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

[Spatulator]

This thread is crazy big

Anyway I ordered this motherboard today. Im moving from my asus a8v to this mostly for the advanced chipset which should give me better performance from my bfg 6800gt. Also I like that it seems to overclock well with stock voltages and tight memory timings. Im not hardcore overclocker, I just like to get my system set up so that it can do a number of tasks, first of which is gaming in the most efficient way. I expect the agp performance to be very good, from what Ive read the general concensus is m1695>nf3ultra>k8t800pro when it comes to chipset efficiency handling agp.

Since the board was so cheap I also bought a pcie 1x sataII raid card by siig. I have read alot of negative HD benches reguarding the performance of the onboard sata raid controller, which is understandable when a board is this cheap its going to have a cheap sata controller on it. When I first built this machine I currently have, my scores in most benches were where they should be but in 3dmark 05 I was falling way short of what I expected(I had first built it with an old very slow ide disk). 3dmark 05' really thrashes the harddisk for some of its tests so for those that are getting bad scores in this bench, Id suggest running hdtach and diagnosing a bad controller. I like the idea of using the pcie controller, the pcie bus seems to be very speedy on this board and it frees up one of those precious 3 pci slots. Buy.com has the siig controller I bought for a great price...$42 I think it was if anyone else is looking to improve their raid speed. I'll be back to update my progress once my parts come in.

 

[spedmen]

Hello, Um, I was wondering, after reading reports from The Inquirer Link of being able to Crossfire two Ati Graphic cards together, I would like to know if this was proven correct or incorrect and if anyone has tried it?

 

[Dragonslayere]

ok i'm a little paranoid right now....
my motherboard keeps beeping every few seconds...?

Edit:: "1 short Memory refresh timer error." thats what i got from the asrock support site..
how do i go about fixing this?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: 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
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/2001/voltage9vv.jpg">Voltage</a>

Yeah, that's what I noticed too. I could only set it to 1.40V but the actual was really a little lower than that. Now that I've done the voltmod, it over-volts a little bit. Strange

And I'm somewhat surprised that you have 1T/2T options and I didn't in 1.20. Are they in the same place with the other RAM timings? I suppose it doesn't really matter because I see them just fine in 1.50 and the OCW beta BIOS releases, but that still strikes me as being strange.

Originally posted by: 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.

I use Everest to monitor temperatures and I assume it's accurate (I haven't really used anything else lately). I'm not really sure what causes those voltage issues you're talking about (setting it to a lower voltage and still getting a higher one). I have heard anecdotal suggestions that sometimes you have to try to save BIOS settings more than once to get them to "stick", but I've never run into that problem myself.

Originally posted by: spedmen
Hello, Um, I was wondering, after reading reports from The Inquirer Link of being able to Crossfire two Ati Graphic cards together, I would like to know if this was proven correct or incorrect and if anyone has tried it?

This is the first I've heard about it, but it sounds interesting. I doubt I'll ever get that chance because the most recent ATI card I (sort of) have access to is a 9700 Pro, which wouldn't really work too well in Crossfire. But, I'd love to see if anyone else could get it working (X800/X850 series max, I assume).

Originally posted by: Dragonslayere
ok i'm a little paranoid right now....
my motherboard keeps beeping every few seconds...?

Edit:: "1 short Memory refresh timer error." thats what i got from the asrock support site..
how do i go about fixing this?

Is this happening while your computer is on (and you're in Windows or something)? Are you using RAM that you just bought recently? From a quick Google search, it looks like most sites that list that error, recommend that you try re-seating the memory first, and if the error still occurs, to replace the memory with known good chips (or maybe try just one stick at a time if you have two...maybe run Memtest86 to see if you really have a problem with your RAM, etc).

