ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA

[bigsnyder]

Originally posted by: phantomxprime
right now its set on DD2-533, and CPU-Z reads the memory as operating at 266Mhz, so close to a 1:1 ratio, but the same issue occurs when booting up (when I put the FSB any higher). i tried setting it on DDR2-667, then clocking the FSB to a comparable, 1:1 rate, like 335, but my video card stopped displaying the info screen it normally displays before the motherboard displays its info.

Keep in mind that if the memory is set to DDR2-667, the ratio stays constant not the speed
of the memory when the FSB is changed. So if you set the FSB to 335 and the memory is
set at "667" then the memory speed will actually run about DDR2-838. It is hard to say what
specifically is holding you back, but I would try with just one stick of memory (try both of them
separately). If your results change then your memory is your bottleneck. You might have to
relax the timings as well.

 

[timzak]

Has anyone tried Speedstep on this mobo with the Treiber 1.80c modded bios? I found that when Speedstep was enabled I lost my overclock. I use Linux and Win2k. Win2k doesn't support Speedstep that I know of, so I tested in Ubuntu Feisty. I use conky to detect cpu speeds...with Speedstep enabled it shows my E4300 correctly at 2.4Ghz. When I enable Speedstep and boot back into Ubuntu, conky reports an idle cpu speed of 1.2Ghz, with a max of 1.8Ghz (my cpu's stock speed) under load.

Has anyone else experienced this? Maybe this is why Asrock disables Speedstep on this mobo? It doesn't work right with overclocks...?

 

[oogravyoo]

anyone running Raid 0 that can tell me what they got for the file systems benchmark with Sisoft Sandra..

 

[atkmani]

Originally posted by: Simplepsy
Hi guys,

I got a real weird one here!

Had my 4coredual for about 2 months now with an E6300 onboard and Palit 7600GT PCI-E

Heres the thing...

Overclocking: CPU/PCI-E Sync boots fine, plays fine with no 3D corruption, Orthos tested 8 hours no errors or warnings.

CPU/PCI-E ASync Boots fine to XP and Vista, XP Locks up (Graphics stop responding and screen flashes from time to time), Vista keeps working well untill in a 3D application, the graphics and text corrupt, half drawing and rebooting the NV driver every few mins.

I dont want to run in Sync mode since I use SATA HDD's and dont want to clock the PCI-E.

I've tried several driver combinations, no change, and even the slightest overclock in Async will kick the graphics out.

Another thing: V-LINK mode, has to be Normal. In fast mode XP and Vista wont load.


Any ideas??? Temps are no problems, my system is very well cooled.

I know this message is bit old but didn?t have PCI-E card before to test. Today upgraded my system from AGP to XFX 7900GS PCI-E card and had huge problems with stability just as you said here ?CPU/PCI-E ASync Boots fine to XP and XP Locks up (Graphics stop responding and screen flashes from time to time)?.

Before this upgrade my setup was rock solid at 300 FSB for about month not even single crash in XP. But seems that CPU/PCI-E Sync mode is too much for PCI-E card at 300 FSB.

Does anyone have success to run this board in ASync mode with PCI-E card?

Atm testing at 290 FSB in CPU/PCI-E Sync mode and all seems ok for about 1 H.

cheers /atk

 

[stevvie]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: timzak
Has anyone tried Speedstep on this mobo with the Treiber 1.80c modded bios? I found that when Speedstep was enabled I lost my overclock. I use Linux and Win2k. Win2k doesn't support Speedstep that I know of, so I tested in Ubuntu Feisty. I use conky to detect cpu speeds...with Speedstep enabled it shows my E4300 correctly at 2.4Ghz. When I enable Speedstep and boot back into Ubuntu, conky reports an idle cpu speed of 1.2Ghz, with a max of 1.8Ghz (my cpu's stock speed) under load.

