Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 + ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA + ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

[anonxlg_]

so my best option would be a e7x00 series

 

[kilowatt46]

I have a 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 MB - Intel Xeon X3220 Kentsfield 2.4GHz Quad-Core Processor -http://detonator.dynamitedata.com/c...com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117127 2GB Patriot DDR2 PC5300 Dual Channel memory - ATI X800XT AGP Graphics - SoundBlaster Audigy2 PCI Sound - Adaptec AH2940 SCSI - D-Link DGE-530T Gigabit Network Adapter - Two Seagate ST3160815AS SATA2 HDDs - Pioneer 112D IDE DVD Burner.

I am having trouble setting up RAID1.

I set the BIOS for SATA to non-RAID - used Seagate DiskWizard to setup and format the HDDs - installed Windows XP Professional on the Channel0 HDD - after Win XP Pro install completed, rebooted - went into the BIOS and set SATA for RAID - at the VIA VT8237S V-RAID Controller prompt during boot up, pressed Cntrl+Z to enter the VIA 8237S V-RAID Utility V1.20 - set Array Mode to RAID1 (mirroring) - selected Channel0 HDD for source & Channel1 for mirror - and then started thr Create Array process.

The Duplicating percentage reaches 80% in about 1 hour. After that, it slows to a snails pace - up to 83% 10 hours later. I tried these same steps previously and reached 87% after 78 hours! I wiped the HDDs cleans and started over yesterday = that is where I am at in the paragraph above.

I have contacted ASRock tech support several times, but no real help. Their first response was to jumper the HDDs for SATA1 and flash the BIOS to 2.20. This board is supposed to support SATA2, so I can't see jumpering the HDDs to work as SATA1. According to ASRocks BIOS revision descriptions, the revisions past 1.90 add ATI PCIE VGA cards support, update the CPU list and add Logitech USB illuminated Keyboard support. So, I haven't flashed the BIOS to 2.20 yet.

Unless a miracle occurs between now and latewr this morning and the Create Array process completes, later today, I am going to wipe the HDDs clean, flash the BIOS to 2.20, go into the BIOS and set the SATA mode to RAID, enter the RAID utility (CntrlZ) configure the Raid Mode for RAID1, reboot and enter the BIOS and make the 1st boot device = optical drive and the 2nd boot device = VIA RAID1, and then start installing Win XP Professional. I have a floppy of the VIA RAID drivers to use during the beginning of the Win XP install to add those drivers.

Does anyone have a thought or thoughts on whether or not the above paragraphs sequence of steps will work before I start the install process for the 3rd time?

Thanks.
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[kilowatt46]

Here's an update - I'm a lot further along now.

I updated the BIOS to 2.20 - wiped the HDDs clean - went into the BIOS and set the SATA Mode to RAID - then entered the RAID Utility (CntrlZ) and created a bootable array of the HDDs under RAID1 - rebooted, entered the BIOS and set the 1st Boot Device = optical drive, and the 2nd Boot Device = VIA RAID1 - rebooted and started the Win XP Pro install from its CD.

When the Win XP Pro setup started, I pressed the F6 Key to install the VIA RAID drivers from the floppy. When the prompt came up, I pressed S, inserted the floppy, and pressed enter. I chose the VIA RAID for Win XP x86. The floppy was accessed and read. I had no other drivers to install, so I continued the Win XP Pro setup.

Up to that point everything was working as it should.

The Win XP Pro setup continued, then asked me where to install Win XP Pro. I chose the only available partition. I did not choose to partition it, and selected the Quick NTFS format. The setup continued and loaded the initial files to the HDD. During that file transfer, the setup program tried to install the VIA RAID files from the floppy (viamraid.sys, viamriaid.inf, viamraid.cat,etc.) - for EACH of the files, I got the error that the setup program could not read the files from the floppy. I had the press enter to retry, esc to skip the file, or F3 to exit setup. Pressing ENTER to retry the file did no good. I pressed ESC for each file to skip it, and finally the setiup program continued copying files from the CD. Then the Win XP Pro setup restarted the computer. Windows startup got to the Windows splash screen and through 4 loops of the blue waiting bars. Then I got the BSOD - an error had occurred and Windows setup was shutting down to prevent damage to the computer.

