ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA

[strafejumper]

need some help new 4coredual VSTA
when i plug it it and turn it on i can get to bios and see the e4300 at the right speed (1.80) and see bios version P1.50 and change some bios settings etc.

then when i go to boot from windows xp install cd it says something like:
"inspecting your hardware configuration" and then screen goes black and thats it

some hardware causing the problem i think
so i have already switched out some hardware:

switched from 350 enermax psu to 500 ultra psu
switched from nvidia 6800 to ati 9700 pro
switched windows cds
switched cd drives
tried 3 different memory sticks (crucial ballistix pc2 8500 cl5 epp ddr2 in 2 gb dual channel mode and in 1 channel mode and in both slots, corsair cmx256a-500c2pt 433mhz2 xms 3500 memory, and crucial pc2700u 333mhz cl2.5 memory)
i really don't think my new seagate 400 gb 7200.9 hard drive is the prob but i switched out hard drive cables and messed with the master and slave jumpers some

none of these switches made any difference

c2d e4300
ASRock 4CoreDUAL-VSTA

i think either there is some stupid bios setting that i have to change to make the board able to install windows or maybe none of the 3 sticks of memory i have are compatable with this board. Any advice? maybe i need to buy memory, what memory is good with this board that will overclock a little but is not too expensive? maybe i need to buy floppy drive (yuck) and run some kind of diagnostics? maybe i can buy usb flash memory stick and run the diagnostics off that? sux having this new core2duo and can't use it.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: strafejumper
need some help new 4coredual VSTA
when i plug it it and turn it on i can get to bios and see the e4300 at the right speed (1.80) and see bios version P1.50 and change some bios settings etc.

then when i go to boot from windows xp install cd it says something like:
"inspecting your hardware configuration" and then screen goes black and thats it

some hardware causing the problem i think
so i have already switched out some hardware:

switched from 350 enermax psu to 500 ultra psu
switched from nvidia 6800 to ati 9700 pro
switched windows cds
switched cd drives
tried 3 different memory sticks (crucial ballistix pc2 8500 cl5 epp ddr2 in 2 gb dual channel mode and in 1 channel mode and in both slots, corsair cmx256a-500c2pt 433mhz2 xms 3500 memory, and crucial pc2700u 333mhz cl2.5 memory)
i really don't think my new seagate 400 gb 7200.9 hard drive is the prob but i switched out hard drive cables and messed with the master and slave jumpers some

none of these switches made any difference

c2d e4300
ASRock 4CoreDUAL-VSTA

i think either there is some stupid bios setting that i have to change to make the board able to install windows or maybe none of the 3 sticks of memory i have are compatable with this board. Any advice? maybe i need to buy memory, what memory is good with this board that will overclock a little but is not too expensive? maybe i need to buy floppy drive (yuck) and run some kind of diagnostics? maybe i can buy usb flash memory stick and run the diagnostics off that? sux having this new core2duo and can't use it.

Sounds like a bios issue to me.
Have you set the bios for the first boot device cd/dvd?

 

[strafejumper]

did some googling it might be hdd after all - i installed vista and had a hell of a time uninstalling vista and i suspect remnants of vista could be the problem

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: strafejumper
did some googling it might be hdd after all - i installed vista and had a hell of a time uninstalling vista and i suspect remnants of vista could be the problem

This board loves a fresh install.

 

[strafejumper]

yup i just built the system again without a case just loose parts on a desk and put different hard drive that never had vista on it and now i can intall XP

bad software that you cannot uninstall is worse than any virus

i made a cd with a program called "ultimate boot cd" hopefully it can handle getting completely rid of vista that is my next step because the windows xp install cd cannot do it.

side note: was kind of hard for a minute to turn on the pc without a case because there is no power on button - wish they would make a way to turn on a computer without needing a case button

 

[PG]

Originally posted by: strafejumper
....
side note: was kind of hard for a minute to turn on the pc without a case because there is no power on button - wish they would make a way to turn on a computer without needing a case button

That is easy once you figure it out. Look at the motherboard itself or the manual to find where the power switch connector goes.
When you want to turn on the comptuer just short those 2 pins with a screwdriver.

