ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

[Bitty]

a2Willia,

That happened to me. Indeed, since my agp 6800gt card had been misbehaving anyway I went out and bought a new one (x1900xt) thinking the old one had simply died. A few days later, I accidentally touched a sata cable and the screen went blank with a flashing underscore and I could do nothing to get it back. It looked just like what happened to my 6800gt. I began to think this Asrock board eats graphics cards . It was then I had the bright idea of clearing CMOS. Turned off the machine, unplugged it from the wall and shorted the jumper with a screwdriver for 5secs, turned it back on and it worked! It was then I realised that my 6800gt is probably fine . Still I wanted a better card anyway ). That the x1900xt worked was likey due to useing the PCIe slot instead of the agp. Anyway clear CMOS and it'll likely work again.

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: Engineer
Just fired this board up with an E6300 and Bios 1.10. No problems on post. Have updated the BIOS and will install XP-Pro tonight.

Antec NeoPower 480W PS
OCZ Gold PC800 (6400) DDRII
Intel E6300
XFX 7600GT XXX PCI-e edition with Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 6 version 2
Seagate 320GB 7200.10 series SATA II drive
NEC 3550A drive
floppy drive
Scythe Ninja

No problems on post or detection of devices (drives). Will upate after Windows install.

Just be sure and run the "VIA HyperionPro" driver set on the ASRock website and you will be golden.

 

[Ravenise]

Originally posted by: Gary Key

Originally posted by: Ravenise

Originally posted by: Cheex


I have an ATI Radeon X850 XT AGP
512x2 Samsung 3200;FSB 393
Conroe Core Duo 2 E6400 @2.36
Maxtor 250 gig IDE 133 on a single IDE cable
Maxtor 100 gig shared on IDE cable with Plextor PX-712A DVD
Sound Blaster Augidy 2 value
Thermaltake Purepower 420W Max

What a pain... I'm not ready to let go of my AGP card. I sure hope a bios patch can fix this!!

I had two locking issues last night with a X800XL AGP on both this board and the i865 board leading me to believe the issue is with ATI drivers or card at the moment. I have a X800XT that did not cause the same loop issue in 3DMark06 or freezing in Q4 after several loops. This is the ATI card we used for ATI AGP testing. I will see if I can get a X850XT to test with next week. Drop your memory down to DDR333, auto SPD, and High Voltage and then test again (memtest, superpi, and prime can be clear but you can still have application issues). If the issues persist, remove your Sound Blaster A2 and drivers. See if the issues continue, if they do then disconnect the secondary maxtor hd and plextor DVD and test again.

I am making the assumption that you did a clean XP install? If not, switching chipsets can and will cause difficulties. Also, what are your AGP settings in the bios?

Sorry for the delays... I will get on it as soon as I have some time this week.

 

[lepump]

anyone know if geil memory works well with this mobo?
was thinking about going 2gb..
http://www.geilusa.com/proddetail.asp?linenumber=52

 

[Engineer]

Anyone tried the RAID functionality of this board and care to comment? Overrated? True hardware or software or some combination? Curiosity has always been there on a RAID system.

Thanks

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: lepump
anyone know if geil memory works well with this mobo?
was thinking about going 2gb..
http://www.geilusa.com/proddetail.asp?linenumber=52

My Asrock 775Dual-VSTA rocks!

I have a 3 GHz 530Prescott in at a max stable (234FSB = 3510 MHz) on
Geil DDR2 667Mhz 2GB dual channel value ram

WOW (510 MHz Overclock) with no voltage increase! (Happy Happy.)

GUY'S this Geil 667 MHz DDR2 Ram is incredible! No compatibility issues and runs out of the box by SPD at 3-3-3-9 1T Wow!
http://www.geilusa.com/proddetail.asp?linenumber=52

Pity that Anandtech did not try this ram out on their 775Dual-VSTA tests!
Tom?s hardware speaks highly of it. It achieved the highest overclocking margin of all their rams 41% and maxed out at DDR2 942Mhz
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/04/11/live_memory_test/page20.html

I have it now on 3-2-2-5 1T on auto voltage with no stability issues at all.
I hope its not late and that Gary can chuck in a couple of these Geil slabs in, for his last Asrock roundup and be very surprised by its performance.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...&STARTPAGE=3&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

:light:

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: Engineer
Anyone tried the RAID functionality of this board and care to comment? Overrated? True hardware or software or some combination? Curiosity has always been there on a RAID system.

Thanks

I ran Raid 0 in this board, it was a pain in the ass to get it to work for awhile, but it must have been my HD?s that were not previously formatted.

The performance was not spectacular in fact it was about the same as a single drive in my opinion, then again I did not do any major performance testing.

The raid set up corrupted itself one day after some program installations and as I had to reformat the HD?s again, so I went back to single HD as its performance was as good if not better than the Raid set up and one less HD sucking power and making noise.

I might get a SATA2 PCI RAID card one day and see if it cranks right up.

Has anyone used SATA2 PCI RAID card on this motherboard yet?

