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

[OvErHeAtInG]

Originally posted by: qsrk

Originally posted by: Bill Kunert

Originally posted by: flashbacck

Originally posted by: Bill Kunert
I've had the board for a couple of months and have had only one problem. VISTA will not load on my board. Emailed Asrock tech support and they reply that this board is not VISTA compatible. They have a new version of the board lablelled VSTA that is guaranteed to work with VISTA. Can't see any physical difference between the boards but the new one does use a different bios. I know lots of people have loaded VISTA on this board but if you can't, and wonder why, this is the reason.
Regards
Bill

Why would only some people be able to load Vista on this board?

I have no idea why but Asrock acknowledges the problem and has brought out a VISTA compliant version of the 939 Dual SATA2 called the 939Dual VSTA. I have seen on other websites where there has been aproblem getting VISTA loaded on the Dual SATA2. Neither version would load. It would reach the point of the first reboot and never load windows. The hard drive light would stay on but nothing happened. I once waited for an hour. Don't know why, just know it happened. I also had a computer a few years ago that wouldn't load ME so Microsoft refunded my money. I guess I was lucky 'cause ME was a waste.

Bill

That not good. What rev is your board? Hopefully newer revs are compatible.

I have a ver 1.0 board and I run Vista Beta2 with no problems at all (I've used 64-bit, and later moved to 32-bit). Well, not exactly no problems - I had something similar to what you're describing. I run XP off of the JMicron controller and installed Vista on a PATA drive as primary master. With that configuration, Vista would install, and on first reboot would simply boot back into XP - it didn't modify the boot record at all! What you have to do is manually specify the boot device when you boot using F11, depending on which OS you want to load. This actually works really nicely for me, since the Vista installer doesn't boot its damn boot loader on my XP system drive.

I'll get around up running the RC1 upgrade soon...

I suspect all the 939Dual boards will run Vista. It seems that some people (users and asrock support) are simply unwilling to put in the troubleshooting time. Of course, that's easy for me to say - and I may be wrong!

 

[logicmaster2003]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: logicmaster2003
Hello all..

Just wondering if someone would give me some basic step-by-step in replacing my Sapphire ATI9800 (agp 8x) with MSI 7900GT OC (pci-e) on my ASROCK939-dual sata2 motherboard.

Do I uninstall the ATI9800 driver first ? then power down, pull out the ATI9800, plug in the MSI7900, power up, then install the MSI7900 driver ? or install the MSI7900 driver while ATI9800 is still installed ?

Any jumper settings on the ASROCK mobo that is needed ? how bout the settings on the BIOS ?

Thanks for your help in advance
FYI: I'm running winXP pro

As Sandan said, first boot to safe mode and run Driver Cleaner Pro to remove all traces of ATI stuff (assuming you already uninstalled the ATI software through Add/Remove Programs beforehand), then turn off the computer, remove the 9800, plug in the 7900, and install the drivers for it when you boot into XP....that should be it. You don't really need to change any settings in the BIOS (the only one you might change is the primary video from AGP to PCI-E, but even then that only makes a difference if you have multiple video cards so it wouldn't really matter). No jumpers to change either.

I upgraded from an AGP 6800GT to a PCI-E X1900XT on this board back in June and I've been very happy with the upgrade (and the board itself for allowing me to do it). Enjoy the speed boost.

Thank you and to Sandan also I can't wait till my 7900GT OC arrives on tuesday Quick question ... when u said SAFE mode.. do u mean boot to winXP SAFE mode ? or u mean regular winXP login but with generic VGA ?

Thanks again

 

[SynthDude2001]

Just standard Windows XP safe mode that doesn't load any drivers (so you can be sure that the driver cleaner is removing everything).

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Hi Synthman!!! It's been so long since I read this thread... it seems every time I get the "tweak attack" is the only time I look up this thread to see what's changed

Anyway, I decided to go from 1.60 to 2.20 BIOS. My previous adventures > 274 resulted in nada, last time I tried the 1.80. Anyway, I had much better luck this time - I reached an HTT of 320, and was able to bump my CPU up slightly to 2500 (278 * 9). 280 also works, but I'm priming at 278.

