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

[Ike0069]

I just set up this board and an Opty 146 last night.

I had read that if you have a large cooler on your AGP VC (like I do with an NV Silencer/6800GT), you only have one usuable PCI slot.

I never did read about how this cooler also sits directly over the IDE MB connections. This is an absolute horrible set up. I had to lower my optical drives to the lowest two spots in my case just to get a 24" IDE cable to reach (the only one that comes with the board is 18"). And I had to use the supplied IDE cable rather than a round one to install teh HDD IDE cable due to the fact that my VC cooler makes it impossible to use rounded cables here.

The board is great, but if you have an NV silencer on an X800/6800 AGP card, then you should really try and use SATA HDD's. I am just using the HDD's from my old setup, and obviously they are IDE.

Other than that, 2700 MHz Prime stable with an Opty 146 is unreal for a $70 MB. With a PCI-e VC, I would rate this board a 9/10. (The fact that it won't run 1T is my only complaint with its performance).

 

[imported_Woody]

Originally posted by: Ike0069
I had read that if you have a large cooler on your AGP VC (like I do with an NV Silencer/6800GT), you only have one usuable PCI slot.

I'm not sure what the actual limitations would be but it may be a consideration if you happen to have a very large cooler on your AGP VGA card and need more than one PCI slot.

On the other hand, if you are buying a new video card you would almost certainly buy a PCIe card and have plenty of room.

Since there are no other options for this type of configuration I think they did a reasonably good job of the layout by placing the legacy connectors in the less convenient location and favoring the modern interfaces such as PCIe and SATA.

 

[roadrunner650]

My video card on this asrock board is a radeon 9250 256mb.
Any ideas why it appears as 2 (128mb each) cards in device manager? Is that because I have a 4200 dual core cpu? It puzzles me because I've seen no mention of this in any forum.
thanks in advance.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: roadrunner650
My video card on this asrock board is a radeon 9250 256mb.
Any ideas why it appears as 2 (128mb each) cards in device manager? Is that because I have a 4200 dual core cpu? It puzzles me because I've seen no mention of this in any forum.
thanks in advance.

Hmm...it's been forever since I used an ATI card (last time was my old 9700 Pro before I got rid of it in Summer 2004), but I do seem to remember it showing up as two devices in Device Manager; Primary and Secondary. I assume that's just ATI's way of showing that the card has dual monitor support, shouldn't be anything to worry about. (Although it is kind of odd that it's not showing your full RAM amount on each 'virtual' card...)

 

[imported_Imp]

This is getting tiresome, but this is a new development in my trials and issues with this board. So my system starting getting choppy, so I investigated through task manager. System Idle Process was 90+%, I thought this was slowing me down. NOPE, further research(googling) led me to use Process Explorer to check out the problem, apparently, i'm getting a load of hardware interrupts. More googling led me to windows Event Viewer......Bingo. So, apparently something IS indeed up with my the board's SATA controller/driver.

Event Viewer, under the System panel, an error message is littering my screen. An error with source m5289 is getting logged every 5-6 seconds. Properties says:

"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Scsi\m52891."

So, am I screwed or can I reinstall teh driver somehow? Btw, this chugging has happened before, but it went away after a few minutes. This time, it's still here after about an hour. I'd contact ASrock support, but they don't reply in person, not even a standard troubleshooting e-mail.

...It is not the hard drive, tested it with all diagnostic tools from Seagate, and no problem. Stuff is opening/running fine on HD.

Psh...lazy me, found driver right on official website, hope it doesn't mess things up.

Thanks

 

[quandasar]

i am in the process of installing a thermaltake big typhoon on this motherboard, but it wont fit, even if i follow the instructions, there is no place to fasten the screws for some reason ... any ideas ?

 

[Dragonslayere]

you have to pop the retention bracket out by pushing the white pins up from the bottom

 

[quandasar]

Originally posted by: Dragonslayere
you have to pop the retention bracket out by pushing the white pins up from the bottom

I have done that, do i need some sort of backplate since there is no place to attatch anything, i have tried my very best to follow the instructions but it just doesn´t add up

 

[Dragonslayere]

yes you need the back plate(H clip)

 

[imported_Seer]

What is an H clip? Will this work?

http://www.thermalright.com/a_page/main_product_accessories.htm#acc_k8bp

You need insulative matting though, right?

 

[Dragonslayere]

that could work... don't know if it would fit...

anyways the HS comes with everything you need, and the H clip is the "H" shape peice of metal. theres 2 of them one used as a back plate and one to mount the fan

its all in the instructions...

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Seer
What is an H clip? Will this work?

http://www.thermalright.com/a_page/main_product_accessories.htm#acc_k8bp

You need insulative matting though, right?

I'm not sure about the Thermaltake Big Typhoon (since I think that's what HSF we're talking about), but that is the backplate I used for my Thermalright SI-120. You do not need any separate insulator material, because the side of the backplate that touches the motherboard is covered in plastic or acrylic or something.