 

[strafejumper]

ah thanks PG! i didn't know those pins worked like that

i'm on my core 2 duo now! its up and pretty stable so far! After switching out almost every piece of hardware including hdd cables, i found on another forum a guy with the same problem as me and he said after hours of research that it was remnants of linux on his hdd that were the prob. So this jogged my memory of how difficult it was for me to remove Vista from my drive. I now made the drive that had vista on it a slave and installed XP succsesfully!

Even have my crucial 8500 pc2 ddr2 dual channel ram in there working

only benchmark i have from before and after the upgrade is from quake 4 (heavily cpu dependant settings ie: 800x600 lower graphics settings)
Before:
90 fps timedemo : with the amd 3000+ socket 754 and 512 pc 2700 ram
After everything is the same in the system except new cpu/mobo/memory:
160 fps timedemo : with the c2d e4300 + 2gb pc2 8500 dual channel ram
200 fps timedemo : with c2d e4300 and smp support enabled (dual core support)

not a bad improvement for about ~$270 after shipping etc, i'm def satisfied

system:
intel c2d e4300 (new)
ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA BIOS P1.50 (new)
2gb dual channel crucial ballistix pc8500 ram (new) (overkill: rebate offer of $85 made me impulse buy)
AGP nvidia 6800 (old)
IDE 400 seagate 7200.9 hdd (old)
IDE 320 wd hdd (old)
creative soundblaster x-fi xtrememusic (old) (overkill: onboard prolly not that different sounding)
350 watt enermax whisper psu (old) (350 might still be enough!)

 

[theslasher]

Guys i had something strange happen tonight im running the 1.80c bois and tonight my pc was messing up frezzing and so on,i rebooted and entered the bois to check every thing was ok in HW monitor and i noticed the cpu fan speed was droping.
So i took the side off my pc and checked the fan the rpm's had drooped to N/A and i could stop the fan with my finger PANIC.
Cut a long story short i booted into window downloaded the 1.80 bois from asrock and all is good now just wanted to post this to warn every one,who is running the 1.80c bios i have had it running for about a month so keep an eye out for fan speed drop.

 

[inklimited]

@theslasher
Its no problem. I get the same thing every now and again. Basically, A) I don't always beleive BIOS readouts B) My ambient temperature is so low, I could just about run my PC with no fan, LOL. J/K.Being able to stop the fan with your finger is no problem, its not very strong. If you are acoustically inclined, try to remember your fan "tone" while at its "optimal" speed, and compare it with the tone at "too slow".

Story short, it's a nice board, but the Chinese need to make a few leaps to be up to speed with larger corps...and it's a VIA chipset

@strafejumper
Again, same problem. I chucked my board in without a fresh install, and tried to install WinXP SP2, and the thing crashed. My way around it was to set it to "Optimal Defaults", install SP2, and set my BIOS back to my customised settings.

Mr Vain
Is it possible to flash my PT880Pro to an Ultra? And, is it possible to update my southbridge so I can accept SATAII? I have the "A" version.

 

[theslasher]

Mind you this problem crashed my pc 3 times in a space of 10 Min's total lockup so when i say i could stop the fan it was on slow down like the power was cut from the fan.
I don't use a stock Intel cooler i use a evo blue and theses things run slow anyway but my 5 year old could have put her fingers in between the blade fans and stopped it with no injury.
I have built and work on pc's for a long time my assumption to this is it was like the bios was throttling down the fan power to cut of point, just warning people as this problem caused total lock up of the pc.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: inklimited
@theslasher
Its no problem. I get the same thing every now and again. Basically, A) I don't always beleive BIOS readouts B) My ambient temperature is so low, I could just about run my PC with no fan, LOL. J/K.Being able to stop the fan with your finger is no problem, its not very strong. If you are acoustically inclined, try to remember your fan "tone" while at its "optimal" speed, and compare it with the tone at "too slow".

Story short, it's a nice board, but the Chinese need to make a few leaps to be up to speed with larger corps...and it's a VIA chipset

@strafejumper
Again, same problem. I chucked my board in without a fresh install, and tried to install WinXP SP2, and the thing crashed. My way around it was to set it to "Optimal Defaults", install SP2, and set my BIOS back to my customised settings.

Mr Vain
Is it possible to flash my PT880Pro to an Ultra? And, is it possible to update my southbridge so I can accept SATAII? I have the "A" version.