I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but I'm unable to run my Opteron 165 at any multiplier other than 9 and 8. Setting it to 7 or 6 results in the board booting with the 9x multi. Does anyone else have this problem? I guess I don't need anything below 8x, just thought it was curious.

Is anyone else using the UCCC memory with this board, such as the G.Skill HZ? I'm just wondering what others were setting TRRD and TRC to. From what I can glean off OCZ forums those should be 3 and 10 respectively.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: OvErHeAtInG
Hi Synthman!!! It's been so long since I read this thread... it seems every time I get the "tweak attack" is the only time I look up this thread to see what's changed

Anyway, I decided to go from 1.60 to 2.20 BIOS. My previous adventures > 274 resulted in nada, last time I tried the 1.80. Anyway, I had much better luck this time - I reached an HTT of 320, and was able to bump my CPU up slightly to 2500 (278 * 9). 280 also works, but I'm priming at 278.

I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but I'm unable to run my Opteron 165 at any multiplier other than 9 and 8. Setting it to 7 or 6 results in the board booting with the 9x multi. Does anyone else have this problem? I guess I don't need anything below 8x, just thought it was curious.

Is anyone else using the UCCC memory with this board, such as the G.Skill HZ? I'm just wondering what others were setting TRRD and TRC to. From what I can glean off OCZ forums those should be 3 and 10 respectively.

Hey there I remember you posting in here a while back...this thread keeps going and going, even over a year after I started it (though not so much is changing anymore)

I'm glad to hear that you're having success with >274...I've been at 270x10 for a few months now with no real issues (except that my SATA controller seems to be having a few issues [/i]). Still on BIOS 2.10, haven't bothered to try 2.20 yet and I don't know if I will. I think the improvements past 1.80/1.90 have been geared towards AM2 users, so that doesn't really affect me any.

The only multipliers I've tried on my board are 10 and 9, so I don't know if I'd have issues with lower ones - but you're not the only one I've heard of having that problem.

Can't help you with the memory question, sorry...I'm running 2x512 of cheapo Corsair Value RAM (along with 2x512 of older and more expensive Corsair stuff brought over from my old Athlon XP setup).

 

[logicmaster2003]

yea I think my ASROCK 939 dual sata2 is still running the Bios 1.6 ( I purchased the cpu/mobo on january06 and have upgraded the bios firmware around that time from 1.5 to 1.6). My cpu is Opteron148 and i'm not plannning on upgrading to AM2; So do you think the bios 1.6 is good enough ? or do you recommend me upgrading ?

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

You probably don't need to flash any of the newer ones. With a 148, you probably don't need to even think about going over HTT 274, so it shouldn't be a problem. I found 1.6 to to be quite good.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: OvErHeAtInG
You probably don't need to flash any of the newer ones. With a 148, you probably don't need to even think about going over HTT 274, so it shouldn't be a problem. I found 1.6 to to be quite good.

Yeah, I used 1.6 for quite a while before the 1.80+ BIOS versions came out. And even then I didn't really "need" the newer versions since I could still hit 2.6GHz on the earlier versions (10x multiplier). It was strange that my board seemed to crap out closer to 265 than 274 at the time though.

 

[logicmaster2003]

Hey guys.. thanks for your help regarding my question of "step-by-step basics of replacing AGP card with PCI-E card" on the previous page.

I received my MSI 7900GT factory-oc this afternoon and I followed your suggested step-by-step and the proper way of replacing ATI9800 with Nvidia 7900. Thank you again.

Heres my mini review..
* as-is... the default core/mem is rated 500/1530 mhz
* tested Half-life2 and CounterStrike with every graphic details maxed out and I'm still getting a good 55 fps
* tested Delta Force Joint Operation / Flatout demo / with all graphic details maxed out and I'm still getting good fps
* also it came with Serious Sam II.
* after playing all those games one after another (4 hours of continuous run), the highest GPU core temperature goes up to 44 deg C ONLY
* the fan is very quiet !! I read a review that says the fan is very noisy but I don't see it on my MSI 7900GT oc.