Does anyone know a workaround for this problem? I have the latest VIA RAID drivers for a floppy - both from ASROCK and VIA. No matter which floppy I use, the setup program returns the error that it cannot copy the VIA RAID files from the floppy. I have independently verified that the files needed are on both floppies.

Thanks!

 

[anonxlg_]

well, seeing as to i cant upgrade cpu to the one i want, any tips on overclocking like general settings or ram settings etc

 

[Hlafordlaes]

During that file transfer, the setup program tried to install the VIA RAID files from the floppy (viamraid.sys, viamriaid.inf, viamraid.cat,etc.) - for EACH of the files, I got the error that the setup program could not read the files from the floppy. I had the press enter to retry, esc to skip the file, or F3 to exit setup. Pressing ENTER to retry the file did no good. I pressed ESC for each file to skip it, and finally the setiup program continued copying files from the CD. Then the Win XP Pro setup restarted the computer. Windows startup got to the Windows splash screen and through 4 loops of the blue waiting bars. Then I got the BSOD - an error had occurred and Windows setup was shutting down to prevent damage to the computer.

Does anyone know a workaround for this problem? I have the latest VIA RAID drivers for a floppy - both from ASROCK and VIA. No matter which floppy I use, the setup program returns the error that it cannot copy the VIA RAID files from the floppy. I have independently verified that the files needed are on both floppies.

Did you format the floppies under Windows? I have found floppies formatted under XP to be unreadable at boot time. What I eventually did was create a DOS partition on a hard drive (IDE), install DOS, and format from there to get my honest-to-goodness DOS floppies. But if you have no bootable DOS/Win98 floppies/CDs to install DOS with, catch-22. I imagine you can find a floppy image around the web that could be used to create a proper floppy under XP, a route I never took, so no advice on that.

The alternative is to slipstream the VIA textmode (F6) drivers onto your XP install CD and skip the need for a floppy. Rolling your own via slipstreaming is a great way to go; my CD for XP has drivers for all my legacy systems and hardware, from RAID textmode to old PCI card stuff, and installs on five boards with all needed drivers.

Slipstreaming can be complex and involved, and the best place for guidance and cool stuff is the RyanVM site (see RyanVM Integrator; add-on forum). Simpler and useful for some tasks RyanVM does not do is nLite, which will allow you to easily incorporate all the needed drivers.

If you want to truly roll your own and learn about slipstreaming, go here. And here is a really quick example for a manual floppyless set up.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

so my best option would be a e7x00 series

well, seeing as to i cant upgrade cpu to the one i want, any tips on overclocking like general settings or ram settings etc

Expensive, but yes, the E7600 should be the fastest possible CPU on these boards.

For overclocking and general settings, read this entire thread or search the forum for the original thread on your board. Here's one source to start with.

 

[anonxlg_]

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=41495&processor=E7600&spec-codes=SLGTD
comparing the specs or e6600 and e7600, it seems like the e6600 is better because it has a bigger cache
but, if i cant overclock the cpu, i'm stuck to get e7600 for higher clock with less cache

 

[Hlafordlaes]

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=41495&processor=E7600&spec-codes=SLGTD
comparing the specs or e6600 and e7600, it seems like the e6600 is better because it has a bigger cache
but, if i cant overclock the cpu, i'm stuck to get e7600 for higher clock with less cache

For media and image processing, go quad (Conroe E6600). Remember these boards underclock quads by 5%. The newer E6600 (Pentium dual, not quad) is as fast as the E7600 but has a smaller cache, though it's significantly cheaper. For top performance and gaming, go E7600. With the latter and good tweaking, you should get 300FSB, for 3,5 GHz. With that you should find your system still quite capable of most tasks and not feeling too dated.

 

[vixensjlin]

Not really. The computer can see all 4 GB, but 32-bit OS's can only address up to 3.5 GB. There's some debate as towards whether the remainder can be utilized by programs or set aside for video buffers, as well as the /3GB switch

There's no "debate" and the OS "seeing" has nothing to do with this. The BIOS handles memory addressing then lets the OS know what is available to it via memory map. The /3GB switch has nothing to do with DRAM addressing.