If you have the 4CoreDual-VSTA motherboard then you have the Ultra chipset, as that is the one supplied for that board.

there is no way to change your south bridge out to obtain SATA II that I know of, but you can obtain PCI or PCI-e SATA II adaptors and run your HDD thru them to get better performance.
PCI-e should provide better bandwidth unless you are using a PCI-e graphics card and then you have no choice but to get PCI as there are no spare slots.

 

[bogi]

hi all this is my first post and i have 1 question for u guys
in couple of days im getting 4coredual-vsta and c2d e4400 and maybe if some money left new ddr2 667.
what do u think about putting CoolerMaster Hyper TX Intel on cpu?

 

[allenlux]

Originally posted by: inklimited
@theslasher
Story short, it's a nice board, but the Chinese need to make a few leaps to be up to speed with larger corps...

I'm a little baffled by this comment. Are there any normal motherboards which aren't manufactured by Chinese companies (apart from Intel's own)?

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: bogi
hi all this is my first post and i have 1 question for u guys
in couple of days im getting 4coredual-vsta and c2d e4400 and maybe if some money left new ddr2 667.
what do u think about putting CoolerMaster Hyper TX Intel on cpu?

IMO the max overclock that this board can provide you with this CPU, should not be enough to raise the temperatures to a point that you require special cooling. In that case anything better than a stock fan should be more than sufficient.

 

[bogi]

Originally posted by: Mr Vain
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: bogi
hi all this is my first post and i have 1 question for u guys
in couple of days im getting 4coredual-vsta and c2d e4400 and maybe if some money left new ddr2 667.
what do u think about putting CoolerMaster Hyper TX Intel on cpu?
</end quote></div>

IMO the max overclock that this board can provide you with this CPU, should not be enough to raise the temperatures to a point that you require special cooling. In that case anything better than a stock fan should be more than sufficient.

thanx for info Vain , one more thing couse this is my first time assembling cpu and mobo do i need thermal paste or its already applied on cpu or fan?

 

[strafejumper]

i just installed a core 2 duo e4300
there was some paste already on the bottom of the heatsink where it contacts the c2d

 

[phantomxprime]

Has anyone else run into the problem of overclocking the FSB to a point where the mobo no longer detects the RAM?

Right now, my FSB is set to 287 with a multiplier of 8x, and when i put the FSB any higher, my system freezes during startup when the mobo normally detects the amount of memory installed. Any ideas?

Specs:
Intel C2D E6420
4CoreDual-VSTA (BIOS v1.70C)
2x 1Gb PNY PC2-5300 DDR2
PNY verto 6200 256mb
Sunbeam 450w PSU
2x IDE hdd's
2x IDE optical drives

 

[bigsnyder]

What speed is your memory running? If you are running it at DDR2-667 then change it
to DDR2-533. This will give you a 1:1 ratio with your FSB and provides more headroom
for overclocking. Memory performance is actually better at 1:1 with the VIA chipsets as
proved from the Anandtech articles. I have the predecessor to this board (775dual-vista)
running fsb at 300Mhz without breaking a sweat.

 

[Mr Vain]

A new Sneak Peek on this motherboard.

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


:thumbsup:

 

[ssiu]

When overclocking a E2160/E4300/E4400 to ~290-300 FSB with this board, are there any issues with any peripherals/ports like floppy/SATA/IDE/PCIe/PCI/AGP/network/audio not working? e.g. are there issues like "you must disable SATA/network/audio etc. because it is running too much out of spec". I understand that some cheap 945G motherboards have such issues.

The ASROCK website mentions about this motherboard: "Untied Overclocking : During Overclocking, FSB enjoys better margin due to fixed AGP/PCIE/ PCI Buses" so I am hoping there is no such issues with this board.

P.S. Are there any SATA-II hard disks known to be incompatible with this SATA-I motherboard? Thanks.

 

[Azimuth40]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: allenlux
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: inklimited
@theslasher
Story short, it's a nice board, but the Chinese need to make a few leaps to be up to speed with larger corps...</end quote></div>
I'm a little baffled by this comment. Are there any normal motherboards which aren't manufactured by Chinese companies (apart from Intel's own)?

