ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

[Mr Vain]

Its good ram for the price and I?m glad to hear that its working good for you.

 

[opynyon]

http://www.asrock.com/support/VGA/show.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA

The x800xl is not included in the SHORT list of acceptable pci-e cards... Does that mean that i need to select another board or will it be supported?


Thanks ahead


note: mine is a Made By Ati (or HIS i have heard used, i believe)

 

[NT78stonewobble]

Happily running:

Asrock775-Dual VSTA
e6400 (allendale) @ stock 8x266
2x512 mb crcual ballistix (ddr) @ 200 mhz 2-2-2-5- 1t
x800xt vivo (powercolor?)
Sata0: 160 gb maxtor 9
Sata1: 160 gb maxtor 9
Ide0: 80 gb ibm deskstar
Ide1: DVD burner

And it works great for me. Plenty fast for everything i throw at it. Farcry, hl2, ut2003, counterstrike source and so on.

Went from the allmost the same setup with an athlon xp-m 2500 @ 2400 mhz on an 8rda3+ and the difference is much bigger than i would have expected. Really like night and day.

I did have a few problems though.

When I initially installed the mobo and cpu I didn't wanna reinstall windows. Im guessing it would have went ok were it not for:

I only had an old automated installation windows cd ready (it somehow installed the single processor pc).

Some old pci network card that this time around totally refused to accept the real drivers. Allways installing as the wrong card. This lead to the pc freezing for a sec or 2 every 30 seconds. Disabling the card would remove the freezes but i was still unable to install the right driver.

After reinstalling windows properly I haven't had any problems.

I do have one small problem though. Seeing what divider my mobo uses fsb / ram when overclocking. cpu-z gives weeeird readings.

 

[NT78stonewobble]

PS: First post, yay.

Another problem that reared its head was a windows update to ie explorer regarding security that had the side effect of ie crashing everyso often on different pages. Especially one page on anandtech (a recent graphics card review) would crashe consistently when clicking next. Some times i would reach all the way to page 5 of the review before crashing but i gave up reading the review.

 

[Conky]

I know there has been a mention of a problem with this motherboard and the ATI X8xx series of videocards and I ran into this myself last night when I went to upgrade to the latest 6.8 Catalyst drivers. I found the solution so maybe I can save someone else the couple hours of reboots and fixes it took for me to figure out.

After running Driver Cleaner I found that I was unable to properly install the new driver package... I tried the full "Catalyst Control Center Package" and encountered a "try using VGA driver first" error. Then I tried to install the "Display Driver Only" and received the same error. Then I updated my Hyperion VIA mobo drivers to the latest version and still no worky. Tried to install 6.7's with no luck. Then tried Omega drivers, again, with no luck.

Then for the heck of it, I installed the "Microsoft .NET Framework" file from the ATI driver page and since it was already installed it asked if I wanted to repair the installation or remove it. I chose "repair" and afterwards was able to successfully update to the latest 6.8's for my X850XT AGP with absolutely no problem.

Hopefully this will help somebody else because I searched all through this thread and the video forum in hopes of finding a fix and found none.

 

[Rza79]

My systemspecs:
775Dual-VSTA, C2D E6300, 2x512MB PC400 or 2x512MB PC533, Radeon 9700, SoundBlaster Live!, BIOS 1.8

My computer crashes while playing games, doesn't matter DDR or DDR2.
I've also tried with a Radeon9600. The computer doesn't crash but gives image corruption.
Most of the time, the problems start after running the computer for 24 hours.

After searching a couple days, i've found the solution:
Disable 'AGP WRITES' in Control Center.
AGP can stay on 8x and 'AGP READS' have to stay enabled for performance reasons.

Current settings:
Everything on stock, 1T, PC400, PCI delay trans 1, latency 32
Via 4in1 5.10 - Catalyst 6.8

Some note about the Via 4in1:
If you install the package, most of the time it doesn't install the AGP driver and leaves it to the standard MS driver. For performance reasons you should install AGP manually.

I've also seen many people having problems with PCI-E cards (image corruption) which can be solved by disabling in the bios 'PCI-E Downstream'.

 

[xcelr8]

Are any of you running a pci-e card on this mobo and overclocking? I just got a 7600gt b/c of the rebate deal and now i can't overclock to more than 275 fsb, it's as if the board is not locking the pci-e at 100 like it should. I was stable with my agp 6600gt all the way up to 300mhz, but this new card locks up in winxp after loading above 280.