 

[FreedomGUNDAM]

Just ordered my E6400 and the Asrock mobo. Going to re-use everything else from my main rig (in my profile)

 

[jas72]

Originally posted by: lepump
anyone know if geil memory works well with this mobo?
was thinking about going 2gb..
http://www.geilusa.com/proddetail.asp?linenumber=52

I have this ram as well but unlike Mr Vain I cannot get mine to work at all.

Im currently running 1 stick at 3-3-3-9 1T (flexibility option enabled) if I don't enable it and run at auto (SPD) it defaults to 725MHZ 3:8 divider and 4-4-4-12 and there are application errors right from windows boot. Mcafee reports a problem and needs to close drwatson reports a problem firefox reports a problem infact most things then the pc just freezes. Been running it for 5 days now with the 1gig on the 3-3-3-9 1T timings (533Mhz instead of 667Mhz). (667 is selected in the bios BTW)

I'm currently in the process of RMAing them so hopefully it's just a faulty set i got and not the mobo.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: jas72

Originally posted by: lepump
anyone know if geil memory works well with this mobo?
was thinking about going 2gb..
http://www.geilusa.com/proddetail.asp?linenumber=52

I have this ram as well but unlike Mr Vain I cannot get mine to work at all.

Im currently running 1 stick at 3-3-3-9 1T (flexibility option enabled) if I don't enable it and run at auto (SPD) it defaults to 725MHZ 3:8 divider and 4-4-4-12 and there are application errors right from windows boot. Mcafee reports a problem and needs to close drwatson reports a problem firefox reports a problem infact most things then the pc just freezes. Been running it for 5 days now with the 1gig on the 3-3-3-9 1T timings (533Mhz instead of 667Mhz). (667 is selected in the bios BTW)

I'm currently in the process of RMAing them so hopefully it's just a faulty set i got and not the mobo.

This is how I'm running my Geil ram in the bios.

Dram Frequency------------------------------ (333 MHz DDRII667)
Flexibility Option------------------------------Enabled
DRAM CAS# Latency------------------------Auto
DRAM Bank Interleave----------------------Auto
Precharge to Active (Trp) -----------------Auto
Active to Precharge (Tras) ---------------Auto
Active to CMD (Trcd-------------------------Auto
REF to ACT / REF to REF (Trfc) --------Auto
ACT (0) to ACT (1) (Trrd) ------------------Auto
Read to Precharge (Trtp) -----------------Auto
Write to Read CMD (Twtr) --------------- Auto
Write Recovery Time (Twr) --------------Auto
DRAM Bus Selection-------------Dual Channel
DRAM Command Rate--------------------2T Command

Dram voltage---------------------------------Auto
AGP Voltage----------------------------------Auto
Primary graphics Adapter---------------AGP
AGP Fast Write------------------------------Enabled
AGP Aperture Size-------------------------Auto
AGP Staggered delay---------------------Auto
AGP GADSTB Output Delay------------Auto

V Link Speed---------------------------------Fast
IDE Strength----------------------------------Normal
PCIDelay Transaction--------------Disabled

 

[jas72]

Thanks for posting that. I'll have a look tonight but I think my set up is exactly the same as yours.

Just have 1 stick that's damaged I fear.

Greetz

Jas

 

[techmanc]

Is anyone using Vista RC1 32bit with this motherboard. I am have real slow perfomance after setting up. Its like its running a 2fps game takes forever to do anything. I installed the ATI RC1 drivers and ran the Vista Compatability test with no problems showing? You can see my system spec by looking at my rig.

 

[tecice]

Got my 775DUAL-VSTA, Corsair TWIN2X 6400C4 CL4 2GB and a E6600 2 days ago. The gfx I'm using is a X800XT PE AGP. Works good with catalyst 5.11 and Win XP. Had some problem with catalyst 6.8, couldn't run BF2 but 3dmark06 worked.
I'm having some problem when I try to run the memory in higher speed than 533. With my current settings, prime95 and Sisoft sandra has run for 10h without any problem.
The only memory settings I have changed is the Flexibility option, I switched from disabled to enabled. That brought my memory from 711MHz 4-4-4-12 to 533 MHz 4-3-3-9, according to cpuz. The memorybandwidth droped from ~5200MB/s to ~3800MB/s in Sisoft sandra. Without the flexibility option, prime95 gives an error within 1 minute.

I've not tested so much yet, but I have noticed that the bios isn't 100% buggfree
I'm running version 1.70.

Does anyone know how many volt high/normal/low in Dram voltage mean, for DDR2 sticks?

 

[jas72]

hey tecice I have the exact same problem as you.

I don't think the DDRII dual channel mode is working correctly for this board. I too am running 1.70 however i'm wondering if the windows flash worked properly as sisandra states that i'm still running 1.10 MPS I'm not sure what that has to do with the bios.

 

[techmanc]

Originally posted by: Nighthawk

Any idea of the performance hit with running a 7800GT on the 775Dual-VSTA because of the PCIe x4 limitation?

0-12% according to:
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/asrock/775Dual-VSTA/b5.htm
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/asrock/775Dual-VSTA/b6.htm

+
here's is some non overclocked 3DMark tests I ran
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1918410

 

[FreedomGUNDAM]

what via drivers are you running when with Vista RC1?

