- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
Naols,
BIOS V2.3 is the last one made, it works fine. I would flash to it before doing anything else.
-
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New ASRock Motherboard
- Thread starter LordDarik
- Start date
Naols,
BIOS V2.3 is the last one made, it works fine. I would flash to it before doing anything else.
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
KB,
I saw your post some time ago. I often wondered what I would replace this board with if it ever goes. I don't want or need to be cutting edge every year, as long as this is running, I'll keep it and just build something else if needed. Does your A8V have any mild overclocking abilities?
Oh, and thanks for all the help getting me rolling many moons ago!
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2001
KB,
I saw your post some time ago. I often wondered what I would replace this board with if it ever goes. I don't want or need to be cutting edge every year, as long as this is running, I'll keep it and just build something else if needed. Does your A8V have any mild overclocking abilities?
Oh, and thanks for all the help getting me rolling many moons ago!
I am with you RT. I like this board. It has it's quirks, but it just runs.
I haven't even reinstalled Windows since I built these two years ago. I used to do that every 6 months at a minimum.
I must be gettin' old!
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2005
- Location
- L2 cache. England
Hey ther. I got me sual-SATA yesterday, got everything up and running, flashed the bios to the 2.30m with the windows utility, went smooth as butter. not done any ocing yet, just been gettin stuff installed.
The system is as follows:
Dual SATA
Opty146 Cabge. (upgrading to x2 this weekend)
x1950proAGP
1gb + 512mb generic RAM.
Hyper 435 watt low noise PSU.
AC-64 freezer pro. (I love these things)
The system is as follows:
Dual SATA
Opty146 Cabge. (upgrading to x2 this weekend)
x1950proAGP
1gb + 512mb generic RAM.
Hyper 435 watt low noise PSU.
AC-64 freezer pro. (I love these things)
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
Naols,
Be aware that the stock board has overclocking limitations: Specifically vdimm. With BIOS voltage set on "High," it only puts out ~ 2.75v max idle and ~2.65v under load. Make sure any RAMs you use only require 2.6v default. You won't be able to overclock 2.6v performance RAMs too high without voltage mods so I wouldn't consider buying them. Mixed RAMs may be picky too, not sure about that. Otherwise it's a decent board. Vcore seems to be ample except for big overclocks.
Your dual core should drop right in and be recognized with that BIOS. I
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2005
- Location
- L2 cache. England
Hey RT. Thanks for the heads up, but i have been studying this thread for the past week, there seems to be more posts about RAM than anything else it seems. And i am very aware of the limitations of the V.Dimm/V.core
With the price of DDR nowadays, i doubt very much i'll be buying a diecent 2GB kit. And if i did, it would be going in my sig-rig, not this one. And I plan on running a devider, not at all botherd about 1:1 ratio. and i never seem to get anywhere Ocing ram. the one thing i know barely anything about. :s
and with any luck the x2 i get will OC nicely with minimal V.Core increase. If i can get away with not Volt-modding the board, i will. But they look simple enough, should i need the extra power.
On a side note, this graphics card gets pretty toasty, about 71* with ATITool running.
Thanks for the info RT!
With the price of DDR nowadays, i doubt very much i'll be buying a diecent 2GB kit. And if i did, it would be going in my sig-rig, not this one. And I plan on running a devider, not at all botherd about 1:1 ratio. and i never seem to get anywhere Ocing ram. the one thing i know barely anything about. :s
and with any luck the x2 i get will OC nicely with minimal V.Core increase. If i can get away with not Volt-modding the board, i will. But they look simple enough, should i need the extra power.
On a side note, this graphics card gets pretty toasty, about 71* with ATITool running.
Thanks for the info RT!
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2005
- Location
- Livonia, MI
No problem.KB,
I saw your post some time ago. I often wondered what I would replace this board with if it ever goes. I don't want or need to be cutting edge every year, as long as this is running, I'll keep it and just build something else if needed. Does your A8V have any mild overclocking abilities?
Oh, and thanks for all the help getting me rolling many moons ago!