Currently I'm downloading:
* FEAR multiplayer demo
* company of heroes single player demo

so yea.. in conclusion.. the temperature of nvidia-based 7900GT OC is about HALF of the ati-based x1900.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Glad to hear you're enjoying your new card

And yes, my X1900XT does run quite hot (70°C+ with fan forced at 100%, as high as 90°C with the default fan ramp-up)...but then again, I came from a 6800GT that would also routinely hit 90-100°C, so I'm not fazed

 

[logicmaster2003]

Thanks for your cheers, synthdude Wow u got the x1900xt huh i was gonna get that but I can't afford it. So what games do you play ?

 

[logicmaster2003]

hi sorry but this is rather extreme basic for you guys .. Why is my RAM settings showing 166mhz instead of 200mhz dual channel DDR 400). Attached are 3 screen-capture off the CPU-Z..

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h13/stickypookie/capture_12092006_225451.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h13/stickypookie/capture_12092006_225339.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h13/stickypookie/capture_12092006_225446.jpg

I was wondering if someone could help me tweak anything on my bios.
Thanks for all your help in advance

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: logicmaster2003
Thanks for your cheers, synthdude Wow u got the x1900xt huh i was gonna get that but I can't afford it. So what games do you play ?

Actually I'm not playing a whole lot of games at the moment (classes starting up again and all)...but in the past few weeks I've finished Prey and Tomb Raider Legend, which were both quite good....played a bit of HL2 Episode 1 but haven't finished it yet.....etc. Honestly I probably don't play enough games to justify the expense, lol

About your RAM issue, the board must be detecting your RAM's SPD settings as 166MHz (does the same for mine even though it's PC3200/DDR400)...Basically you just want to go into the BIOS CPU Configuration page and manually change your mem clock to 200MHz (assuming you haven't overclocked your CPU/HTT).

Edit: I should have looked at your screenshots more carefully So you're running 250x10, which means you must be running a 133MHz memory divider to get an end speed of 166MHz on the RAM....you probably have the Memory Flexibility option enabled, I'm betting. Since you're at 250HTT, you'll want to turn that flexibility option off and increase the memory divider to 166MHz (not 200). That will put a mild overclock of ~208MHz on your RAM, which shouldn't be an issue in most cases but you might want to increase your DRAM Voltage to "High".

 

[logicmaster2003]

 

[logicmaster2003]

synthdude,
Thanks again for your help I followed your straight forward advise and now its showing 208
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h13/stickypookie/capture_13092006_003424.jpg

 

[Araemo]

Originally posted by: Double Echo

Originally posted by: DarkManX4lf
will this board be able to run vista...eventually? (the 939-Dual Sata II)

My guess would be no, but I'm not an offical ASRock spokesman, so don't take it as the end-all-be-all. But I'm guessing no because they had to make an entirely different board, not just a BIOS update. This leads me to believe that it's something to do with the programming or type of chip on the board, and not something that a firmware update can fix.

I wouldn't worry dude. Like I said above, by the time Vista's really ready, you'll want to upgrade again. Hell, by the time Vista SP1 rolls out it could be 2-3 years from now.

I don't think anyone has had to make brand new motherboards to run Vista.

ASRock has released a board called VSTA, to cash in on a buzzword. Much like the late Athlon 4s turned into Athlon XP about 9 months after windows XP was released - it wasn't needed for Windows XP. In fact, it didn't even included anything particularly usefull for XP that 2000 couldn't use, and didn't include anything particularly fancy that the previous athlon-4s didn't have. It was just marketing.

I can install vista on my 3 year old laptop if I feel like it, and it should actually work fairly well, because the drivers for all the parts have already been released by their respective manufacturers.

I don't intend to do that, cause vista isn't stable enough/compatible enough for my tastes just yet(Plus I wouldn't want to re-install in 6 months or whatever when the beta key expires)

This board might run Vista well, it might not - it all depends on driver support. And that isn't something that Microsoft has much/any say in, it's all up to ALi/ULi.(and didn't nVidia buy them a while back? So, perhaps this board isn't that likely for vista, but it might work if Microsoft has generic drivers for Vista that work well enough. I don't know if I'd trust the AGP slot in Vista though, not without official ULi drivers anyways...)

