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

[imported_Matthew]

SynthDude2001

Thanks for the advise. I will try it as soon as I get a new monitor. Some freak thing tonight and my monitor is dead. Oh well...Thanks again. Lucky for work computer

 

[imported_Matthew]

Oh just thought of another question. Is there another monitor out there to tell cpu temp and fan speed in windows. If some one has posted it already I didn't see it. I thought I read were someone else had asked about it. I thought my temps were a little low even when over clocked. Or should I say they never moved at stock speed they read 94deg. And at 2.17 still the same even under a load. Plus it is a pain to have to keep checking the bios....lol

 

[Gbaby1008]

I'm using speed fan and it seems to be working fine with this board

 

[professor1942]

Speedfan, or Motherboard Monitor 5 (which I prefer)... that one is a bit more work as you have to set it up manually... Sensor 1 is Board, Sensor 2 is cpu. You should notice about 10 degree increase on the cpu temp under load.

 

[GrJohnso]

Anyone have any issues with the quality of the sound witht his MB? I definitely get a lot more buz/background noise that with any other integrated sound setup. Is it just me?

If anyone has a lead on an inexpensive PCI card, let me know. The buz is killing me...

BTW, other than that, I'm pretty stoked on this mb... using stock voltage it ran my x2 3800 at 2.5ghz, mem at about 212mhz just fine... At 1.4v I'm running 2.55ghz (reads 2.56ghz in cpu-z) with no issues... 1T is a little flaky with my Crucial 3200 VS chips, so I just run 2T... did benchmark and 1T buys a tiny bit of peformance, but not much. I'll take the stability thank you...

 

[professor1942]

I would never use onboard sound, so I didn't try it...

and I've seen recent ads for Audigy cards for $25...

 

[letdown427]

Is anyone running 2x1GB on this, with Windows 2000 Professional? I've noticed one or two with it with 2Gb, although I'm betting you use XP. I've been having some problems getting windows to notice the 2Gb of ram. Thread is here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=34&threadid=1775955&enterthread=y

Also, I have a 4400+ X2, it's at 2.5Ghz with this board, no problems. Voltage adjustments are only up to 1.45 still, but there's some pretty hands on mods for vDimm modding.
I have an akasa evo 120 too, that's a pretty hefty HSF, and it fits on the board, although technically, you need a K8 cpu backplate to mount it, but i was able to work around that.

If you want to overclock, the v1.20 bios is the best, as others have had problems with the bios changes resetting to defaults in the later versions, or being completely locked up. oddly enough.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: GrJohnso
Anyone have any issues with the quality of the sound witht his MB? I definitely get a lot more buz/background noise that with any other integrated sound setup. Is it just me?

If anyone has a lead on an inexpensive PCI card, let me know. The buz is killing me...

BTW, other than that, I'm pretty stoked on this mb... using stock voltage it ran my x2 3800 at 2.5ghz, mem at about 212mhz just fine... At 1.4v I'm running 2.55ghz (reads 2.56ghz in cpu-z) with no issues... 1T is a little flaky with my Crucial 3200 VS chips, so I just run 2T... did benchmark and 1T buys a tiny bit of peformance, but not much. I'll take the stability thank you...

I also didn't notice any issues with the onboard sound for the (very short) time I used it. However, as professor1942 said, you can pick up a used Audigy-level card really cheaply on the For Sale/Trade forums here. I picked up my Audigy 2 for $50, and if you just want a basic Live or Audigy card, you can probably find one for less than that.

Edit: I think you can even get a SB Live 24 bit at retail for something like $30.

 

[GrJohnso]

Thanks for the tips... Yah, I know I shouldn't have expected much out of the onboard, but at least with my older ABIT and ECS MB's it was doable. Definitely not impressed this time around... Oh well... Probably grab the live or the Turtle Beach card floating around the Hot Deals area... Mostly used for music and movie listening, only a little on the gaming side...

I remember back in the day when my Gravis Ultrasound was hot $#it... We've come so far, and yet Sound Blaster is still a name to be recon'd with.