Actually, I chose the A8V board as a replacement because it was one of the only socket 939 boards I could find from a manufacturer that I trusted! Also, my first 939 rig was based on an Asus A8V Deluxe which ran nicely for me, so I trust the chipset. I didn't get a chance to try overclocking the replacement board because I walked my in-laws through the mobo replacement over the phone! They're just running it at stock as my bro-in-law is just happy to have a working PC again!
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
Naols,
The cost of DDR1 is why I'm leaving mine at 1 gb rather than go for 2 x 1GB. There's and old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!.
You'll run out of vdimm before vcore @ 1:1 ratio so you should be fine. I'm at the default upper end of factory vcore @ 1.350v and am quite pleased with how it runs. One of the guys here did volt mods for me (OC Hungry), that's why I'm at 2.9v for these RAMS. Have fun!
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2006
You should be fine with 1gb. Remember, even not being on the cutting edge (welcome to the club 
), you'll eventually be upgrading, which will require you to jump to DDR2 in addition to a new mobo and proc. Nice thing about the dual sata - you can make the video card jump first.
And depending on your sticks, if you aren't vdimm modded yet, I suggest you skip the "Normal" voltage options and go to the "High." Some sticks do decent, but High has tended to be better for me and most that I can remember. That said, I do run fully heatsinked ram w/ fan cooling, but that's really not necessary.
), you'll eventually be upgrading, which will require you to jump to DDR2 in addition to a new mobo and proc. Nice thing about the dual sata - you can make the video card jump first. And depending on your sticks, if you aren't vdimm modded yet, I suggest you skip the "Normal" voltage options and go to the "High." Some sticks do decent, but High has tended to be better for me and most that I can remember. That said, I do run fully heatsinked ram w/ fan cooling, but that's really not necessary.
Just thought I'd throw a note in here. I ran the 939Dual-VSTA for about a year or so as a step from my MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum so I could keep my VGA card and transition to an 8800GT. Always enjoyed the board for its abilities and stability on the PCI-E, the AGP with my 1950Pro was another story..... =(
Anyway, I had purchased the AM2CPU board for it and never used it. My roomate wanted to upgrade his puter and had a 754 system with an unused 5000+ BE AM2 chip (Couldn't use the chip in his shuttle system, another long story). So we got 4GB of corsair DDR2 on sale at Microcenter, and a 8600GT to go along with it. Moved his zalman cooler over to the AM2CPU board and threw it all together, and............. no video.......
It refused to post even with the old FX55 in the 939 setup so I was at a loss and thought the board had perhaps gotten damaged when I removed it and upgraded to my current system. After I fiddled with it for a while I found when I put pressure on the NB heatsink it would post right away! Took the heatsink off and reapplied the TIM and no go, so I replaced the TIM once more and this time used screws and nuts to hold the heatsink down. Problem solved, the system boots and works perfectly now.
Seems pretty good, can run 3.0ghz stable currently and I'm going to do the VCore mod to the AM2CPU board to see if we can get to 3.2ghz (At 16x it runs the memory at 400mhz) and pass stability testing.
Also interesting was that we didn't do anything with drivers in windows when we swapped boards, didn't plan on keeping that install of windows but I was curious to see what it did. It actually booted windows fine with all the ATI and Nvidia nforce drivers installed and found all the new drivers without a hitch. Really surprised to see that but it was nice to be able to do a direct comparison on the benchmarks and "feel" of the games.
Just thought I'd post this in here to let people know my experiences with this board, it really is a good little board. I like how when you go overboard with your overclocks, 9/10 times it just resets down to safe values and allows you to go into the bios and change what you've done with the need to reset the CMOS.
Works great with a BE 5000+ and 2x2GB Corsair PC6400 dimms!
Anyway, I had purchased the AM2CPU board for it and never used it. My roomate wanted to upgrade his puter and had a 754 system with an unused 5000+ BE AM2 chip (Couldn't use the chip in his shuttle system, another long story). So we got 4GB of corsair DDR2 on sale at Microcenter, and a 8600GT to go along with it. Moved his zalman cooler over to the AM2CPU board and threw it all together, and............. no video.......