 

[Double Echo]

Originally posted by: Araemo

Originally posted by: Double Echo

Originally posted by: DarkManX4lf
will this board be able to run vista...eventually? (the 939-Dual Sata II)

My guess would be no, but I'm not an offical ASRock spokesman, so don't take it as the end-all-be-all. But I'm guessing no because they had to make an entirely different board, not just a BIOS update. This leads me to believe that it's something to do with the programming or type of chip on the board, and not something that a firmware update can fix.

I wouldn't worry dude. Like I said above, by the time Vista's really ready, you'll want to upgrade again. Hell, by the time Vista SP1 rolls out it could be 2-3 years from now.

I don't think anyone has had to make brand new motherboards to run Vista.

ASRock has released a board called VSTA, to cash in on a buzzword. Much like the late Athlon 4s turned into Athlon XP about 9 months after windows XP was released - it wasn't needed for Windows XP. In fact, it didn't even included anything particularly usefull for XP that 2000 couldn't use, and didn't include anything particularly fancy that the previous athlon-4s didn't have. It was just marketing.

I can install vista on my 3 year old laptop if I feel like it, and it should actually work fairly well, because the drivers for all the parts have already been released by their respective manufacturers.

I don't intend to do that, cause vista isn't stable enough/compatible enough for my tastes just yet(Plus I wouldn't want to re-install in 6 months or whatever when the beta key expires)

This board might run Vista well, it might not - it all depends on driver support. And that isn't something that Microsoft has much/any say in, it's all up to ALi/ULi.(and didn't nVidia buy them a while back? So, perhaps this board isn't that likely for vista, but it might work if Microsoft has generic drivers for Vista that work well enough. I don't know if I'd trust the AGP slot in Vista though, not without official ULi drivers anyways...)

I can tell you from experience that the x64 RC1 release does not work with the onboard NIC in the SATA2. I'm going to have to try a regular PCI NIC I suppose.

 

[Bill Kunert]

I was unable to load the first public beta on my system. The 5536 and RC1 both loaded and ran with no problems. I tried both flavors of the RC1 and was able to connect my DSL account with both. I did have a connection problem with Earthlink software, which is not Vista compatible, which required that I get a router. Since then it works fine, except I do have to run the connection repair wizard everytime I reboot. The 64 bit version of IE7 worked well for me but a lack of 64 bit drivers in other areas caused me to return to 32 bit Vista.

Regards
Bill

 

[Araemo]

Originally posted by: Double Echo

Originally posted by: Araemo
This board might run Vista well, it might not - it all depends on driver support. And that isn't something that Microsoft has much/any say in, it's all up to ALi/ULi.(and didn't nVidia buy them a while back? So, perhaps this board isn't that likely for vista, but it might work if Microsoft has generic drivers for Vista that work well enough. I don't know if I'd trust the AGP slot in Vista though, not without official ULi drivers anyways...)

I can tell you from experience that the x64 RC1 release does not work with the onboard NIC in the SATA2. I'm going to have to try a regular PCI NIC I suppose.

Like I said. Driver issues. Nothing a motherboard manufacturer has control over at this point.

It is wise of them to change to hardware that they KNOW will have vista drivers before vista comes out, but it is also possible that the NIC will have drivers by the time Vista is released(BTW, are you relying on the vista built-in drivers, or have you tried installing drivers from the driver disk? I can't recall if vista can use XP/2k3 NIC drivers...)

Anyways, it is good to see them looking forward, but don't despair about running vista on this board. You should be perfectly capable of RUNNING it.. (But as I noted above, I don't know if I'd trust AGP cards under vista on this odd-ball board, at least not unless there are official AGP drivers out there.) You might just need a pci sound card and NIC, and the extra SATA2 port might not work.. it's mostly the additional non-core stuff that I'd worry about being supported.