 

[Dragonslayere]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Is this happening while your computer is on (and you're in Windows or something)? Are you using RAM that you just bought recently? From a quick Google search, it looks like most sites that list that error, recommend that you try re-seating the memory first, and if the error still occurs, to replace the memory with known good chips (or maybe try just one stick at a time if you have two...maybe run Memtest86 to see if you really have a problem with your RAM, etc).

yes it is happening when i'm in windows and no these ram are about a year old(?) my friend brought them but couldn't use them for his opty. so they are practically new.
i have 4 sticks of 512 PQI turbo with gunmetal heat spreader
it only beeps if i OC but i reverted back to default just to be safe

i'll try to reseat them and see if that'll fix the beeping

 

[soup006]

Does the OCWBeta4 bios allow the selection of above 300HTT? I'm not asking if the 274HTT lock is still there. I just was wondering if it lets you select higher than 300 since the stock 1.5 BIOS only goes up to 300.
Thanks.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: soup006
Does the OCWBeta4 bios allow the selection of above 300HTT? I'm not asking if the 274HTT lock is still there. I just was wondering if it lets you select higher than 300 since the stock 1.5 BIOS only goes up to 300.
Thanks.

I'm not sure, I haven't used OCWB4. I will probably give it a shot soon though when I try to push my overclock a little higher (this weekend probably).

 

[soup006]

I just tried OCWBETA4 and it only goes up to 300. I'm not sure I understand the point of this BIOS because it seems exactly the same as 1.50

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: soup006
I just tried OCWBETA4 and it only goes up to 300. I'm not sure I understand the point of this BIOS because it seems exactly the same as 1.50

Yeah, my understanding is that it's just a modified 1.50. From what I've read over on the OCW forums (though I don't go over there a whole lot), OCWB1 and B2 are probably still the best beta releases.

 

[Spatulator]

From the bios history on the asrock website it looks as if the only changes made between bios 1.2 and 1.5 are more cpu support. Since I have a first generation 3500+ 90nm (think its winchester core? not sure) are there any features I'll miss by not flashing to the new 1.5 bios?

Also, is there anyone out there who is using good quality TCCD based ram who is having trouble running 1t command rate? I plan to overclock a little, no volt mod, maintain tight timings.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Spatulator
From the bios history on the asrock website it looks as if the only changes made between bios 1.2 and 1.5 are more cpu support. Since I have a first generation 3500+ 90nm (think its winchester core? not sure) are there any features I'll miss by not flashing to the new 1.5 bios?

Also, is there anyone out there who is using good quality TCCD based ram who is having trouble running 1t command rate? I plan to overclock a little, no volt mod, maintain tight timings.

1.20 will likely be fine for you.

 

[Spatulator]

Ok trying to make sense of things as I put together the drivers I will use for this board.

ASRock offers:
"ULi AGP Driver Ver:2.30" for both XP and XP x64
they appear to be the same exact file, same size and file name.

The latest ULi integrated drivers describes the agp driver's implementation in the "readme" like this:
1. AGP driver V2.14 for Win2K/WinXP with M1563, V2.30 for WinXP/2003/x64 , V2.14Win98SE/WinME

This makes it hard to determine the best agp driver to use for WinXP, does anyone have a suggestion? I am leaning towards the integrated driver install and letting it choose for me.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Spatulator
Ok trying to make sense of things as I put together the drivers I will use for this board.

ASRock offers:
"ULi AGP Driver Ver:2.30" for both XP and XP x64
they appear to be the same exact file, same size and file name.

The latest ULi integrated drivers describes the agp driver's implementation in the "readme" like this:
1. AGP driver V2.14 for Win2K/WinXP with M1563, V2.30 for WinXP/2003/x64 , V2.14Win98SE/WinME

This makes it hard to determine the best agp driver to use for WinXP, does anyone have a suggestion? I am leaning towards the integrated driver install and letting it choose for me.

When I last installed XP, I installed all the drivers separately (well actually I was creating a CD for an unattended XP install including all the separate drivers, but close enough). I've never used their integrated installer but I imagine it works fine.

