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

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Navid
It looks like the new released official Asrock Bios (1.8) does not have the 274 lock. I am using it now at 304 with my Opteron 144 and have no cold or warm boot freeze problems.

The memory rates are 100, 133, 166 and 200. I am not sure if the 100 rate is new or was there in the previous ones; don't remember.

I just flashed to 1.80 on my board and I'm running 300x9 right now on my Opty 170, also no cold or warm boot freeze problems. Finally, an official BIOS from ASRock as good as the "unofficial" overclocking beta releases. :thumbsup:

I am experiencing a strange crash at 305x9 (133 RAM divider, so still under 200MHz effective)...I think it may be trying to use timings that are too tight for my RAM, I will have to look into that. But in any case, I have the feeling I'm getting pretty close to my CPU's limit on the voltage available here anyway - I have successfully booted at 2.80GHz before while testing an older BIOS, but it only ran for less than 20-25 minutes before it crashed. I'm just satisfied I can run 300x9 now with no cold/warm boot problems - this allows me to run the 133 memory divider and keep my RAM relatively close to 200MHz (192.9MHz specifically). Before, even on OCWB7, I was getting some warm boot problems at/over 300MHz HTT, so I had to run 275x10 with the 133 memory divider (180MHz effective) and change it to 150 (192.9 effective) when I got into Windows...

Anyways, I'm glad they keep improving the BIOS of this board almost nine months after release. I've also updated the first post with links to BIOS 1.80 and OCWB8.

 

[emilyek]

This new bios didn't help my overclock. My 146 will still not hit 3gig =p

However, the 1T issue is fixed up to 260mhz for me, so that's pretty darn cool.

Before, flash media and other stuff would crash it at 1T, but all is well now.

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: emilyek
This new bios didn't help my overclock. My 146 will still not hit 3gig =p

May be your bottleneck was not the 274 limit of the BIOS?

 

[Ojibewa]

just updated to the 1.8 bios for the Asrock 939 Dual,

set the FSB to 250x10 for 2.5ghz and mem to 166 for 5/4

after it boots into windows I check it with A64Tweaker and it shows the memory at 133

I have the multiplier set to manual as well as the memory

any ideas??

***EDIT***

I fixed it, I had the Flexability option enabled..

someone kick me,,

 

[datalre]

i tried the ocw7 bios on my Opteron 165 rig a few weeks ago, but couldnt get it to boot when setting it past 274.
Anyone else with 165 try the official or ocw8 with better luck?

 

[Araemo]

Random observation I had while testing hibernation on my system(after I noted the PC HADN'T hibernated correctly for a power outage - my NIC was waking it up during the hibernation process, which was really not right. ;P), the bios seems to have a special POST that it uses after hibernation to get through the POST quicker. Instead of the normal POST, I see a blue screen with white lettering saying 'resume from hibernate' on it and then the windows progress bar as it resumes.. nifty feature that I haven't seen on any other end-user BIOS at all.

After telling windows that the on-board NIC is not allowed to wake it from standby, it hibernates properly.

 

[you2]

Is this a good board for an x1800xt or x1900xt? (I noticed most of you have 9700/9800/x800 cards ... (well those who sig i checked)

 

[Greenman]

It will work fine with any AGP or PCI-e card. Just remember that it is a value board, a pretty good one, but still a value board.
A little off topic, but mine seems to be dieing, or at least getting flakey as hell.

 

[Araemo]

Originally posted by: you2
Is this a good board for an x1800xt or x1900xt? (I noticed most of you have 9700/9800/x800 cards ... (well those who sig i checked)

The reason most of us have 9700/9800/x800 cards is that most of us have AGP cards, and this board was our only hope of not upgrading our video card right now.

With that in mind, we've lucked out w/ a relatively awesome performing board when we could have been stuck with a complete load.

But if you already have PCIe, there are better boards in the same price range(Except MAYBE if you want to overclock to the extreme.. I'm not really sure if there are DFIs and similar in the same price range)

 

[you2]

Which boards do you consider to be better in the same price range?

 

[Double Echo]

Well, one of my Corsair ValueSelect 512mb DDR400 sticks went bad last night, and I had to RMA it. If my other one goes bad, I'm not going to worry about RMA'ing the damn thing and I'm getting some OCZ RAM.

 

[GeeFizzleDizzle]

Originally posted by: Double Echo
Well, one of my Corsair ValueSelect 512mb DDR400 sticks went bad last night, and I had to RMA it. If my other one goes bad, I'm not going to worry about RMA'ing the damn thing and I'm getting some OCZ RAM.

I have this mobo and had the same Corsair DDR400 RAM and within 4 days one stick went bad. I've RMAed the Corsair and went with some G.Skill RAM...no problems.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: GeeFizzleDizzle

Originally posted by: Double Echo
Well, one of my Corsair ValueSelect 512mb DDR400 sticks went bad last night, and I had to RMA it. If my other one goes bad, I'm not going to worry about RMA'ing the damn thing and I'm getting some OCZ RAM.

I have this mobo and had the same Corsair DDR400 RAM and within 4 days one stick went bad. I've RMAed the Corsair and went with some G.Skill RAM...no problems.