 

[techmanc]

the default via drivers that Vista RC1 installed

 

[tecice]

jas72: When I got my bord it was bios version 1.3, sandra sayd MPS 1.4. I flashed to 1.7 and sandra says 1.4

 

[Gary Key]

New VIA drivers - http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/via_hyperionpro_v510a.zip

I have been testing them for a week, very solid, some minor improvements in disk performance and ATI X8XX AGP compatibility.

 

[CKTurbo128]

Cool, thanks for the update, Gary!

Also just checked ASRock's website today and they have put up BIOS version 1.80. The description says "Fine tune for DDRII memory", so perhaps DDR2 users will see slightly better performance? You can find it here:

http://www.asrock.com/support/download.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA#bios

Either way, I'm going to test the new driver and BIOS when I get back from work.

 

[Mr Vain]

Thanks guy's for the updates.

 

[Gary Key]

Originally posted by: CKTurbo128
Cool, thanks for the update, Gary!

Also just checked ASRock's website today and they have put up BIOS version 1.80. The description says "Fine tune for DDRII memory", so perhaps DDR2 users will see slightly better performance? You can find it here:

http://www.asrock.com/support/download.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA#bios

Either way, I'm going to test the new driver and BIOS when I get back from work.

That is interesting, just received this bios on Wednesday for regression testing. I guess I should have tested it immediately upon receipt. :laugh: Great news, just hoping we have another release shortly that helps out with a few of the ATI X8XX AGP issues. Sometimes there is an issue with certain cards and others work perfectly. This bios release is supposed to address some of the DDR2-667 performance issues.

 

[CKTurbo128]

Is anyone else having a problem downloading the new Hyperion 510A drivers from VIA's website? I have tried downloading it multiple times, but the download always times out, usually midway.

EDIT: Never mind, I got it.

 

[Gary Key]

Originally posted by: CKTurbo128
Is anyone else having a problem downloading the new Hyperion 510A drivers from VIA's website? I have tried downloading it multiple times, but the download always times out, usually midway.

I downloaded the "official" release earlier today in over a minute, just tried it again and it took over four minutes. I assume they are getting hammered right now. Using FireFox for the download.

 

[colche]

Originally posted by: andy318

Originally posted by: colche

Originally posted by: Nighthawk
Yesterday i ran into trouble with the Asrock: winxp freezes while loading:-(
When I uninstall the catalyst 6.7 driver, it boots up again. I removed all extension cards, loaded bios defaults, reinstalled winXP, same behaviour: only boots up when catalyst is not installed.
The ATI cards works in another PC... so i think the asrock is the cause. The strange thing is: a day earlier, the same system worked completly stable.

Sounds like you have the same problem I do...My Sapphire X800XT AGP refuses to boot windows with the cataylst drivers installed. It works fine until I install the drivers, then it freezes, or refuses to load windows at the next boot. It detects/can boot into bios and windows without cataylst drivers fine.

Tried Cataylst 6.4 and 6.8, Motherboard BIOS 1.3 and 1.7...

E6600, 2x512 DDR333 Kingston ValueRam

anybody had any luck with this issue?

>> as a follow up...I think i got it working (drivers installed and 3d working currently). Not exactly sure what i did...played around with a few memory/AGP settings in BIOS setting them manually/auto/different values. Took out one of my sticks of RAM (so only running on 512mb atm, installed just the ati drivers (not the CCC) via device manager. - although i had tried this before. Whatever it was it seems to have worked (or was it random?)

>> Final Update: I found out it was because i explicitly set the timings on the first few options in BIOS. ie. CAS latency to 2.5 then 3T, 3T, 7T, and 3T from memory. Hope this is helpful for anybody.

Thanks for the tip. I need to try it. Just got the E6600 and the 775Dual-VSTA. After installing XP, everything works fine till i install Catalyst (tried 5.9 & 6.8). After that, it hangs during the 'loading XP' screen.

Incidentally, the AGP Fast Write is disabled in the BIOS settings. Can you try enabling this on your system (if you haven't already) to confirm whether this would work too ?

I've run into problems again...it sort of works...randomly...about every 5-6th reboot. I'm convinced its an ati catalyst versus via agp chipset driver issue. That or a BIOS/motherboard issue. If I restore a ghost of a previous (working version) it usually works for a few reboots OK.

A quick google shows a history of catalyst/via chipset issues, quite similiar to the ones we are experiencing.

I've tried all sort of combinations/fixes. I've had AGP Fast Write disabled and on 4x most of the time. I've also updated the AGP driver with the latest 5.10A VIA package.

UPDATE:
I've pretty much given up, I was considering purchasing a new PCI-E card but instead put on Vista RC1 and it worked (using all inbuilt drivers - the Microsoft driver for ATI includes 3D support). Benchmarks are almost on par with a fully optimised XP platform, although I noticed it uses a lot of memory (even just idling on the desktop). I'm too scared to put on the ATI Catalyst for Vista in case it corrupts the installation again. *fingers crossed* it holds up until I splurge on a new mobo/RAM/next gen video.