 

[Double Echo]

Originally posted by: Araemo

Originally posted by: Double Echo

Originally posted by: Araemo
This board might run Vista well, it might not - it all depends on driver support. And that isn't something that Microsoft has much/any say in, it's all up to ALi/ULi.(and didn't nVidia buy them a while back? So, perhaps this board isn't that likely for vista, but it might work if Microsoft has generic drivers for Vista that work well enough. I don't know if I'd trust the AGP slot in Vista though, not without official ULi drivers anyways...)

I can tell you from experience that the x64 RC1 release does not work with the onboard NIC in the SATA2. I'm going to have to try a regular PCI NIC I suppose.

Like I said. Driver issues. Nothing a motherboard manufacturer has control over at this point.

It is wise of them to change to hardware that they KNOW will have vista drivers before vista comes out, but it is also possible that the NIC will have drivers by the time Vista is released(BTW, are you relying on the vista built-in drivers, or have you tried installing drivers from the driver disk? I can't recall if vista can use XP/2k3 NIC drivers...)

Anyways, it is good to see them looking forward, but don't despair about running vista on this board. You should be perfectly capable of RUNNING it.. (But as I noted above, I don't know if I'd trust AGP cards under vista on this odd-ball board, at least not unless there are official AGP drivers out there.) You might just need a pci sound card and NIC, and the extra SATA2 port might not work.. it's mostly the additional non-core stuff that I'd worry about being supported.

I did try the XP x64 drivers; They installed and said they were working properly in Device Manager, but the NIC still did not function properly.

My Soundblaster Live! 5.1 obviously doesn't work too well, but that's because Creative is only making drivers for Audigy and better cards. Other than the NIC, and the oldest piece of hardware I have (SB), I have no other complaints.

 

[LosSkin]

Guys and Gals, i need a suggestion please! And this has to do with RAM. Here is my config:

Opteron 148
Asrock 939 Dual-Sata 2 - Bios is Latest - No Volt Mods or Any Mods -
eVGA GeForce 7900 GTO PCI Express 512MB GDDR3
Antec 500 Power Supply
DVD/CDRW ReWriter
1 - 160 HD
1 - 40 HD

what ram would be perfect with my system? My friend who let me borrow his 2x512 Buffal 3200 2.5-3-3-6 isnt cutting it. The CPU i have i can take it to 250 and it cant go no further, but im running a divider.

thanks all in advance.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: LosSkin
Guys and Gals, i need a suggestion please! And this has to do with RAM. Here is my config:

Opteron 148
Asrock 939 Dual-Sata 2 - Bios is Latest - No Volt Mods or Any Mods -
eVGA GeForce 7900 GTO PCI Express 512MB GDDR3
Antec 500 Power Supply
DVD/CDRW ReWriter
1 - 160 HD
1 - 40 HD

what ram would be perfect with my system? My friend who let me borrow his 2x512 Buffal 3200 2.5-3-3-6 isnt cutting it. The CPU i have i can take it to 250 and it cant go no further, but im running a divider.

thanks all in advance.

Sorry, can't help you much there. I'm not really familiar with all the RAM currently on the market and which is best; I'm running two different 2x512MB sets of Corsair PC3200 in my board right now, one of which is ValueSelect which refuses to run over about 210MHz

This thread isn't as active as it once was, but hopefully others using this motherboard will see it and give any recommendations they have for RAM...

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: LosSkin
what ram would be perfect with my system? My friend who let me borrow his 2x512 Buffal 3200 2.5-3-3-6 isnt cutting it. The CPU i have i can take it to 250 and it cant go no further, but im running a divider.

What sort of budget do you have in mind, and what sort of timings?

My Crucial Ballistix run a nice 1T at 267MHz 1:1 (at default 3-3-3-7 timings).

Edit: for spelling

 

[LosSkin]

Thanks for both replies!

Beta, Im looking at around 200USD to 250USD, need to be 2gigs as this will be my gaming machine!

Thanks all in advance.

 

[Navid]

If I power down the PC and unplug the power cord, after I plug it back in, the case fans and CPU fan spin and the LEDs turn on for a moment (may be a second). It also happens if I flip the switch at the back of the PSU off and back on after a minute.

During that short period, the hard drives receive power too, which is my concern.

Has anyone else noticed this behavior on this motherboard, or is something wrong with mine?