 

[WT]

Fellow Asrock owners: Switching from an AGP to a PCIe card tomorrow in this board. Do I need to make any BIOS changes before swapping to indicate that PCIe is the default video setting or does the board autodetect this ?? I just wanted to save myself another vid card switcheroo (if even temporarily) as I hafta tuck away my rig in a big hutch before plugging everything in. TIA !

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: WT
Fellow Asrock owners: Switching from an AGP to a PCIe card tomorrow in this board. Do I need to make any BIOS changes before swapping to indicate that PCIe is the default video setting or does the board autodetect this ?? I just wanted to save myself another vid card switcheroo (if even temporarily) as I hafta tuck away my rig in a big hutch before plugging everything in. TIA !

There is a BIOS setting to select between PCI/AGP/PCIe default video adapter, but I have the feeling this only applies if you have more than one video card (and thus need to choose which one displays the BIOS and stuff like that). I would expect it to work without you having to change anything, though if you really want to be safe you could always go change the default to PCI-E right before you take out your AGP card.

Do tell us how it goes too...I'm not sure if anyone here has switched from an AGP to a PCI-E card yet, it would be good to hear your experiences

 

[hornet2060]

i recently built an A64 3200 venice system, and other than a mistake of installing the integrated AGP drivers after my video drivers (i re-formatted and re-installed XP pro ) the build was un-eventful. if you follow the advice of those in this thread, you should be hassle free and stable. i am not oc'ing, but i may give it a go in a few months.
thanks to all who posted in this thread, you certainly made life easier for me!



AsRock Dual 939
ATI X800XT PE AGP
A64 3200+ Venice
2gb of Corsair XMS 3200
320gb WD SATA

 

[Ike0069]

Quoted from OCW forums:

Hey folks, I'm old and been doin this for many years so I'll keep this short.

Overclocking - Bios 1.5 @ 300 HTT (works great.)
S.D.144 @ 1.45V
Cheap 2x512 Ram @ "133" 2.5-3-3-11
but had to go to MA 2 for 300Htt.
Links at 16 bit "600"

AND

Ragnar, I suppose you are refering to my post...
I am using a 6600gt not a 6800gt...
The standard 1.5 bios is not "capped" at 274. ]
I did not try every setting between 274 and 300 but the ones I did try would NOT work.
I know the Opty 144 would do 2.7 on 1.45 so I just tried a few and then went to 300... The machine did catch the "cold start" problem @ 300.
And running MA 2 kills the memory performance to the point that I decided to go back to 274 and enjoy better memory bandwidth with MA 1 and no cold start issues. Everyone needs to be aware of the serious memory performance degradation of using MA 2.


Can anyone confirms this? This is the only time I've read this, and I tried it on my board with no luck using BIOS 1.50.

 

[soup006]

Originally posted by: Ike0069
Quoted from OCW forums:

Hey folks, I'm old and been doin this for many years so I'll keep this short.

Overclocking - Bios 1.5 @ 300 HTT (works great.)
S.D.144 @ 1.45V
Cheap 2x512 Ram @ "133" 2.5-3-3-11
but had to go to MA 2 for 300Htt.
Links at 16 bit "600"

AND

Ragnar, I suppose you are refering to my post...
I am using a 6600gt not a 6800gt...
The standard 1.5 bios is not "capped" at 274. ]
I did not try every setting between 274 and 300 but the ones I did try would NOT work.
I know the Opty 144 would do 2.7 on 1.45 so I just tried a few and then went to 300... The machine did catch the "cold start" problem @ 300.
And running MA 2 kills the memory performance to the point that I decided to go back to 274 and enjoy better memory bandwidth with MA 1 and no cold start issues. Everyone needs to be aware of the serious memory performance degradation of using MA 2.


Can anyone confirms this? This is the only time I've read this, and I tried it on my board with no luck using BIOS 1.50.

I tried it a couple days ago. I'm running my Opteron 144 at 9x300 on the 1.50 bios. It does have some cold start problems but nothing too bad.