Strange ...I've been running 4 sticks of Corsair 512MB DDR400 (two of them being ValueSelect) in this board for at least two months now with no problems...

 

[Double Echo]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: GeeFizzleDizzle

Originally posted by: Double Echo
Well, one of my Corsair ValueSelect 512mb DDR400 sticks went bad last night, and I had to RMA it. If my other one goes bad, I'm not going to worry about RMA'ing the damn thing and I'm getting some OCZ RAM.

I have this mobo and had the same Corsair DDR400 RAM and within 4 days one stick went bad. I've RMAed the Corsair and went with some G.Skill RAM...no problems.

Strange ...I've been running 4 sticks of Corsair 512MB DDR400 (two of them being ValueSelect) in this board for at least two months now with no problems...

From the comments on NewEgg, it seems that these memory modules are more prone to die out on you. Every piece of hardware can have a bad egg, but it seems that you get what you pay for.

After I buy a house and pay for this wedding, I might be able to afford some better RAM (and a flat screen 19" LCD!).

 

[Wi1z]

Bios 1.9 out

does: Modify for AM2 memory code

Also a side note,

If I run my SATA drive on SATA 1 socket, in non raid mode, its random if it boots up, cold or warm boot, if I put the drive into Raid mode, boots 100%, so to install xp I install in non-raid so I dont need the drivers, then flip it raid and boots fine........ not a huge deal, I can live with it, just wierdness )

 

[qsrk]

When I plug a headset into the front panel audio out on my computer, the volume drops dramatically on the left speaker connected to the rear panel audio out (lime, labeled "Front Speaker)! Has anyone else noticed this, or could some people check to see if this happens with them too?

I'd like to leave both my speakers and headset plugged in at the same time, with the speakers for music, and the headset for internet telephony, and I would like to use the onboard audio for now...

 

[jackschmittusa]

I have this mb with an Opty 144 and 2x1gb Corsair XMS 3200 sticks. I dual boot with Win2K/SP4 and XP/SP2. Both OSs show 1gb ram in device manager. The bios shows 2gb in dual channel mode. CPUZ also shows 2gb. The ram shows up as 2gb in XP on another mb.

Anyone hear of this one before?

 

[qsrk]

Your memory problem sounds like a "Memory Hole" problem, but I'm surprised to see it with 2GB. I had a similar problem with 4GB. Search this thread for "memory hole", and you can also refer to the FAQs on the ASrock website.

 

[Araemo]

For jack, try turning the AGP Aperture back down to 64 or 128 MB.

I haven't seen that problem myself, but several people mentioned the AGP aperture doing that if you set it too high.

 

[qsrk]

If your video card has enough RAM - 256MB, maybe 128MB, you can probably put AGP aperture to 32MB. If I recall, this mobo or Windows will take away 2xAGP Aperture from available RAM, and double that if you are running memory in dual-channel mode - so a 256MB aperture would reduce addressable RAM by 1GB.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Thanks guys. Changed the AGP aperture to 64mb. Warm boot showed no change. Cold boot now has both OSs seeing 2 gb.

How is this possible though? I have read for years that the AGP aperture setting did not reserve ram in Windows, but only set the maximum that it was allowed to use.

 

[qsrk]

You can find my attempt at explaining the memory hole problem here, although I never updated the math, so it is not perfectly accurate.

 

[EKTELESTES]

bump

 

[ddviper]

Ok guys this is a huge amount of pages and from someone who has followed this thread/knows this board I have a question.

Im looking to up my CPU to an A64 3200+ so i need a new board to take it. I dont have enough cash to buy a new gfx card so my 6800 will stay. This board looks perfect for me becuase i can keep my AGP card and still have an option for PCI-e when I get the money.

I want to get the 3200+ and OC it pretty high. Does this board OC well? Do the Venice cores OC well? Is this board any good? Is it stable?

My current stats are:
Intel 2.8b (Running at 166 FSB ) ----------> A64 3200+
Intel 865G Mobo ----------> ASRock 939Dual-SATA2
1GB Crucial Ballistix RAM
6800 Vanilla AGP GFX card OCed to 390/800
Sparkle Power 550W PSU
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Sound Card
Maxtor 80GB HDD (Needs an upgrade )

 

[Kromis]

Originally posted by: ddviper
Ok guys this is a huge amount of pages and from someone who has followed this thread/knows this board I have a question.

Im looking to up my CPU to an A64 3200+ so i need a new board to take it. I dont have enough cash to buy a new gfx card so my 6800 will stay. This board looks perfect for me becuase i can keep my AGP card and still have an option for PCI-e when I get the money.

I want to get the 3200+ and OC it pretty high. Does this board OC well? Do the Venice cores OC well? Is this board any good? Is it stable?

My current stats are:
Intel 2.8b (Running at 166 FSB ) ----------> A64 3200+
Intel 865G Mobo ----------> ASRock 939Dual-SATA2
1GB Crucial Ballistix RAM
6800 Vanilla AGP GFX card OCed to 390/800
Sparkle Power 550W PSU
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Sound Card
Maxtor 80GB HDD (Needs an upgrade )

The Venice core can reach 2.7 GHz, but usually around 2.5 GHz