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

[MooseMuffin]

Hey all. I'm having some trouble with my rig and I think this thread is probably the right place to look for help. I've been using the 939dual-sata2 board for 1.5 years now with an a64 3700 with no issues. This last weekend however, I replaced the cpu with an x2 4200 but I can't get the damn thing stable.

Its sold in single core mode, but enabling dual core in the bios and I get random freezing in windows. Its not overclocked, and I defaulted all the settings to troubleshoot this. I thought maybe my 2nd core was bad, or that my psu couldn't handle the added power drain of a 2nd core but this thing never crashes under load. I can run a pair of prime95 instances for an hour with no problem, but if I stop them and do some webbrowsing its likely to freeze within 5 minutes. I didn't change the ram I had before, but just to be safe I ran memtest for a few hours with no problems.

Do any of you have any idea what this could be?

 

[Dragonfly47]

No personal experience with this, but I've heard of this happening when upgrading from a single to a dual core when you don't reinstall a fresh copy of Windows. I'm assuming you didn't do that?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Dragonfly47
No personal experience with this, but I've heard of this happening when upgrading from a single to a dual core when you don't reinstall a fresh copy of Windows. I'm assuming you didn't do that?

That might be it - I've never gone from a single core A64 to a dual core on this board (though I have gone the other way), so maybe a reinstall or at least repair of Windows would help. I can't say for sure.

Originally posted by: MooseMuffin
Hey all. I'm having some trouble with my rig and I think this thread is probably the right place to look for help. I've been using the 939dual-sata2 board for 1.5 years now with an a64 3700 with no issues. This last weekend however, I replaced the cpu with an x2 4200 but I can't get the damn thing stable.

Its sold in single core mode, but enabling dual core in the bios and I get random freezing in windows. Its not overclocked, and I defaulted all the settings to troubleshoot this. I thought maybe my 2nd core was bad, or that my psu couldn't handle the added power drain of a 2nd core but this thing never crashes under load. I can run a pair of prime95 instances for an hour with no problem, but if I stop them and do some webbrowsing its likely to freeze within 5 minutes. I didn't change the ram I had before, but just to be safe I ran memtest for a few hours with no problems.

Do any of you have any idea what this could be?

What that sounds like though, is that it could be a 1T RAM timings issue (listed as "MA Timing" in the BIOS). I would experience similar symptoms - stable in demanding applications such as games, but I'd get an instant BSOD/hard lock when I tried to do something simple like print. I've never really been able to get 1T stable on this motherboard so I gave up on that long ago - check your RAM timings and if you're running 1T, I'd bet that's the issue. If not...I don't really know

 

[MooseMuffin]

Everything is on auto like I mentioned, so I believe the ram is at 2T. I actually have a theory on what's wrong but I'll have to wait until I get home to try it out. Does anyone know what the amd dual core optimizer does exactly? My ram may have been in a glitchy state when I installed it, leading to errors in its installation, leading to it introducing errors when doing basic things that the optimizer would step in for (webbrowsing) but no errors when doing things that natively use 2 cores (prime95). Hows that for a crazy theory?

 

[MooseMuffin]

Well, I was sorta right. Uninstalling AMDs dual core optimizer fixed my problem. I redownloaded and re-installed it to make sure it wasn't corrupt but when its enabled my computer is guaranteed to crash within 10 minutes.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: MooseMuffin
Well, I was sorta right. Uninstalling AMDs dual core optimizer fixed my problem. I redownloaded and re-installed it to make sure it wasn't corrupt but when its enabled my computer is guaranteed to crash within 10 minutes.

I had exactly the same problem with my x2 4200 and uninstalling AMD Dual Core Optimizer fixed my problem too. I guess the Asrock 939 Dual Sata2 might not like AMD Dual Core Optimizer program.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2

Originally posted by: MooseMuffin
Well, I was sorta right. Uninstalling AMDs dual core optimizer fixed my problem. I redownloaded and re-installed it to make sure it wasn't corrupt but when its enabled my computer is guaranteed to crash within 10 minutes.

I had exactly the same problem with my x2 4200 and uninstalling AMD Dual Core Optimizer fixed my problem too. I guess the Asrock 939 Dual Sata2 might not like AMD Dual Core Optimizer program.