 

[niggles]

OK, so now that the the new Socket-AM2 is to be released shortly has anyone heard whether Asrock will actually relase the CPU socket converter to allow a Socket-AM2 processor? I couldn't find anything on their website, but it's possible that I simply missed.

 

[imported_Matthew]

Thanks to all who helped me out. Just ordered the new monitor from zipzoom and hope to be back in action on saturday

 

[EKTELESTES]

DON'T get a sblive the onboard sound is a lot better than SB live! i donno about audigy, but I had a sblive in my old pc, it was crap compared to the onboard of this mobo!

 

[torpid]

OK, here come some idiot questions.

This is my first A64 install. I'm not sure what to do with the heatsink. I have a zalman 7000, and it comes with a backplate. But this motherboard has some sort of black pastic contraption around the outside of the cpu socket. Seems to be there if using the stock cooling that comes in the retail box? Do I just remove this black thing and then use the backplate supplied with my heatsink?

According to the manual, it seems like if I use the 7000 I will be voiding the warranty of the CPU. Should I do a burn-in test with the stock fan and then only when I am sure it is stable, switch to a custom cooling solution for any overclocking?

Last question, I'm assuming that even though the heatsink came with some form of thermal grease, it is still advisable to use arctic silver or similar?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: torpid
OK, here come some idiot questions.

This is my first A64 install. I'm not sure what to do with the heatsink. I have a zalman 7000, and it comes with a backplate. But this motherboard has some sort of black pastic contraption around the outside of the cpu socket. Seems to be there if using the stock cooling that comes in the retail box? Do I just remove this black thing and then use the backplate supplied with my heatsink?

According to the manual, it seems like if I use the 7000 I will be voiding the warranty of the CPU. Should I do a burn-in test with the stock fan and then only when I am sure it is stable, switch to a custom cooling solution for any overclocking?

Last question, I'm assuming that even though the heatsink came with some form of thermal grease, it is still advisable to use arctic silver or similar?

When you speak of a backplate that came with your heatsink, are you talking about a metal plate? Or the plastic retention bracket? I assume that the retention bracket that comes with the motherboard is for AMD stock heatsinks, like you mentioned. When I ordered my heatsink (Thermalright SI-120), it came with its own plastic retention bracket, so I had to remove the one that came on the motherboard. In addition, it needed a metal backplate that it did not come with, so I had to order it from somewhere else. I'm not familiar with the Zalman heatsinks, so I'm not exactly sure what it is that came with yours. If it was both a backplate and a retention bracket, you'd remove the board's stock bracket and just replace it. It should be more or less obvious what will work with the heatsink, as far as being able to mount it.

I've never heard of aftermarket coolers voiding CPU warranties, so I don't know if that's true. I suppose if you really wanted to be cautious you could do what you suggested, but if you're planning on overclocking anyway I wouldn't bother. And yes, I would go ahead and use Arctic Silver or a similar thermal material if you've already got some or can get it inexpensively (which you usually can). My heatsink came with some generic white stuff but I used the AS5 I had remaining from my last computer build.

 

[torpid]

Thanks synth. As per the zalman website, the thing it came with is all that is needed. It's just a black thing that goes below the motherboard. It does not require a retaining bracket for socket 939 apparently (though it does for other socket types).

The thing about warranty voiding is in the packet that came with my processor.

 

[Ike0069]

If you buy a retail CPU, you void the warranty by using anything but the stock cooler.
But you also void the warranty by overclocking, so using a different HSF really makes no difference.

As for the thermal paste, it comes preatached to the stock HS, not the CPU. It's also a one time use product.
So if you use the Zalman you will need your own thermal paste anyways.

 

[torpid]

Is there any reason why I would want to use the vCore mod that involves soldering on an additional part (links in OP) instead of the one where I can just use a circuit pen to connect two sections (the OCW Forums method)? I don't really understand the benefit, except maybe that it allows for more variations in voltage.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: torpid
Is there any reason why I would want to use the vCore mod that involves soldering on an additional part (links in OP) instead of the one where I can just use a circuit pen to connect two sections (the OCW Forums method)? I don't really understand the benefit, except maybe that it allows for more variations in voltage.