Has anyone else experienced this? Maybe this is why Asrock disables Speedstep on this mobo? It doesn't work right with overclocks...?</end quote></div>

I have an E6600 running at 295*9 with bios 1.80c with

Intel Virt. - ENABLED
CPU Thermal Thr. - ENABLED
No-Execute Memory. - Disabled
Intel Speedstep - ENABLED
It doesn't make any difference for me in either XP(32bit), vista(64bit), MacOSX10.4.9, Sam Linux(just love beryl)

 

[atkmani]

Originally posted by: Simplepsy

Currently running in XP with FSB 290 (2031.5MHz in cpuz),
Memory at 1:1 290Mhz (Dual channel)
PCI-E 109 (Async)
PCI 34.28
V-link normal,
IDE strength Low,
all memory settings to Auto,
Flexibility disabled,
Delay transaction enabled.

I' understand this is old post but have to made one comment.
Look here you say

PCI-E 109 (Async) <-actually PCI-E at 109 is in Sync mode as well when you set FSB to 290.

So guess this board don't care if you set it to Async mode and run it in Sync mode when you set it to speed as it would be in Sync mode eg. 109

atk

 

[timzak]

Originally posted by: stevvie
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: timzak
Has anyone tried Speedstep on this mobo with the Treiber 1.80c modded bios? I found that when Speedstep was enabled I lost my overclock. I use Linux and Win2k. Win2k doesn't support Speedstep that I know of, so I tested in Ubuntu Feisty. I use conky to detect cpu speeds...with Speedstep enabled it shows my E4300 correctly at 2.4Ghz. When I enable Speedstep and boot back into Ubuntu, conky reports an idle cpu speed of 1.2Ghz, with a max of 1.8Ghz (my cpu's stock speed) under load.

Has anyone else experienced this? Maybe this is why Asrock disables Speedstep on this mobo? It doesn't work right with overclocks...?</end quote></div>

I have an E6600 running at 295*9 with bios 1.80c with

Intel Virt. - ENABLED
CPU Thermal Thr. - ENABLED
No-Execute Memory. - Disabled
Intel Speedstep - ENABLED
It doesn't make any difference for me in either XP(32bit), vista(64bit), MacOSX10.4.9, Sam Linux(just love beryl)

Hmmmm. How are you measuring cpu speed in Linux? I wonder why my system removes the overclock when I enable Speedstep? Weird.

 

[stevvie]

just use the terminal command cat /proc/cpuinfo.
I dont use linux alot, I just dabble in it as I love beryl but play way too many games to use linux full time.

 

[timzak]

Originally posted by: stevvie
just use the terminal command cat /proc/cpuinfo.
I dont use linux alot, I just dabble in it as I love beryl but play way too many games to use linux full time.

I'm using conky to measure cpu speed. I'll try that terminal command and see if it reports any differently.

Thanks.

 

[bogi]

hi all
finaly i manage to assemble my new rig, 4coredual-vsta and c2d e4400
i have few questions
1. do i need to update bios, my current version is 1.60?
2. what is the normal temperature for my cpu?
3. what CPU Quiet Fan do, and which temp to put 45,55,65 if i enable it?
thanx

 

[lookin4dlz]

My SATA add-in card (CompUSA w/ a SIL 3152 chip) will no longer recognize my Raptor HD, which it formerly did on this and on another motherboard using this card. The ASROCK bios doesn't even show an add-in card in the HD boot menu. I've tried various ASROCK & modded bios versions (btw, 1.80 - either the official or modded - is horrible), as well as disabling every single possible bios option with only the raptor drive hooked up & no other add-in cards in the motherboard, and in addition tried all of the raptor jumper settings. The SATA card works fine with two Diamondmax 10 250GB drives.

Any thoughts?

 

[Scougar]

Hi Been browsing for months on and off, looking into the Dual-vsta then the 4CoreDual, This forum was the main reason for getting it

Anyway.. having problems (typical first post )

Was using an AGP 6800LE o/c and voltmodded on my 4coredual E4300@ 2.6Ghz. Had no problems with crashing at all. I have now swapped to an x1950xt which is a bit of a power hog. I can overclock that no problems (even undervolt it ) and runs smooth.