Strange...back when I was running an Opteron 170 in this board I had no crashing issues with the Dual Core Optimizer.

I guess we can't expect miracles from a $65 budget board (but I still love mine overall)

 

[nemesismk2]

I do love the motherboad though and without AMD Optimizer it has been totally stable for well over a year

 

[Salvador]

Hi.

I've been trying to read throught this monster thread and haven't found the solutions to my problems. I purchased this board used recently and added an X2 4200+ (socket 939).

First off, do you need to install the drivers for the JMicron controller before Windows if you plan on ever using the SATA2 port? I installed my SATA2 drive on the SATA1 port and then tried to install the JMicron drivers after installing Windows and I can't get it to work. The drive won't boot off of the SATA2 port. Also, if I install the drive on the JMicron SATA2 port and install the drivers before installing Windows, will I be able to boot from the SATA1 port as well or is it an either/or thing?

The other problem that I have is a cold boot issue. If I shut the system off at night and start it in the morning, it doesn't detect my SATA2 hdd on the first boot. I have to hit cntrl-alt-del and then it boots fine. I don't have RAID enabled (not using it). I have it set to SATA mode instead of IDE mode and it's set to auto. I changed it to auto after I experienced the problem yesterday morning and it didn't help. Same thing happened this morning. I wish it didn't have to be a cold boot issue. It would be easier to diagnose (and quicker) if it wasn't

I'm not overclocking right now. I'm using 2 x 1gb Corsair ValueRAM. My hdd is a Western Digital WD2500KS SATA2 hdd. My psu is a couple year old 400w Sparkle (Fortron).

My current BIOS is 1.60. I looked at the BIOS updates and the only changes that I see listed are support for the AM2 and some fixes for an ATI card.

I'd rather not flash the BIOS if I don't have to, but I'll do it if it fixes the cold boot issues.

If anyone could help, it would be much appreciated!

TIA,

Sal

 

[Salvador]

I see that everyone has probably moved on by now.

I think that I might've fixed both issues with a BIOS flash to latest P2.30 drivers.

 

[nemesismk2]

I had stability problems running Sata2 with my samsung hard drives, in the end I had to switch to Sata

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2
I had stability problems running Sata2 with my samsung hard drives, in the end I had to switch to Sata

Same here. I don't remember it being this way when I first got the board, but I have to run my one SATA drive (Seagate 250GB) on the SATA1 controller, with RAID disabled, using the default Windows drivers. Anything else seemed to cause random system freezes

Might be a Vista issue as I think it's only been happening for a year or so (around the time when I started running Vista as my primary OS).

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note - I only seem to be able to run 1T on my memory when I'm using a 32-bit OS; it would crash under Vista64 when doing the simplest things like printing (but not necessarily when gaming). I mention this because I saw that I'd posted about 1T higher up on this page (a month or two back). I've moved back to Vista32 for the time being, since in my situation I wasn't really seeing any benefits from x64 anyway. It'll be quite a while before I upgrade from my current 2GB of RAM...

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: nemesismk2
I had stability problems running Sata2 with my samsung hard drives, in the end I had to switch to Sata

Same here. I don't remember it being this way when I first got the board, but I have to run my one SATA drive (Seagate 250GB) on the SATA1 controller, with RAID disabled, using the default Windows drivers. Anything else seemed to cause random system freezes

Might be a Vista issue as I think it's only been happening for a year or so (around the time when I started running Vista as my primary OS).

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note - I only seem to be able to run 1T on my memory when I'm using a 32-bit OS; it would crash under Vista64 when doing the simplest things like printing (but not necessarily when gaming). I mention this because I saw that I'd posted about 1T higher up on this page (a month or two back). I've moved back to Vista32 for the time being, since in my situation I wasn't really seeing any benefits from x64 anyway. It'll be quite a while before I upgrade from my current 2GB of RAM...