 

[niggles]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: roadrunner650
My video card on this asrock board is a radeon 9250 256mb.
Any ideas why it appears as 2 (128mb each) cards in device manager? Is that because I have a 4200 dual core cpu? It puzzles me because I've seen no mention of this in any forum.
thanks in advance.

Hmm...it's been forever since I used an ATI card (last time was my old 9700 Pro before I got rid of it in Summer 2004), but I do seem to remember it showing up as two devices in Device Manager; Primary and Secondary. I assume that's just ATI's way of showing that the card has dual monitor support, shouldn't be anything to worry about. (Although it is kind of odd that it's not showing your full RAM amount on each 'virtual' card...)

yes, that's it exactly.

 

[Dragonslayere]

@SynthDude2001
i see that you overclocked your opteron by 600Mhz.. what kind of cooling do you have?
and how can i go about OC my athlon 64 x2 4200+? and is it possible with the thermaltake big typhoon?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Dragonslayere
@SynthDude2001
i see that you overclocked your opteron by 600Mhz.. what kind of cooling do you have?
and how can i go about OC my athlon 64 x2 4200+? and is it possible with the thermaltake big typhoon?

Thermalright SI-120 heatsink with Thermaltake Smart Case Fan II (120mm). I'm not that familiar with the TT Big Typhoon but it seems to be a good heatsink too, you should be able to overclock some with it.

As far as actually going about overclocking, you'll want to start off by lowering your RAM divider to 166MHz (in the BIOS - you could leave it at 200 if your RAM is higher than PC3200 spec), make sure CPU and PCI/PCI-E are async (100MHz fixed for PCI-E), lower your HTT-Northbridge link speed to 800MHz (in advanced chipset options), possibly increase your RAM voltage to High if you'll be running it out of spec, then start raising the CPU/HTT speed. You should be able to hit at least 2.4 without much trouble, I'd imagine - and since you have an 11x multiplier (I think), that would be about 218MHz CPU/HTT. Much higher than that and you'll really need to voltmod (it's not difficult, but it's definitely more involved than just messing with BIOS options).

That should get you started...let me know if you need anything explained in more detail.

 

[Dragonslayere]

what speed would you say is the safe max? i was thinking of like 2.6-2.8GHz but don't want to risk it it dying on me prematurally

 

[SynthDude2001]

2.6GHz should be pretty safe no matter what (as long as voltage is reasonable). 2.8 would be safe too if you can get there without overdoing the voltage, but 2.8 is a lot less likely than 2.6, especially when you take into account the voltage limitations of this board. I'm not entirely sure that you'll be able to hit 2.6 with the stock (non-modded) board's voltage options, but you should definitely give it a shot.

 

[Dragonslayere]

hmm well i tried 237mhz but that didn't work it would go to the windows loading screen and then restart

i'm currently using 225mhz-2.475Ghz

anyways i think i'm configering it wrong...

anyways why do i have to lower the HTT-Northbridge link speed to 800MHz? what about NB-SB?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Dragonslayere
hmm well i tried 237mhz but that didn't work it would go to the windows loading screen and then restart

i'm currently using 225mhz-2.475Ghz

anyways i think i'm configering it wrong...

anyways why do i have to lower the HTT-Northbridge link speed to 800MHz? what about NB-SB?

You have to lower that link speed because it's really a multiplier...you want the total speed to stay at or under 1000MHz, so lowering it to 800 (4x) keeps it in spec, unless you go above 250HTT. I read that you do not need to lower the NB-SB speed too, but if you want to try that, it certainly won't hurt anything (I ran it like that for a while until I read that post stating that you shouldn't have to lower it).

2.4-2.5 may be all you can get out of that CPU with the voltage available to you right now. I could not get 2.6GHz on mine without voltmodding, though 2.4 was a piece of cake. (I didn't really bother trying anything in between the two.)

It's been several weeks since I've actually messed with my own BIOS settings, but I think I mentioned everything you should be changing (or just aware of) for overclocking.

 

[Dragonslayere]

by the way which bios version is the best?

 

[SynthDude2001]

I'm using 1.50 (official) now with no problems...some of the OCW Beta BIOS releases are good too (especially 1 and 2), but IMO they aren't that necessary unless you need a pretty high HTT speed (above about 270 or 274, like if you're limited to a 9x multiplier on an Opteron 165 or whatever).

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: Dragonslayere
hmm well i tried 237mhz but that didn't work it would go to the windows loading screen and then restart

i'm currently using 225mhz-2.475Ghz

anyways i think i'm configering it wrong...

anyways why do i have to lower the HTT-Northbridge link speed to 800MHz? what about NB-SB?

You have to lower that link speed because it's really a multiplier...you want the total speed to stay at or under 1000MHz, so lowering it to 800 (4x) keeps it in spec, unless you go above 250HTT. I read that you do not need to lower the NB-SB speed too, but if you want to try that, it certainly won't hurt anything (I ran it like that for a while until I read that post stating that you shouldn't have to lower it).

2.4-2.5 may be all you can get out of that CPU with the voltage available to you right now. I could not get 2.6GHz on mine without voltmodding, though 2.4 was a piece of cake. (I didn't really bother trying anything in between the two.)