No here's the problem... the pc will only run stable at stock cpu of 1.8Ghz. If I overclock the PC at all (even with gfx card at standard) it crashes randomly, or crashes then resets. I know what your thinking... PSU.. but I've just got a new Corsair HX 520W (40A continuous) to ensure that doesn't happen, and believe me i didn't want to fork out £72 ($140 dollars) for it.

I have a very cool case, with 120mm fans front and back and the x1950xt vents out the back. I have updated the 4CoreDual bios to 1.8 last night and reinstalled xp to sp2 plus updates, and tried multiple driver cleans, reinstalls, different versions etc. Return cpu to stock speeds, and it's fine, just slow in games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which would REALLY benefit from the extra 800Mhz.

I can't for the life of me figure out why it can clock fine with the o/c'd agp card in and won't stay stable with an overclock using the x1950xt PCI-E card

Any help appreciated.

Matthew
p.s. I did have probs initially with this board, but a reinstall of xp sorted that and reseting the bios to defaults helped it be stable again, after similar results when I first got the board. No errors with Orthos using any method @ 2.6Ghz, or super pi, or 3dmark etc before this time. I was running DDR1 @ 290 just fine with every other option on default.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: Scougar
Hi Been browsing for months on and off, looking into the Dual-vsta then the 4CoreDual, This forum was the main reason for getting it

Anyway.. having problems (typical first post )

Was using an AGP 6800LE o/c and voltmodded on my 4coredual E4300@ 2.6Ghz. Had no problems with crashing at all. I have now swapped to an x1950xt which is a bit of a power hog. I can overclock that no problems (even undervolt it ) and runs smooth.

No here's the problem... the pc will only run stable at stock cpu of 1.8Ghz. If I overclock the PC at all (even with gfx card at standard) it crashes randomly, or crashes then resets. I know what your thinking... PSU.. but I've just got a new Corsair HX 520W (40A continuous) to ensure that doesn't happen, and believe me i didn't want to fork out £72 ($140 dollars) for it.

I have a very cool case, with 120mm fans front and back and the x1950xt vents out the back. I have updated the 4CoreDual bios to 1.8 last night and reinstalled xp to sp2 plus updates, and tried multiple driver cleans, reinstalls, different versions etc. Return cpu to stock speeds, and it's fine, just slow in games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which would REALLY benefit from the extra 800Mhz.

I can't for the life of me figure out why it can clock fine with the o/c'd agp card in and won't stay stable with an overclock using the x1950xt PCI-E card

Any help appreciated.

Matthew
p.s. I did have probs initially with this board, but a reinstall of xp sorted that and reseting the bios to defaults helped it be stable again, after similar results when I first got the board. No errors with Orthos using any method @ 2.6Ghz, or super pi, or 3dmark etc before this time. I was running DDR1 @ 290 just fine with every other option on default.

Try running in Async mode and boost the PCI frequency to 109Mhz and AGP voltage to high as that feeds the North Bridge.

 

[lookin4dlz]

Re: the problem I mentioned below...

I moved the Raptor & Sata card into another computer where it worked perfectly, so it's not the Sata card. That leaves me with the problem being the motherboard or bios. I've tried this card in all of the pci slots & with no other cards, drives, dvd-r/w, etc. installed. I've tried it with all of the different bios options I can think of & tried different bios'. Could the problem be the motherboard or the card? I know that at one point the Sata card plus the Raptor worked in this board...

Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
My SATA add-in card (CompUSA w/ a SIL 3152 chip) will no longer recognize my Raptor HD, which it formerly did on this and on another motherboard using this card. The ASROCK bios doesn't even show an add-in card in the HD boot menu. I've tried various ASROCK & modded bios versions (btw, 1.80 - either the official or modded - is horrible), as well as disabling every single possible bios option with only the raptor drive hooked up & no other add-in cards in the motherboard, and in addition tried all of the raptor jumper settings. The SATA card works fine with two Diamondmax 10 250GB drives.