It refused to post even with the old FX55 in the 939 setup so I was at a loss and thought the board had perhaps gotten damaged when I removed it and upgraded to my current system. After I fiddled with it for a while I found when I put pressure on the NB heatsink it would post right away! Took the heatsink off and reapplied the TIM and no go, so I replaced the TIM once more and this time used screws and nuts to hold the heatsink down. Problem solved, the system boots and works perfectly now.
Seems pretty good, can run 3.0ghz stable currently and I'm going to do the VCore mod to the AM2CPU board to see if we can get to 3.2ghz (At 16x it runs the memory at 400mhz) and pass stability testing.
Also interesting was that we didn't do anything with drivers in windows when we swapped boards, didn't plan on keeping that install of windows but I was curious to see what it did. It actually booted windows fine with all the ATI and Nvidia nforce drivers installed and found all the new drivers without a hitch. Really surprised to see that but it was nice to be able to do a direct comparison on the benchmarks and "feel" of the games.
Just thought I'd post this in here to let people know my experiences with this board, it really is a good little board. I like how when you go overboard with your overclocks, 9/10 times it just resets down to safe values and allows you to go into the bios and change what you've done with the need to reset the CMOS.
Works great with a BE 5000+ and 2x2GB Corsair PC6400 dimms!
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2001
Just a note:
I swapped video cards in my son's computer tonight (see sig) and had to move his SATA HD for the new(er) card to fit. The SATA cable was loose on the Mobo. I had the same issue with my Mobo when I upgrade the video card. I don't know if it's heat related or just the SATA cables that came with the board, but I thought I would give users of this Mobo a heads up!
Cheers!
I swapped video cards in my son's computer tonight (see sig) and had to move his SATA HD for the new(er) card to fit. The SATA cable was loose on the Mobo. I had the same issue with my Mobo when I upgrade the video card. I don't know if it's heat related or just the SATA cables that came with the board, but I thought I would give users of this Mobo a heads up!
Cheers!
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
DS,
Believe it or not but I had a SATA cable that was "failing." I didn't know they could but it was a cheap one that came with the board. I was having "Disk" errors in "Event Viewer" and logically figured WTF, the HD is failing. When I investigated the error closer in EV "properties" it suggested a possible failing SATA cable. I have two better quality Intel cables that came with an older P4 motherboard. They are much heavier and thicker and used one of them. Problem dfisappeared.
Incidentally, this Asrock board is the last revision before it was discontinued and I can tell you one of the revisions done was tightening of the SATA connectors on the motherboard. There is a definite feel of a tigher connection for sure so I can relate to exactly what you stated.
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2001
I didn't know that RT. Thanks for the heads up.
This is the Thread That Never Ends
It just goes on and on my Friends
Some people started posting in it
Not know what it was
And we'll keep on a posting in it
forever just because...
This is the Thread That Never Ends
It just goes on and on my Friends
Some people started posting in it
Not know what it was
And we'll keep on a posting in it
forever just because...
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
I knew there was I reason I should have grabbed a second one before they finally sold out.
Electrical tape works wonders too. Nice to know they tightened them up on the last rev though.
Hey asr, how are you!
FYI, the last revision marked on the motherboard is 1.05. Revision 1.04 had the looser SATA connections. I don't know what else, if anything, was changed with that revision before the board was discontinued.
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2001
It's like a cult!
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2005
- Location
- L2 cache. England
Well, I'll finally be getting an X2 for this board, it will arrive sometime next week, its an xs 4200 Toledo core.
939 is still going strong!!
939 is still going strong!!
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2005
- Location
- L2 cache. England
I didn't pay for the chip, i just get to overclock it.
2750 was stable for the hour i ran Orthos. but was away for the weekend, will do some more testing this week, find out what it can do.
2750 was stable for the hour i ran Orthos. but was away for the weekend, will do some more testing this week, find out what it can do.
Probably the same as your Opteron, if not less. Just remember, no PCI locks on this board, you OC the processor, you OC everything else as well.
I started out with this board and it's a solid board. Run Prime95 for 24 hours, that will get you the stability check you want.
I started out with this board and it's a solid board. Run Prime95 for 24 hours, that will get you the stability check you want.