Second that, there's nothing to do with OS 32 or 64bit. MS's windows 2003 server 32bit can use more than 32G, even 32 bit XP sp1 can use all 4GB. Not to mention 32bit Linux can use more than 32G for long time.

I've tested 4G limitation on 4coredual SATA2 with 2*2G ram. Even 64bit windows XP or Linux can NOT use full 4G on this motherboard. It is PT880 chipset that limit system < 4G.

PS. PT880 can only address 4G exactly, less the mapping for video/drivers, so you only get ~3.3G out of 4G ram regardless of OS.

 

[Hal1000]

This is my first and possibly my only post and possibly this is the wrong place section etc - but I have used this forum to glean a bit of info now and again, so I thought I would just give some knowledge back. I have a 4 core dual Vsta running p1.3 bios I think - 2 gig of DDR1 mem and a q6600 go - downstream pipe set to auto and a 450W Tagan psu (not that it makes any odds. just thought I would mention it). Anyway now for the good news, I just purchased an ATI MSI R5770 HAWK graphics card and for all of those who may feel anxious about such a purchase, i.e. will this GPU etc work with this mobo etc, the simple answer is yes with no hassle what so ever. Just plugged it in, got the latest drivers from ATI and away she went.

Why would I purchase such a card for such an old mobo etc, because I plan to upgrade my mobo and chip to a core I5 soon, but I thought I would throw it into this motherboard first and give it a try. Just finished playing a level of COD Modern Warfare 2 - looked way better than the 7800gt agp I had before and plays at a much higher rez + DX11. So that's all I wanted to say, some people here will be happy to know, that they can upgrade to this graphics card (I can only say it for this card I don't endorse any other R5000 card), but I swear to you this one worked fine for me.

p.s - this card has no TV - SVHS out - just in case you needed this feature, as I forgot to check when I purchased it, not that I need it, but some might.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

@Hal1000,

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[BuuBox]

I have a quick question for those still using the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA.

Does a Pentium Dual Core E5400 pose any problems for this board? I assume that I'll need the modified 3.19a BIOS and an older CPU so I can flash to this BIOS. Being able to understand German would be a great help too...

Thanks!

 

[PureHazard]

Anyone one here with a 4CoreDual-VSTA try a Fermi card? My buddy just got a Gigabyte GTX 460 768MB PCI-E card, popped it in and installed the drivers on a fresh Windows XP 32-bit but in the device manager, there's a yellow exclamation mark and it's not working.

It's got the last official BIOS, 2.30 and I may suggest for him to try the modded 2.39a with some added HD4XXX support but I'd like to know if any of you have tried the above combination.

EDIT: Looks like it's not gonna work.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Since your friend already has the hardware, I'd definitely try the 2.39a BIOS and see what happens. Not likely to work, but at least all options will have been tried. Pls report back on results.

 

[PureHazard]

Since your friend already has the hardware, I'd definitely try the 2.39a BIOS and see what happens. Not likely to work, but at least all options will have been tried. Pls report back on results.

Grabbed my friend's computer today and installed 2.39a. Uninstalled the Nvidia drivers, ran Driver Cleaner Pro and reinstalled the 258.96 drivers but it didn't work. Still has the yellow exclamation mark and "Device cannot start. (Code 10)".

Oh well. Gonna have to throw back in the old X1950 Pro for now and then decide if he wants to cheap out and grab a G41 mobo for $55 CAD or go for a full blown upgrade with an i3 / H55 or P55 / 4GB DDR3 that would probably hit $350 CAD.

BTW, Hlafordlaes, are you running a 8800GTS 512 (G92) on your 4CoreDual-VSTA?

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Grabbed my friend's computer today and installed 2.39a. Uninstalled the Nvidia drivers, ran Driver Cleaner Pro and reinstalled the 258.96 drivers but it didn't work. Still has the yellow exclamation mark and "Device cannot start. (Code 10)".

This may be waaay off, but did you ensure that you have up-to-date chipset drivers (VIA Hyperion v5.18 are not latest but seem best)? Prolly still a no go, but if this were me I'd go typically ape-sh*t and try everything under the sun for stubbornness' sake.