</end quote></div>

I agree with you here. Sounds like inklimited does not understand where his parts come from. ASRock is headquartered in Taiwan; Europe headquarters is in the Netherlands; USA headquarters is in Chino California about 5 miles from my house. Asustek, Abit, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS etc. etc. are all from Taiwan. Several make whitebox boards for the likes of HP, Dell, Gateway etc.

Most have US reps and repair centers in or near City of Industry California which is where I work. Why I do not know other than is is close enough but still far enough away from the Port of Long Beach which is central shipping for the Pacific Rim of North America. City of Industry has less than a thousand residents but hundreds of computer related companies.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: ssiu
When overclocking a E2160/E4300/E4400 to ~290-300 FSB with this board, are there any issues with any peripherals/ports like floppy/SATA/IDE/PCIe/PCI/AGP/network/audio not working? e.g. are there issues like "you must disable SATA/network/audio etc. because it is running too much out of spec". I understand that some cheap 945G motherboards have such issues.

The ASROCK website mentions about this motherboard: "Untied Overclocking : During Overclocking, FSB enjoys better margin due to fixed AGP/PCIE/ PCI Buses" so I am hoping there is no such issues with this board.

P.S. Are there any SATA-II hard disks known to be incompatible with this SATA-I motherboard? Thanks.

I don?t no of any endemic issues like you described with this motherboard.
Read this whole thread and this one below just to be sure.


http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

 

[phantomxprime]

Originally posted by: bigsnyder
What speed is your memory running? If you are running it at DDR2-667 then change it
to DDR2-533. This will give you a 1:1 ratio with your FSB and provides more headroom
for overclocking. Memory performance is actually better at 1:1 with the VIA chipsets as
proved from the Anandtech articles. I have the predecessor to this board (775dual-vista)
running fsb at 300Mhz without breaking a sweat.

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.

 

[Aeros]

I just received my OCZ Gold Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2 5400 DDR667 to replace the DDR400 I had in this board. I have far better performance running 1:1 @533. Thanks for the tip. I saw it here befor the AT artical.

I still have the problem of not getting windows stable higher then 274FSB

Here are my BIOS settings if anyone would like to help me achieve a max FSB I know this hardware is capable of.

Motherboard- 4CoreDual-VSTA Bios version 1.80c
CPU-Core2 E6600
GPU-x1950xt AGP
MEM- DDR667 OCZ (2 x 1GB) dual channel kit PC2-5400 4-4-4-12
HDD-WD160 SATA 150
Optical-SonyDrublablaba IDE
PSU-500Wt UltraX
Sound - X-Fi
Everything is on watercooling a la swiftech with a custom waterchiller. Idle @ 18c for the entire loop.


Bios Settings:-

CPU:

Overclock Mode - CPU,PCI-E, Async.
CPU Freq. - 274
PCI-E Freq. - 103
PCI Freq. - 33.33
Spread Spectrum - Disabled
Boot Failure - Enabled

Max CPUID Val. - Disabled
Intel Virt. - Disabled
CPU Thermal Thr. - Disabled
No-Execute Memory. - Disabled
Intel Speedstep - Disabled


Chipset:

Dram Freq. - Auto
Flexib.- Disabled
Cas Latency - 3
Interleave - 4-Way
Precharge - 4
Tras - 12
Trcd - 4
Trfc - Auto
Trrd - Auto
Trtp - Auto
Twtr - Auto
Twr - Auto
Bus Select.- Dual
Command Rate - 2T

Advanced Mem - Default

DRAM Voltage - Auto
AGP Voltage - High

Primary Gra. Adapt. - AGP
AGP Fast Write - Enabled
AGP Aperture Size - 256Mb
AGP Stag delay - Auto
AGP GADST - Auto

V-Link - Norm

PCI delay Transaction - Disabled
IDE Drive Strength - Normal
PCI-E Downstream Pipeline - Auto
Onboard LAN - Enabled
Onboard Sound - Disabled

ACPI - Default
IDE - Default
PCI PnP - Default
Floppy - Disabled
Super IO - all Disabled
USB Config - Default

AFAIK these are pretty much the most optimized settings for this bios (very hard to track down 1.8c beta bios)

If any one can look at these options and see some reason I max my FSB @ 274. I think alot of people are having this issue and I belive it's a minor obstical to cracking this FSB issue. Thanks

 

[ronach]

I am also having the same O/C problem with my E6600 cpu as Aeros.