It's been several weeks since I've actually messed with my own BIOS settings, but I think I mentioned everything you should be changing (or just aware of) for overclocking.

Dragonslayere, which Opty do you have?

FYI, I am running 270HTT and I left the HT-NB multiplier at 4x (1080) and has been rock stable. I've read of several people doing this with no problems so it seems this board will run at least ~1100HT stable. Just another reason to love it. I also left the NB-SB speed at default. I was able to get up to 2.6 on stock Vcore, and raised it to 1.425 for 2.7GHz. Of course I think alot of that has to do with the core stepping more than anything else.

Edit: This is on Official BIOS 1.50

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Ike0069

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: Dragonslayere
hmm well i tried 237mhz but that didn't work it would go to the windows loading screen and then restart

i'm currently using 225mhz-2.475Ghz

anyways i think i'm configering it wrong...

anyways why do i have to lower the HTT-Northbridge link speed to 800MHz? what about NB-SB?

You have to lower that link speed because it's really a multiplier...you want the total speed to stay at or under 1000MHz, so lowering it to 800 (4x) keeps it in spec, unless you go above 250HTT. I read that you do not need to lower the NB-SB speed too, but if you want to try that, it certainly won't hurt anything (I ran it like that for a while until I read that post stating that you shouldn't have to lower it).

2.4-2.5 may be all you can get out of that CPU with the voltage available to you right now. I could not get 2.6GHz on mine without voltmodding, though 2.4 was a piece of cake. (I didn't really bother trying anything in between the two.)

It's been several weeks since I've actually messed with my own BIOS settings, but I think I mentioned everything you should be changing (or just aware of) for overclocking.

Dragonslayere, which Opty do you have?

FYI, I am running 270HTT and I left the HT-NB multiplier at 4x (1080) and has been rock stable. I've read of several people doing this with no problems so it seems this board will run at least ~1100HT stable. Just another reason to love it. I also left the NB-SB speed at default. I was able to get up to 2.6 on stock Vcore, and raised it to 1.425 for 2.7GHz. Of course I think alot of that has to do with the core stepping more than anything else.

Edit: This is on Official BIOS 1.50

A few posts up, he said he has an X2 4200+.

The voltage options on this board are a little strange, and seem to depend on the particular CPU you're using (unless you've modded of course). FX CPU's get up to 1.55V by default, Venice chips get 1.45V, and in my experience, dual-cores (at least my Opty 170) get only 1.40V by default. I would assume, from the posts in this thread, that the 1.45V also applies to single core Opterons, and the 1.40V also applies to X2's. If that is indeed the case, 1.40V won't let him get much of an overclock - I only got to 2.4 or so before I voltmodded.

(There also seems to be a few differences in the BIOS options you can choose when you have a single or dual-core...for instance, someone here kept telling me that you could choose 1T/2T timings in BIOS 1.20, but I thought they were crazy -and they probably thought I was crazy- because I never saw such an option...we ended up coming to the conclusion that the option just wasn't visible for dual cores in 1.20, for whatever reason. Not that it really matters for this line of discussion, but just to show that it seems to matter which particular CPU you have.)

Edit: I'm also interested to see what voltage Dragonslayere is running right now, and what options are available to him (to see if my guess of 1.40V max is right or not).

Edit2: Oh, and it's good to hear that some speeds >1000HTT are stable...I was never under the impression that 1000 would work but 1001 would crash , but I'd heard 1000 as just a general guideline to shoot for. I don't seem to have one of the "magical" earlier Opty steppings that could hit 2.8-3.0GHz without breaking a sweat (like the CCBWE 0530 TPMW's if I'm remembering that stepping correctly, the FX-57 cores basically). But at the same time, it has been a while since I played with my overclock - and I know that I can get at least 2.7, maybe 2.75 out of this chip, but I've left it at 2.6 for now until I have more time to play with it. I'm certainly not unhappy with FX-60 speeds...

 

[Dragonslayere]

someone here kept telling me that you could choose 1T/2T timings in BIOS 1.20, but I thought they were crazy -and they probably thought I was crazy- because I never saw such an option...we ended up coming to the conclusion that the option just wasn't visible for dual cores in 1.20, for whatever reason.

yes you can choose the timings on the 1.20 bios cause i'm currently using it

heres my current config

max voltage is 1.40 but seem like it doesn't go that high even if i set it in the bios
Voltage

 

[Wnh5001]

i wasn't sure if i should made a separate thread, i have just put together my asrock dual sata2 motherboard and an athlon 64 3200, e3. I steadliy overclocked it to 2400, with stock cooling. My question is when concerning the voltage. In the bios i think the auto voltage goes to 1.45, so i set it manual and set it 1.425, then 1.4 and now at 1.375, i chekced cpuz and it reads as 1.4-1.45 so im guessing that eitehr cpuz is wrong or the setting in the bios doesnt; mean anything...

and i was wondering what temperature reading programs u asrock owners were using, i currently have speed fan and i think its accurate, mobo at 30 idle and cpu at 36 idle. and 33/ 40 medium load.