Oh well. Gonna have to throw back in the old X1950 Pro for now and then decide if he wants to cheap out and grab a G41 mobo for $55 CAD or go for a full blown upgrade with an i3 / H55 or P55 / 4GB DDR3 that would probably hit $350 CAD.

BTW, Hlafordlaes, are you running a 8800GTS 512 (G92) on your 4CoreDual-VSTA?

Yes, it was my upgrade from a 7600GT AGP. Thought I'd be transitioning to a new motherboard much sooner; now this "bridge" upgrade video card is also out of date. Should've gone for the Powercolor 3850 AGP.

BTW, if that 460 needs a home, I take in strays!

 

[PureHazard]

This may be waaay off, but did you ensure that you have up-to-date chipset drivers (VIA Hyperion v5.18 are not latest but seem best)? Prolly still a no go, but if this were me I'd go typically ape-sh*t and try everything under the sun for stubbornness' sake.

Updated with the VIA v5.24. Nada. Popped the X1950 Pro AGP back in and it's screwed. Worked okay until I installed the drivers. It would crash whenever I ran anything 3D, like the RE5 Benchmark, and there were desktop and folder icons that were invisible. Tried both the Cat 10.2 and 9.8. Same deal.

Next, I changed the primary video card to PCI-Express in the BIOS and popped in my BFG 8800GTS OC 512MB. Couldn't get it to post. Driving me nuts. Popped the X1950 Pro in. Runs but has the issues stated above. Bah!

This whole upgrade thing started when my buddy noticed warped polygons in WoW and Borderland while running the X1950 Pro so that card is probably on its last legs.

Yes, it was my upgrade from a 7600GT AGP. Thought I'd be transitioning to a new motherboard much sooner; now this "bridge" upgrade video card is also out of date. Should've gone for the Powercolor 3850 AGP.

BTW, if that 460 needs a home, I take in strays!

Thanks for the offer but I'm sure my friend is already fond of having the 460 so he'll probably bite the bullet and either buy a new mobo or a full blown upgrade.

 

[PureHazard]

SUCCESS!!

I decided to check out the German forum again and found this:

Please adjust "PCIE Downstream Pipeline" to [Disable] in BIOS chipset page.

And also “PCIE VC1 Request Queue" set to [Disable] in BIOS chipset page to try again.

I did the suggested changes in the 4CoreDual-VSTA 2.39a BIOS and the Gigabyte GTX 460 768MB works now!

Ran RE5 Benchmark (fixed, not variable) and got a B grade 48.9 FPS at 1280 x 960. Will run other stuff tomorrow to test it.

Just for reference in case anyone else finds this posting useful, here are my friend's computer's specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300
2 x 1GB Crucial Rendition DDR2
4CoreDual-VSTA 2.39a BIOS
Seagate 160GB SATA
Gigabyte GTX 460 768MB
Enermax EG465P-VE 460W
Some LG DVD-ROM / CD Writer
Some random case

Yes, it's an ancient system but he only plays WoW and just recently bought Borderland playing 1650 x 1050. He doesn't care for eye candy so this is a fine upgrade. He's a console gamer who plays his 360 on an old 480i tube TV anyways.

Thanks for your input and help, Hlafordlaes.

EDIT: Here's a pic with the 3DMark06 score. Nothing spectacular but his games (WoW and Borderlands) run well. He's only running Windows XP 32 so no 3DMark Vantage score.

http://img33.imageshack.us/i/4coredualgtx460.png/

 

[Deanodarlo]

Have all the beta Bios files for the 4core been removed from pctreiber.net?

http://www.pctreiber.net/filebase.php?fileid=3260&lim=40

I tried to direct someone to their bios collection as they want to use an E7200, but the pages have been removed????

I wonder why? That was a key resource for 4core users. Or have they been moved somewhere?

 

[Deanodarlo]

Looks like they've been moved to a thread:

http://www.pctreiber.net/forum/inte...ownloads_asrock_intel_mainboards_13292.0.html

Google translated version:

http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...firefox-a&sa=G&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official

So update your bookmarks!

 

[Deanodarlo]

Whilst I'm in this thread, does anyone else have problems with Hibernation and standby with the 4coredual-vsta and the latest 2.39a beta bios?