Any thoughts?

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
Re: the problem I mentioned below...

I moved the Raptor & Sata card into another computer where it worked perfectly, so it's not the Sata card. That leaves me with the problem being the motherboard or bios. I've tried this card in all of the pci slots & with no other cards, drives, dvd-r/w, etc. installed. I've tried it with all of the different bios options I can think of & tried different bios'. Could the problem be the motherboard or the card? I know that at one point the Sata card plus the Raptor worked in this board...

Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
My SATA add-in card (CompUSA w/ a SIL 3152 chip) will no longer recognize my Raptor HD, which it formerly did on this and on another motherboard using this card. The ASROCK bios doesn't even show an add-in card in the HD boot menu. I've tried various ASROCK & modded bios versions (btw, 1.80 - either the official or modded - is horrible), as well as disabling every single possible bios option with only the raptor drive hooked up & no other add-in cards in the motherboard, and in addition tried all of the raptor jumper settings. The SATA card works fine with two Diamondmax 10 250GB drives.

Any thoughts?

I think that it?s probably a driver issue, meaning IMO a full driver cleanout or new install.

Why would you be trying to run SATA thru a PCI slot?

Have you tried the onboard SATA?

If I was going to use an add in card, it would have to be a PCI-e 16 slot card for the better than PCI slot bandwidth.

:roll:

 

[lookin4dlz]

Thanks for the quick reply Mr. V!

It's actually hanging in the bios, so I can't even get into windows when the Raptor is attached to the sata card.

I can't get the sata card to flash to raid, so I was going to use this for my boot drive (Raptor) and a sata dvd-r/w drive while using the onboard raid with the 2x 250GB sata drives. The card works perfectly with the same drive in another computer & works perfectly with the other sata drives, just not the Raptor (I tried all of the jumper settings on the Raptor).

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: lookin4dlz
Thanks for the quick reply Mr. V!

It's actually hanging in the bios, so I can't even get into windows when the Raptor is attached to the sata card.

I can't get the sata card to flash to raid, so I was going to use this for my boot drive (Raptor) and a sata dvd-r/w drive while using the onboard raid with the 2x 250GB sata drives. The card works perfectly with the same drive in another computer & works perfectly with the other sata drives, just not the Raptor (I tried all of the jumper settings on the Raptor).

That?s a strange problem; perhaps Asrock technical support might have a suggestion.

 

[lookin4dlz]

Well, I decided to go non-raid because moving the data around when I upgrade or change things in the computer will be easier. Now, however, my X-Fi doesn't seem to be working... I took a chance that Newegg didn't screw me on this board by sending an open box & because of the problems now think that they did...

 

[Scougar]

Cool, thanks for the advice Mr.Vain I will try those settings with the next card.

I found the problem is the card though, not the board. It was totally unstable even at stock speeds. Aiming a fan at the vrm's didn't help.. only setting the fan on 100% solved the problem (which is noisy as hell, can even hear it with headphones on during a noisy game).

I had tried upping the AGP voltage and dirve strength to high as well, but that seemed to make no difference. The only thing I didn't try was upping the freq on the PCI-E bus.

I have RMA'd the card and should be collected tomorrow. The only remaining problem is that the Asrock 4Coredual board continues to seemingly corrupt my IDE drives (only have 1, but 3 partitions), resetting the bios seems to solve it for a while.... Through all my crashes with my old athlon board, I hardly ever had drive corruption, it seems quite a regular thing now, especially after a fresh install of xp lol.

Thanks

Matthew
p.s. I also got problems running some videos as the colours got completely screwed up,
even with the fan on 100%. I think the card was more balls up than I realise.
I might also put my 5.1 live sound card in there is an awful lot of lag during games with onboard sound it seems.

 

[timzak]

Originally posted by: stevvie
just use the terminal command cat /proc/cpuinfo.
I dont use linux alot, I just dabble in it as I love beryl but play way too many games to use linux full time.