The soldering/resistor Vcore mod is independent of the BIOS (could be either a good thing or bad thing depending on how you look at it), and can be used to get basically any voltage you want as long as you use the correct resistor. The conductive pen one, depending on which variation you do, only modifies certain blocks of voltages in the BIOS. For example, I select 1.150V if I want 1.550V actual (I did the VID4-GND one). In that variation the voltages around 1.35V are not modified, so you can still run the CPU (or another one) at stock easily later if you want to. The only limitation to this mod is that it will only get you 1.55V. That's sufficient for me (2.6-2.75GHz), but if you want to do some "extreme" overclocking it might not be enough. I would be uneasy using anything above around 1.60 or maybe 1.65V for long periods of time though...

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: torpid
Is there any reason why I would want to use the vCore mod that involves soldering on an additional part (links in OP) instead of the one where I can just use a circuit pen to connect two sections (the OCW Forums method)? I don't really understand the benefit, except maybe that it allows for more variations in voltage.

The soldering/resistor Vcore mod is independent of the BIOS (could be either a good thing or bad thing depending on how you look at it), and can be used to get basically any voltage you want as long as you use the correct resistor. The conductive pen one, depending on which variation you do, only modifies certain blocks of voltages in the BIOS. For example, I select 1.150V if I want 1.550V actual (I did the VID4-GND one). In that variation the voltages around 1.35V are not modified, so you can still run the CPU (or another one) at stock easily later if you want to. The only limitation to this mod is that it will only get you 1.55V. That's sufficient for me (2.6-2.75GHz), but if you want to do some "extreme" overclocking it might not be enough. I would be uneasy using anything above around 1.60 or maybe 1.65V for long periods of time though...

I guess it depends on how comfortable one is with soldering. It just seems to me that there is little advantage to the resistor method from a pragmatic OCing perspective.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: torpid

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: torpid
Is there any reason why I would want to use the vCore mod that involves soldering on an additional part (links in OP) instead of the one where I can just use a circuit pen to connect two sections (the OCW Forums method)? I don't really understand the benefit, except maybe that it allows for more variations in voltage.

The soldering/resistor Vcore mod is independent of the BIOS (could be either a good thing or bad thing depending on how you look at it), and can be used to get basically any voltage you want as long as you use the correct resistor. The conductive pen one, depending on which variation you do, only modifies certain blocks of voltages in the BIOS. For example, I select 1.150V if I want 1.550V actual (I did the VID4-GND one). In that variation the voltages around 1.35V are not modified, so you can still run the CPU (or another one) at stock easily later if you want to. The only limitation to this mod is that it will only get you 1.55V. That's sufficient for me (2.6-2.75GHz), but if you want to do some "extreme" overclocking it might not be enough. I would be uneasy using anything above around 1.60 or maybe 1.65V for long periods of time though...

I guess it depends on how comfortable one is with soldering. It just seems to me that there is little advantage to the resistor method from a pragmatic OCing perspective.

I agree - unless you want voltages that are really pretty high (that the board isn't even spec'ed to provide), the resistor mod doesn't have many advantages. Especially if you wouldn't trust yourself with a soldering iron like I wouldn't

Edit: There was some discussion I'd read about whether or not the OCW conductive pen mod is reversible (the resistor mod is always reversible since you can just remove the resistor), but if you do the variation that doesn't modify the stock voltages, I don't think it'll ever be an issue...

 

[imported_Imp]

Hey,

Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem. I've had this board for almost four weeks in a new build that has been completely stable when up and running; it has only crashed once(BSOD).

However, in the past week since the weekend, it's been crapping out while trying to boot. I've had one disc read error, some 'lockups' just after POST (just get a black screen with nothing or 'select/insert proper boot device bla bla'); today, it happened again, but I noticed that it got stuck a few times looking for my third boot device <-I don't have one, just one HD and one CD in HD-CD boot order.

I've since disabled the SATAII controller, secondary IDE and floppy(did this first power-up). I'm running the default BIOS v1.20. So if you've read this far, you're wondering what the real question is: I've heard of the "COLD BOOT PROBLEM" before, but could anyone comfirm whether or not this is it?