 

[Rza79]

I've read somewhere that when you put the PCI-E bus to 112Mhz, you can overclock better. Maybe you should try that.

 

[Mr Vain]

Rza79
Junior Member

Posts: 4
Joined: 10/09/2004

HWiNFO32 can read the correct memory speed of this chipset.


Here is a great program that benchmarks and also picks up your Memory Speed correctly.

Home Site
http://www.hwinfo.com/

Download Link
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/1237-hwinfo32.html

Thanks Rza79

 

[xcelr8]

Thanks Rza79, i boosted my pci-e like you recommended and it seems stable now at 305fsb, i'm running dual prime95 to make sure.

 

[Palms]

Hi guys, i must be one of the lucky ones having this board with no issues running FSB@305 running prime for 6 hours, i can run it at 310 too but prime fails earlier but it wont fail on other benchmark programs such as burnin or 3dmark or playing games.
Here i have it running the fsb @310
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1402/e64002481wr7.jpg
Like i said not stable with prime but is with everything else i throw at it.

Here is another shot pushing the ram way beyond its legal limit.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8494/cpuze64002481ze2.jpg
Fails prime like i said but runs everything else, i will be putting it back to 300FSB as i don't see much difference in fps in games pushing this hard.


Burnin
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/8494/burnin2hoursmz1.jpg

E6400@2.481
Asrock 775dual-vtsa
Albratron 6800GT AGP oc to ultra 410/1.1
G Skill F1-3200PHU2-2GBZX
PC3200 2-3-2-5
Running 5 hard drives
WD74 raptor (system)
WD250
WD60 Vista Beta dual boot (issue with this board i have no sound with vista, wont install latest via drivers for some reason)
Seagate 300
Seagate 80
Pioneer 109 DVD
Antec true 480
Bios 1.80

palms

 

[Budarow]

Originally posted by: xcelr8
Thanks Rza79, i boosted my pci-e like you recommended and it seems stable now at 305fsb, i'm running dual prime95 to make sure.

Well...how did things turn out? Is your PC stable with the PCI-E video card?

 

[xcelr8]

It seems stable right now. I'm running dual prime95 with the fsb at 315, pci-e at 117 and ram at 266mhz (420 actual) 2-2-2-12-1 and still no faults after 15hours, i'm running the small fft test. Upping the pci-e frequency really helped my overclock. I also have pcie downstream process disabled in the bios and nothing hooked up to the sound outputs now. I don't know if the sound makes a difference but some people seem to say it does. This is with an e6300, 775dual-vsta, bfg 7600gt pci-e, 2x256mb ddr1 466 kingmax, 2 maxtor 160gb sata. This setup also draws very little power. At idle with speedstep i'm around 100w, at load i'm only about 150-160w.

 

[Rza79]

MrVain xcelr8, your welcome.

xcelr8 are you running 'Sync' or 'Async' mode?
If you are running Async maybe you should try Sync since running 315 fsb will put your PCI-E to around 118 (PCI is always async).
Sync should improve performance a bit.

I'm also thinking, maybe putting some cooling on the northbridge will help since it does get a little hot. Some silent 4cm fan.

These are just suggestions because i made the system for someone else and can't try these things myself anymore.

 

[Arcana]

1st post.

Ok, so I went out and got one of these boards along with an E6300. Tried and set it up with my old generic pc2700 memory, ancient 32 mb AGP graphics card (Butterfly it says on the box), 300 GB IDE HD - Maxtor. No good, wouldn't post. So I thought it might be the cpu, as I've read that the mobo doesn't officially support Conroe unless you have BIOS 1.4 and above. I got 1.1. So I got hold of a intel 530... Still no post.
Then I bought a PCI-Express graphics card - Asus Extreme AX300SE - still no post.
Then I checked on Asrock site....long list of graphics cards which are supported. Most seem rather pricey. I'm really not into gaming or anything heavy graphically so I'm trying to get something along the lines of $50 - which I can connect two monitors to, maybe 128 mb. Any suggestions? Should that Asus extreme card have worked? I must admit I'm pretty confused when it comes to graphics cards. There seems to be 1000s of different ones. Aaargh.
Another thing I noticed was that the manual said that I shouldn't use a 1.5 volt AGP card but only a 3.3 volt (or was it the other way around). I couldn't tell what volt mine was so perhaps that has damaged the board?
Or should I expect the board to be DOA?