 

[WT]

Update on the AGP to PCIe swap:

Hmmm .... had me scared at bootup, as my LCD power button was not green, but red indicating no signal. I was ... errr, not happy to say the least. I soon decided to hit the AUTO button on the LCD which scans the input modes (DVI or VGA). It started with VGA and that was also red, but then switched to DVI and I had my video back. Ran a quick 3DMark05 run (netted me 7100+, I usta get 4K with my 6800 so I am happy. What I really wasn't crazy about was the card being RIGHT UP AGAINST my hard drive. If I move the HD, I will hafta use the regular internal bays, not the lower one (Antec 840 type case with rubber grommets to minimize vibration.

 

[Greenman]

Has anyone else found the OCWbeta2 bios to be unstable? I ran it for a couple weeks because I need to get past the 274htt cap, but I kept getting BSOD's, even at clocks below 274. I just flashed back to the stock 1.5 bios, stuck at 274 again but stable.

 

[Spatulator]

I gotta think that having your video card right up against your hard drive is gonna cause you to overheat and become unstable during long gaming sessions.

Has anyone read the THG review of the m1697 reference board? Its so weird how almost every single benchmark has it scoring neatly just below the nf4. Most boards have strengths and weaknesses. I am leary of THG's reviews, especially since they dogged the m1695 when every other review site seemed to rate it as a strong performer. In the review of the new ULi chipset, they also mention the m1695 and they really changed their tune calling it "an ideal choice for upgrade users."

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: soup006

Originally posted by: Ike0069
Quoted from OCW forums:

Hey folks, I'm old and been doin this for many years so I'll keep this short.

Overclocking - Bios 1.5 @ 300 HTT (works great.)
S.D.144 @ 1.45V
Cheap 2x512 Ram @ "133" 2.5-3-3-11
but had to go to MA 2 for 300Htt.
Links at 16 bit "600"

AND

Ragnar, I suppose you are refering to my post...
I am using a 6600gt not a 6800gt...
The standard 1.5 bios is not "capped" at 274. ]
I did not try every setting between 274 and 300 but the ones I did try would NOT work.
I know the Opty 144 would do 2.7 on 1.45 so I just tried a few and then went to 300... The machine did catch the "cold start" problem @ 300.
And running MA 2 kills the memory performance to the point that I decided to go back to 274 and enjoy better memory bandwidth with MA 1 and no cold start issues. Everyone needs to be aware of the serious memory performance degradation of using MA 2.


Can anyone confirms this? This is the only time I've read this, and I tried it on my board with no luck using BIOS 1.50.

I tried it a couple days ago. I'm running my Opteron 144 at 9x300 on the 1.50 bios. It does have some cold start problems but nothing too bad.

That's very interesting. Just to make sure I'm on the same page, is the cold start problem people refer to just the fact that it won't restart soemtimes. It just hangs until it it is shut off and restarted, or is it more serious.

As for the 300 HTT, I will try it again tonight. Have you noticed any stability problems at 300 that weren't there when the HTT was <274?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Ike0069

Originally posted by: soup006

Originally posted by: Ike0069
Quoted from OCW forums:

Hey folks, I'm old and been doin this for many years so I'll keep this short.

Overclocking - Bios 1.5 @ 300 HTT (works great.)
S.D.144 @ 1.45V
Cheap 2x512 Ram @ "133" 2.5-3-3-11
but had to go to MA 2 for 300Htt.
Links at 16 bit "600"

AND

Ragnar, I suppose you are refering to my post...
I am using a 6600gt not a 6800gt...
The standard 1.5 bios is not "capped" at 274. ]
I did not try every setting between 274 and 300 but the ones I did try would NOT work.
I know the Opty 144 would do 2.7 on 1.45 so I just tried a few and then went to 300... The machine did catch the "cold start" problem @ 300.
And running MA 2 kills the memory performance to the point that I decided to go back to 274 and enjoy better memory bandwidth with MA 1 and no cold start issues. Everyone needs to be aware of the serious memory performance degradation of using MA 2.


Can anyone confirms this? This is the only time I've read this, and I tried it on my board with no luck using BIOS 1.50.