--->By the way, ran memtest total of 6 times no problem. Scandisked the HD thrice and no errors; like I said earlier, it's near perfectly stable while up and running.
Ok, I forgot to add that it's not overclocked, everything's at stock except Ram settings are lowered below stock since I screwed up and bought slightly mis-matched memory.
More forgetting, I don't recall any problems when rebooting.
Bla, also scanned for viruses many times, no problems.

Thanks a lot,

Imp

 

[Maestrokneer]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: Sonicvalley

Originally posted by: EKTELESTES
just had to select IDE mode for the SATAII controller in the BIOS. No drivers required.

Edit: Same thing that qsrk said above

So EKTELESTES....I've also been having problems getting my windows installed on my SATA II hard drive (WD2500), and I switched the HD over to IDE mode in the BIOS and got Windows installed. Then I installed the SATA II controller using the disk provided by ASRock, the computer restarted automatically. I then entered BIOS and switched back to SATA II, but instead of booting windows, I got a "NTLDR is missing" error.

Did you not get that? If so, do you know how to solve that issue? It appears switching back to SATA II isn't as easy as I had thought.

I appreciate anything you (or anyone else) could do to help. Thanks!

Maestro

 

[professor1942]

Originally posted by: Imp
Hey,

Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem. I've had this board for almost four weeks in a new build that has been completely stable when up and running; it has only crashed once(BSOD).

However, in the past week since the weekend, it's been crapping out while trying to boot. I've had one disc read error, some 'lockups' just after POST (just get a black screen with nothing or 'select/insert proper boot device bla bla'); today, it happened again, but I noticed that it got stuck a few times looking for my third boot device <-I don't have one, just one HD and one CD in HD-CD boot order.

I've since disabled the SATAII controller, secondary IDE and floppy(did this first power-up). I'm running the default BIOS v1.20. So if you've read this far, you're wondering what the real question is: I've heard of the "COLD BOOT PROBLEM" before, but could anyone comfirm whether or not this is it?

--->By the way, ran memtest total of 6 times no problem. Scandisked the HD thrice and no errors; like I said earlier, it's near perfectly stable while up and running.
Ok, I forgot to add that it's not overclocked, everything's at stock except Ram settings are lowered below stock since I screwed up and bought slightly mis-matched memory.
More forgetting, I don't recall any problems when rebooting.
Bla, also scanned for viruses many times, no problems.

Thanks a lot,

Imp

Update your BIOS!

 

[EKTELESTES]

Originally posted by: Maestrokneer

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: Sonicvalley

Originally posted by: EKTELESTES
just had to select IDE mode for the SATAII controller in the BIOS. No drivers required.

Edit: Same thing that qsrk said above

So EKTELESTES....I've also been having problems getting my windows installed on my SATA II hard drive (WD2500), and I switched the HD over to IDE mode in the BIOS and got Windows installed. Then I installed the SATA II controller using the disk provided by ASRock, the computer restarted automatically. I then entered BIOS and switched back to SATA II, but instead of booting windows, I got a "NTLDR is missing" error.

Did you not get that? If so, do you know how to solve that issue? It appears switching back to SATA II isn't as easy as I had thought.

I appreciate anything you (or anyone else) could do to help. Thanks!

Maestro

Maestro, I installed win xp using the sata II drivers floppy disk.I didn't use ide mode. So, maybe it would be better if u used sata II from the beginning so u won't have to switch later on.
But even if u leave the ide option on, u shouldn't be having any probs

 

[Maestrokneer]

Maestro, I installed win xp using the sata II drivers floppy disk.I didn't use ide mode. So, maybe it would be better if u used sata II from the beginning so u won't have to switch later on.

Yeah...I tried that too. I formatted the floppy, copied the files "X32, X64, Jmicron, and txtsetup.oem to the floppy and pressed F6 during Windows setup (with my hard drive set to SATA II mode). But when it prompted me for the manufacturers driver disk, and I inserted my floppy in the drive, nothing happened. It paused for a second and repeated the request to insert the manufacturer's floopy disk.

I already tried switching out the floppy drive with another I know that works (the one I used to fomat the disk). Any suggestions for either making the floppy work, or a workaround that doesn't require the floppy yet enables me to switch back to SATA II after I receive the "NTDLR is missing message"?