 

[xcelr8]

I had bios 1.1 from the start and booted up just fine with my conroe. It may have been the video card, I don't know if it would kill the board or if the board would kill the card or if nothing would happen. Do you get a beep code or anything at all when you start up? Do the fans on your heatsink and psu spin when you hit the power button?

 

[aussieburger]

I too had trouble posting at first with this board ... have you tried clearing the cmos ? I just cleared the cmos a few times unplugged and plugged everything back in again then posted ... I would think that it should be ok with that pci-e card u have

 

[Arcana]

thanks guys.
I didn't get a beep code when starting up, but the fan on the heatsink and psu did spin.
I didn't try clearing the CMOS although it did cross my mind. Didn't think it would make a difference. I have returned that PCI-E card, thought I'd try and get one that is supported for sure.

 

[imported_ANGELo]

im going to buy this mobo too, maybe with an E6300 or E6400 plus 1 or 2 GB DDR2, but i see many problems with this board.
i will use my old vga 6600GT AGP so this board is the only choice for me ....

because this board have limited OC, so i think DDR2 Kingston or Corsair value select is enough. what do you think guys?
but i interest to OC it abit.... near 300MHz if can.....
what memory speed do you recommend for this board to achieve "little OC"? i will make this upgrade cheap as possible.
thx in advance!

 

[aussieburger]

Hi ANGELo,

that ram should be fine ... most people get close to 300mhz overclock no worries. You could even keep your DDR1 ram if you wanted to save some cash as there isn't much performance boost:

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810
good memory performance review on this board

 

[Arcana]

Anyone else got any ideas/solutions?

 

[Xvys]

well, AsRock has come out with the 775i65G m/b which uses DDR1 and AGP and is Core2Duo compatible (Rev. 2). It's features are similar to the 775-Dual-Vsta (Via chipset), but the i65G uses the Intel 865 chipset. These boards usually overclock to the 300FSB maximum (locked) and are slightly cheaper than the Vsta...but are not upgradeable to PCI-E or DDR2.

 

[imported_ANGELo]

EDIT: deleted, sorry double post~

 

[imported_ANGELo]

Originally posted by: aussieburger
Hi ANGELo,

that ram should be fine ... most people get close to 300mhz overclock no worries. You could even keep your DDR1 ram if you wanted to save some cash as there isn't much performance boost:

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810
good memory performance review on this board

Thx for the great info ....

Im sure i will buy new memory because my old 768MB DDR1 will used by my brother together with my old Athlon XP + mobo. Then i will buy DDR2 because for now it's the new standart memory.

My budget preventing me to upgrade PCIe VGA so this board is the only choice, i choose this board because it's support AGP/PCIe & DDR/DDR2, it's give me more flexible choice and future upgrade for PCIe VGA. So i choose this Asrock 775DUAL VSTA over 775i65G
if there's another mobo support only AGP but high OC'able, i would like to buy it.

After i have DDR2, anytime if there's enough budget for upgrade, i can buy new and better OC'able mobo with PCIe slot together with new PCIe VGA.

Qs:
1. So what memory speed do you suggest for me?
2. What is dual chanel DDR? is this affect system performance or OC things?
3. Is this mobo will work fine if i just put 1x1GB value memory (not 2x512MB)? im thinking about adding another 1GB later if windows vista come out. for now i think 1GB is enough for me.
4. Is 1x1GB will affect in "little OC" things?

thx in advance pals...
sorry for my english

 

[aussieburger]

Originally posted by: ANGELo
Qs:
1. So what memory speed do you suggest for me?
2. What is dual chanel DDR? is this affect system performance or OC things?
3. Is this mobo will work fine if i just put 1x1GB value memory (not 2x512MB)? im thinking about adding another 1GB later if windows vista come out. for now i think 1GB is enough for me.
4. Is 1x1GB will affect in "little OC" things?

thx in advance pals...
sorry for my english

1. Probably the fastest you can afford ?
2. Dual channel is when u have 2 memory sticks of the same size and speed running together. This is the best for performance and may effect OC ?? I'm not sure as I've only tried dual channel as have most people here I think
3. It will work obviously but dual channel is the best way to go ... I currently have a cheapish 2*1gig DDR sticks running in Dual channel ... depending on what you do on the pc maybe 2*512 would be enough for you ? Or if you have alot of pc friends to sell stuff to get 2*512 now and sell them together when u have enough to upgrade to 2*1gig ?
4. don't know but don't think it would make a great difference ... anyone else running single channel and OCing ??