmark Breakdown
Buffered Read : 108 MB/s
Sequential Read : 57 MB/s
Random Read : 40 MB/s
Buffered Write : 75 MB/s
Sequential Write : 57 MB/s
Random Write : 41 MB/s
Average Access Time : 7 ms (estimated)

Drive
Drive Type : Hard Disk
Total Size : 77GB
Free Space : 29GB, 38%

The overal Sandra index is 50 Mb/s

My old PATA drive results are;

Buffered Read : 123 MB/s
Sequential Read : 56 MB/s
Random Read : 40 MB/s
Buffered Write : 46 MB/s
Sequential Write : 56 MB/s
Random Write : 29 MB/s
Average Access Time : 7 ms (estimated)

I've set the BIOS up to use SATA mode and everything else looks OK.

Both drives are hitachi drives.

I've flashed the latest BIOS 1.5 and installed the SATA II driver from the website, however this lists the drive as a SCSI drive now in device manager - is that normal?

So any suggestions as to what is causing speeds the same (or less!) as a none SATA II drive?

Cheers

Eserim

 

[nealh]

BTW do you need to install the usb driver if you are using winxp sp2???

 

[professor1942]

No, it won't let you if you try (USB driver).

 

[nealh]

thanks

 

[Eserim]

Been doing some more research - do I need to use the Hitachi "feature tool" package to enable SATA-II features? If I do will it work any faster? Will it work at all? As the warning on the download page (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm) is clear, if you enable it and the system cannot cope you can only de-enable it on a system that can.

Any ideas?

Eserim

 

[Gbaby1008]

I just started oc a bit i got my 3200 venice to 2.48, i was wondering where u change the htt?, i cant find it (ya i feel stupid) i have 1.4 bios (also do u think 2.48 is the max i can get it to)

 

[imported_Woody]

Originally posted by: Gbaby1008
I just started oc a bit i got my 3200 venice to 2.48, i was wondering where u change the htt?, i cant find it (ya i feel stupid) i have 1.4 bios (also do u think 2.48 is the max i can get it to)

This is discussed about five pages back in this thread...if you can find it....

Basically the HT bus speed is adjusted under a setting called "CPU/Northbridge speed" or something similar. Default is set to 1000MHz which is 5xHTT. If you set the HTT to 250MHz you could set the Northbridge speed to 800MHz which is 4XHTT giving you a speed of 1000MHz again. The goal is to keep the speed less than or around 1000MHz. Some have reported better luck with lower speeds with no performance hit so you may want to experiment with 600MHz or lower.

 

[qsrk]

Originally posted by: Eserim
Been doing some more research - do I need to use the Hitachi "feature tool" package to enable SATA-II features? If I do will it work any faster? Will it work at all? As the warning on the download page (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm) is clear, if you enable it and the system cannot cope you can only de-enable it on a system that can.

Any ideas?

Eserim

I have a Hitachi SATA-II drive, and I had to use the tool to enable 3.0GB/s, and Spread Spectrum. The drive is fast, but I occasionaly get KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR BSODs, which may be attributed to those settings, the JMicron controller, bad cabling, or other issues. I haven't tried troubleshooting by hooking up to the normal SATA-I connectors yet. Also, I found that I have to set the SATA-II BIOS setting to IDE. If I set it to SATA, the feature tool can't see the HD. ASRock tech support said that setting should not make a performance difference...

BTW, I couldn't find any drivers on the JMicron site. Does anybody have a link for anything newer than the ASRock website?

 

[Gbaby1008]

I was wondering if its possible for me to get to 2.6 i'm fine at 2.55 i've lowered the htt and done everything i can think of. i have an e3 3200 so i've heard many people have been able to make to 2.7 even, is it just as far as it can go or could it be because my memory or psu?

 

[designit]

below is my opteron 146 overclocked w/ this mobo
the ram i am using now dont like dividers, and can only be set @ 1:1 ratio and go to DDR566 (stock DDR550, hynix chips).
but TCCD's will overclock to 312 mhz and can give you varieties of settings and dividers.
That is why it pays to buy good set of rams. TCCD's are my favorate.

http://img347.imageshack.us/img347/6204/122720051435180rw.jpg

overclocked to 2.9 ghz w/ single stick of xblk 512. my rams RMA'd. will recieve new 2x512 xblk and then will post my results.
http://img373.imageshack.us/my.php?image=122320050016358sz.jpg

3002 mhz but no superpi
http://img454.imageshack.us/my.php?image=122720051239183tv.jpg

 

[Germonicus]

I've been reading this thread for a week now (and boy it took some dedication) trying to decide what to do about my upgrade.

I'm currently running an ASUS a7N8x deluxe mobo with an athlon XP3000+ which seems to have a slight power problem (drives drop out,BSOD) which hasn't been fixed with a new 550W PSU ,new cabling,new SATA HDD so it's time to buy a new setup.

Ok,my question here is ,would anyone know how good a match this combo would be:
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 , Athlon 64 3800(Venice) , Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower CPU H/S ? I've heard of people having problems with larger/heavier heatsinks.
I'm gonna keep my old memory,even though it's 4x 512 PC3200 Samsung unmatched (it can wait til I have spare cash) and keep my old Radeon 9800 pro AGP.

So is this a good,stable setup to build until I have the cash for a new MB and PCIE GFX card (next year sometime)?
Anyone tried it?Any problems?Any suggestions?

I won't be overclocking at all.....I know nothing about oc'ing and it kinda scares me cos I can't afford to replace parts when I have a meltdown

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Germonicus
I've been reading this thread for a week now (and boy it took some dedication) trying to decide what to do about my upgrade.

I'm currently running an ASUS a7N8x deluxe mobo with an athlon XP3000+ which seems to have a slight power problem (drives drop out,BSOD) which hasn't been fixed with a new 550W PSU ,new cabling,new SATA HDD so it's time to buy a new setup.

Ok,my question here is ,would anyone know how good a match this combo would be:
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 , Athlon 64 3800(Venice) , Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower CPU H/S ? I've heard of people having problems with larger/heavier heatsinks.
I'm gonna keep my old memory,even though it's 4x 512 PC3200 Samsung unmatched (it can wait til I have spare cash) and keep my old Radeon 9800 pro.

So is this a good,stable setup to build until I have the cash for a new MB and PCIE GFX card (next year sometime)?
Anyone tried it?Any problems?Any suggestions?

I won't be overclocking at all.....I know nothing about oc'ing and it kinda scares me cos I can't afford to replace parts when I have a meltdown

First off, welcome to the forums.

Your setup sounds like it'll work just fine, except that I'm not familiar with that specific heatsink. People have gotten pretty big heatsinks to work on this board though, such as the Thermalright XP120 and SI-120 (which I happen to be using myself). Worst case scenario, you could always just use the AMD stock/retail heatsink, assuming you by a retail chip (since you're not planning on overclocking).