When I got my Samsung Sata2 drive I did a clean install of Windows XP, first I tried running the drive as Sata2 with Sata enabled in the bios. This gave me lots of stability problems so tried strong driving which didn't fix the problem. Then I tried running the drive with Sata2 with IDE enabled, this reduced my stability problems but still got lock ups. Finally I decided to abandon Sata2 and I now run the drive as Sata without using raid and everything works good

Thanks for the Vista info, when I decide to upgrade to Vista I will make sure that I don't use 1T if using Vista64

 

[Salvador]

If you're running Vista, it might be that there aren't drivers or decent drivers for the JMicron SATA2 controller.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Salvador
If you're running Vista, it might be that there aren't drivers or decent drivers for the JMicron SATA2 controller.

Probably so; the standard drivers that Windows installs don't seem to be all that good either. I read of other people having problems with JMicron controllers too though, so perhaps they're just crap


To nemesismk2 re: my 1T comments -

After more testing, it looks like I was still wrong - the crashes weren't as predictable, but I still got crashes (even in Vista32). So basically, I'm just going to forget that 1T even exists...I haven't had any luck with it since I upgraded from my 2x512MB sticks in early 2006 (currently 2x1GB, previously 4x512MB). So, to revise my advice - I'd say that 1T is probably not going to work no matter what unless you only have 2x512MB of RAM (and I'm not even 100% sure on that). And that's not a whole lot of RAM these days either...

 

[Sandan]

I remember fiddling around with my SATA2 drivers for a while when I got a new drive. I finally got the jmicron sata2 drivers on the Boards CD to work......Been rock solid ever since. P.S. I remember I had to identify the drive in the Bios as IDE rather than SATA2 and it works. Somewhere I read that doing this doesn't actually make it any slower...Sorry I can't remember where I read that.

 

[Salvador]

Does anyone know if the 4 holes around the motherboard heatsink that attach the RM with push pins will line up with an AM2 mount? I'm asking because I'd like to use an aftermarket AM2 for a heatsink with this board.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Salvador
Does anyone know if the 4 holes around the motherboard heatsink that attach the RM with push pins will line up with an AM2 mount? I'm asking because I'd like to use an aftermarket AM2 for a heatsink with this board.

Sorry, I have no idea.


I am glad you bumped the thread though, because I wanted to post some info...

I just got an X2 3800+ from Newegg for $58 (as an upgrade from my 3200+). Seems to do 2.75GHz with ease and it even POST'ed at 3GHz, by which I was quite surprised. In any case, I was doing most of my OC testing on my XP partition so as not to mess up my main Vista partition if something were to go horribly wrong

Well, I reboot into Vista, and something did go wrong. Suddenly I have only 800x600@60Hz video, extremely slow screen drawing, and Device Manager reports a Code 43 on my video card (Radeon 9700 Pro - AGP, of course). Attempts to uninstall/reinstall video drivers did nothing. At first I thought I'd somehow corrupted some files and was going down that path - until I came across a few forum postings implying that this was actually a ULi chipset issue with ATI AGP cards in Vista - but only if you're running a dual-core CPU, which explains why it was fine up until I dropped in the new chip.

Long story short, apparently ASRock's download site has an "AGP patch for Vista/Vista64 RC1" on the Dual-VSTA's download page. I read posts on forums indicating that this should fix the issue; so I downloaded and installed it, and voila - I have working video drivers again. Even though the patch is a year old (and listed under the VSTA instead of the SATA2 version of the motherboard), it works just fine. (I'm personally running Vista x64 Ultimate.) You can download said patch here.

I'm not sure if anyone else happens to be running a dual core CPU in Vista with an ATI AGP card ...but I wanted to post this just in case it may help anyone.

 

[CU]

Does anyone know if the am2 riser card can support the newer am2 am3 cpu's out and coming out? Will they release a am3 riser card for it?

 

[WT]

Bah .. this blasted board doth vex me so !! After assuring myself that an upgrade to the AM2 riser card and a 5200+ chip was a waste of $$, I am now back looking at it yet again, only dropping the 5200+ and hoping, like CU's post above, that the new Barcelona chip would work properly in the riser card mounted to the Asrock.
Somebody hopefully has some news on this in the future, as I am going to drag this Asrock kicking and screaming into the future. Nothing like it as far as upgradability, and I don't think we'll ever see another like it as well for a looong time (in PC years, thats like .. ohhh... 4 years).

 

[ysaric]

Any help please! 939Dual-Sata2 won't POST!