I can shut it down into a sleep state, but it won't wake back up properly? This is with an E7200, XP SP3 and 2GB RAM.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Whilst I'm in this thread, does anyone else have problems with Hibernation and standby with the 4coredual-vsta and the latest 2.39a beta bios?

I can shut it down into a sleep state, but it won't wake back up properly? This is with an E7200, XP SP3 and 2GB RAM.

I don't use any of those states/methods, so no can advise. Did try out Asrock's Instant Boot feature which does work and may be of interest to you bearish hibernating types.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

SUCCESS!!

I decided to check out the German forum again and found this:

I did the suggested changes in the 4CoreDual-VSTA 2.39a BIOS and the Gigabyte GTX 460 768MB works now!

Ran RE5 Benchmark (fixed, not variable) and got a B grade 48.9 FPS at 1280 x 960. Will run other stuff tomorrow to test it.

Just for reference in case anyone else finds this posting useful, here are my friend's computer's specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300
2 x 1GB Crucial Rendition DDR2
4CoreDual-VSTA 2.39a BIOS
Seagate 160GB SATA
Gigabyte GTX 460 768MB
Enermax EG465P-VE 460W
Some LG DVD-ROM / CD Writer
Some random case

Yes, it's an ancient system but he only plays WoW and just recently bought Borderland playing 1650 x 1050. He doesn't care for eye candy so this is a fine upgrade. He's a console gamer who plays his 360 on an old 480i tube TV anyways.

Thanks for your input and help, Hlafordlaes.

EDIT: Here's a pic with the 3DMark06 score. Nothing spectacular but his games (WoW and Borderlands) run well. He's only running Windows XP 32 so no 3DMark Vantage score.

http://img33.imageshack.us/i/4coredualgtx460.png/

Yay! I suggest reading through this thread and the earlier dedicated 4Core thread to get all the BIOS settings. Your 3DMark score is quite low for that card, even taking the PCIe4x limitation into account. Check BIOS as mentioned, and try Rivatuner over on Guru3D to play with your vid card settings.

 

[PureHazard]

Yay! I suggest reading through this thread and the earlier dedicated 4Core thread to get all the BIOS settings. Your 3DMark score is quite low for that card, even taking the PCIe4x limitation into account. Check BIOS as mentioned, and try Rivatuner over on Guru3D to play with your vid card settings.

Thanks for the suggestions but I don't think I'll get the chance as my friend is really antsy about getting the now up and running system back. I figure if he's happy with the performance in his games, it's fine. Hell, he had no complaints playing his games on the X1950 Pro so he won't have complaints here.

The bottleneck here is most likely the lowly E4300 and the small amount (2GB) of RAM. I was thinking of a Pentium E6300 2.8GHz I saw on Craigslist for $70 (would bargain it down) but let's face it, if he's happy now, may as well wait a year before he goes for a full upgrade and still be happy with the GTX 460.

With that said, I will take the recommendation of reading through this thread as I'm sure he'll get virused or something and I'll have to do some repair on it anyways. Then, I can try some tweaks and such.

EDIT: Managed to do some quick overclocking of the CPU and ended up with these scores.

               -------------------------------------------------------
              |  Stock (9x200)  |  2.2GHz (9x245)  |  2.4GHz (9x267)  |
              ========================================================
3DMark Score  |       7661      |       8812       |       9365       |
SM 2.0 Score  |       3476      |       4085       |       4410       |
SM 3.0 Score  |       3893      |       4187       |       4316       |
CPU Score     |       1568      |       1919       |       2079       |
               -------------------------------------------------------

I tried 9 x 289 for 2.6GHz and while it booted into Windows just fine it crashed out on 3DMark 06. Oh well. Not bad for a stock cooler and stock volts.

This is the closest comparison I could find that used a Q9300 (6M Cache, 2.5 GHz, 1333 MHz) / 2GB / GTX 460 768MB to get 13607 in 3Dmark 06.

 

[Lazlo Panaflex]

I tried 9 x 289 for 2.6GHz and while it booted into Windows just fine it crashed out on 3DMark 06

Just curious, what is the PCIe setting in the BIOS? I though I read somewhere that if you bump up the frequency a little bit, then it would run stable. The 4300 should have no problems running @ 2.6, stock volts. I had one running @ 2.85 for a couple of years.