Sorry it took so long to get back. I tried cat /proc/cpuinfo in the terminal and it gives me the same cpu speeds that conky does. So it appears that when I enable Speedstep in the 4core-dualVSTA (1.80c modded bios), my overclock disappears in Linux. Bummer. I was hoping Speedstep would downclock from my overclocked state.

Has anyone else tried this?

 

[Scougar]

Speedstep on the 4CoreDual.. YES PLEASE Have you got a safe link for that modded bios please?

Also.. I retract what I said about it being an overheating issue with my graphics card (X1950XT). It was solved by setting the PCI-E to 101Mhz. Totally stable and thankfully quiet. Not sure why that works, or why setting the fan to 100% before made it work when it was at 100Mhz. Very strange, but it works and i'm happy

Can only get 2.4Ghz on the clock though else it throws a fit still however with artifacting even at the standard GPU clocks.

Good board for the price I just wish the bios was erm.. more stable? Seems like you have to keep resetting it to solve issues.

Matthew

 

[timzak]

Originally posted by: Scougar
Speedstep on the 4CoreDual.. YES PLEASE Have you got a safe link for that modded bios please?

Also.. I retract what I said about it being an overheating issue with my graphics card (X1950XT). It was solved by setting the PCI-E to 101Mhz. Totally stable and thankfully quiet. Not sure why that works, or why setting the fan to 100% before made it work when it was at 100Mhz. Very strange, but it works and i'm happy

Can only get 2.4Ghz on the clock though else it throws a fit still however with artifacting even at the standard GPU clocks.

Good board for the price I just wish the bios was erm.. more stable? Seems like you have to keep resetting it to solve issues.

Matthew

http://www.pc-treiber.net/download_kategorie_108.html

This is a DOS flash. Just replace Asrock's bios file in their DOS download with the one on this site, and when running the flash, type their filename instead of Asrock's. Use at your own risk.

 

[Scougar]

"at my own risk" .... of course

Thanks for the link

Matthew

 

[atkmani]

Here is Sneak preview of ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2: new board from asrock

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3024&p=1

Why I post it here is page 3 with memory benchmark at (1:1 ratio) and (4:5 ratio) for 4CoreDual-VSTA with 1.80 bios.
They claim that ASRock has tuned the PT880 Ultra BIOS to only 3% difference between the two memory speeds!!!!

Quote

"Last year we noticed differences in the Sandra scores with DDR2-533 being up to 32% faster than DDR2-667."

DDR2-533 means here (1:1 ratio) DDR2-667 means here (4:5 ratio)

Wonder can you guy's with bios 1.80 and different memory modules confirm this ?

atk

Ps. will post my test results later

 

[atkmani]

Ok here it come

ASRock 4CoreDual-VISTA
Bios 1.80c (beta from pc-treiber.net)

CPU E6420 @2349MHz FSB speed 292 x 8

Benchmark Results for 1:1 Ratio DDR2-533
DDR2-SDRAM 3.0-3-3-9 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) 1T
Sandra Buffered INT 5924 MB/s
Sandra Buffered FLT 5879 MB/s
SuperPI 1.5 32M calculation 18.141s

For some odd reason was unable to boot my system at FSB 292 with memory settings 3-3-3-9 1T when DDR2 667 was selected.
Well since not going to use it anyway didn?t bother to look more at it, so test are done at 4-4-4-12 2T memory speed.

Benchmark Results for 1:1 Ratio DDR2-533
DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) 2T
Sandra Buffered INT 5565 MB/s
Sandra Buffered FLT 5553 MB/s
SuperPI 1.5 32M calculation 19.484s

Benchmark Results for 4:5 Ratio DDR2-667
DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) 2T
Sandra Buffered INT 5245 MB/s
Sandra Buffered FLT 5253 MB/s
SuperPI 1.5 32M calculation 19.125s

Well still Sandra score 320 MB/s less with 4:5 Ratio for my 4CoreDual-VISTA setup.
According to test on page 3 from my link for 4CoreDual-SATA II it was only 50 MB/s less with 4:5 Ratio

atk