I have been successfully and happily running my 939Dual-Sata2 since January of 2006 w/ an Athlon 64 3200+ and 1G RAM. I decided recently that I wanted to squeeze a little more life out of this upgrade path by going with an X2 4200+ and 2GB RAM, so I ordered the CPU and RAM from Newegg and went to install them last night. I have done CPU/RAM swaps a dozen times or more in the last twelve years (since I started building my own systems).

One thing did go wrong during the process. The 3200+ was retail, and so had the AMD heatsink/fan. When the heatsink-fan came off, the suction pulled the CPU out of the socket (while the socket lever was still in the locked position). The CPU did not appear damaged, and I was not using excessive force, so I'm a little honked off about the CPU coming out. That should not have happened. Still, the socket doesn't appear damaged (or loose in any way) and neither does the CPU, and I can put the old and new CPUs in and the locking lever still appears to function normally. In other words, I was hoping this did not cause any permanent damage, and I am not 100% convinced it is causing the problem I will be describing below, but it seems pretty likely unless someone can suggest some alternative ides.

However, now the machine won't POST. Not with the new CPU, not with the old CPU. I have unplugged and taken out everything but the CPU, RAM and video card (I left the keyboard plugged in). When I power up the board, the fans spin up fine, lights flash on the keyboard, and the monitor's green light blinks at me, just waiting for the computer to feed it something. But it just sits. Nothing. IIRC from prior CPU swaps I've seen this before with, say, a short between the board and case, but outside of the issue described above I haven't done anything that would cause that kind of problem. I've tried clearing the CMOS (I'm using the latest BIOS from ASRock) with no effect.

I am doubly-screwed because I can't find anywhere to buy a replacement board--and I don't think I can return the CPU/RAM since there isn't anything wrong with them (and even if I did . . . then what?). I have a 6800 GT AGP video card and my planned upgrade path was to buy a nice PCI-E video card and monitor for Christmas, then later next year upgrade the mobo, RAM and CPU again all at once. Without this board, I seemingly either have to buy a 939-PCI-E board now + a new video card (I really don't want to go with anything slower than my 6800GT), or buy a 939-AGP board and then hold off on my video card upgrade until the full system upgrade, which I also hate doing because it isn't spaced out.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. When I get a computer problem like this it just crawls under my skin until I get it somehow resolved . . . it's after 11:15 a.m. and I haven't gotten a damn thing done at work today

 

[imported_Woody]

It sounds like you've done pretty much everything possible to get it running. Sometimes they just break I guess.

If it won't post and you've tried swapping everything that could cause it and cleared the CMOS and reloaded the BIOS it doesn't seem like there's much left to try without getting out a multimeter and testing the board bit by bit. Have you tried a different PSU?

 

[Double Echo]

I'm thinking that you caused some damage to the CPU socket. If you really want to keep the board, I'd suggest getting one of those AM2CPU cards and an AM2 CPU, but then you'd have to spend about as much on those as you would another board as you'd need to buy DDR2 memory as well.

You might want to try selling it to someone who has an AM2CPU board in case they can get it working, so it doesn't just get thrown in the trash. If you could somehow test it you may be able to put that as a selling point, that it does work with the AM2CPU board but not without.

 

[WT]

ysaric, I am buying the AM2CPU upgrade card, so like Echo said, don't toss it yet. I have yet to determine if the Phenom will run properly, but my CPU choice is now down to a 5000+ Black Edition or a recycled 3800+. Let me know if you want to make that board go away and I can see what it does with the parts that I have.
I really have no need to upgrade the Asrock, but something about it keeps me from retiring it. As it is, I use it as a bench PC, and in a pinch it runs TF2 fine with a 7900GS volt modded and an heavily OC'd Opteron 144.

 

[WT]

Anyone know offhand if the Brisbane core Black Edition 5000+ works with the Asrock via the AM2CPU upgrade riser card ? The Asrock website doesn't have it listed, but this doesn't mean its not compatible.

Asrock SATA II CPU chart

I'd like to jump on the combo deal at the Egg offering up the 5000+ plus 2gb of Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 RAM for $165. No Google results have found anything definitive at this point.

Edit: Fired off an email to Asrock tech support to see if they knew.