I tried it a couple days ago. I'm running my Opteron 144 at 9x300 on the 1.50 bios. It does have some cold start problems but nothing too bad.

That's very interesting. Just to make sure I'm on the same page, is the cold start problem people refer to just the fact that it won't restart soemtimes. It just hangs until it it is shut off and restarted, or is it more serious.

As for the 300 HTT, I will try it again tonight. Have you noticed any stability problems at 300 that weren't there when the HTT was <274?

I assume that the cold boot problem is just what you said - the fact that it won't boot/restart sometimes, especially after changing BIOS settings. I've only noticed that very few times, like when I was trying HTT speeds over 270-274 on BIOS 1.20 (I think). I'm planning on trying to squeeze a bit more out of my CPU soon (2.6GHz is nice, but 2.7-2.8 would be even nicer ), so I guess I'll see what I find then - though I do have a 10x multiplier so I don't need to go too high.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Also, I've got a question for anyone out there using this board and 2GB of RAM...is anyone using 4x512MB sticks? If so, do you have any problems running dual channel DDR400? (I realize that, due to limitations of the A64/Opteron memory controller, I would be limited to 2T with 4 sticks - but I'm running at 2T right now anyway)

Also, what I would be really interested to hear is if anyone's running dual channel with two different RAM configurations in each bank - like 2x512 with 2x1GB. I'd think that should be possible (from what I've read), but I don't know for sure.

I ask because I'm running 2x512 (1GB) right now and it's starting to really feel inadequate sometimes (especially now that I'm getting into h.264 encoding while doing other stuff at the same time)...I'm not sure if I want to dump my current RAM and go for 2x1GB (most expensive), or just buy 2x512 and add it to what I've already got (cheapest). There's also a few different options in there like keeping what I have and adding 2x1GB for a total of 3GB (also expensive and probably overkill, and might lose dual channel), or keeping what I have and adding 1x1GB for 2GB total - but I tried this last night when I borrowed a 1GB stick and not surprisingly, I can't run dual channel that way.

Ideally I'd spend the least amount of money possible, so that would probably be 2x512MB (from the FS/T forums here). If anyone has run 4x512 (particularly with two different sets/brands of 2x512MB sticks), I'd like to hear about your experiences.

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
Also, I've got a question for anyone out there using this board and 2GB of RAM...is anyone using 4x512MB sticks? If so, do you have any problems running dual channel DDR400? (I realize that, due to limitations of the A64/Opteron memory controller, I would be limited to 2T with 4 sticks - but I'm running at 2T right now anyway)

Also, what I would be really interested to hear is if anyone's running dual channel with two different RAM configurations in each bank - like 2x512 with 2x1GB. I'd think that should be possible (from what I've read), but I don't know for sure.

I ask because I'm running 2x512 (1GB) right now and it's starting to really feel inadequate sometimes (especially now that I'm getting into h.264 encoding while doing other stuff at the same time)...I'm not sure if I want to dump my current RAM and go for 2x1GB (most expensive), or just buy 2x512 and add it to what I've already got (cheapest). There's also a few different options in there like keeping what I have and adding 2x1GB for a total of 3GB (also expensive and probably overkill, and might lose dual channel), or keeping what I have and adding 1x1GB for 2GB total - but I tried this last night when I borrowed a 1GB stick and not surprisingly, I can't run dual channel that way.

Ideally I'd spend the least amount of money possible, so that would probably be 2x512MB (from the FS/T forums here). If anyone has run 4x512 (particularly with two different sets/brands of 2x512MB sticks), I'd like to hear about your experiences.

Well, I can't help you with your question as I'm only running 2x1 GB. But I will say that I had 2x512 and decided to go with 2x1GB. Now the decision was easier for me because I just dropped the 2x512 in my kids PC that I recently upgraded to A64. I read far too many people having issues with 4 sticks of RAM.

Even if you can't use the 2x512 sticks, you could always sell it and probably only lose a few $$.