ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

[Reckoner]

Has anyone tried using the DDR2 667 SuperTalent Ram from the Hot deals forum on this board yet? I'm curious on how it performs in terms of OCing.

 

[aussieburger]

thanks for the dx10 gpu update MrVain

1. Anyone tried OCZ DDR2 Gold series RAM on this motherboard ?
2. Anyone tried DDR2-1000 (PC2-8000) RAM - I assume it would work just underclocked ?

 

[Joe The Dude]

Has anyone tried putting a RAID Card or a LAN Card in the PCI Express slot?
If so, does it share an IRQ with anything else or cause any problems?

I'm asking because I'm thinking about getting either one of these:
a) 3ware 9650SE-8LPML (PCI Express 4x) SATA II Controller Card
b) Rosewill RC-401 10/100/1000Mbps PCI-Express Gigabit LAN Adapter

Ideally, I'd like to get a PCI Express combo card that has both SATA RAID and Gigabit LAN, but I haven't been able to find such a card...

I'm using this motherboard with XP Home SP2, WMP 10, Beyond TV 4.4,
1GB DDR 333 (2x 512 MB), Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe.

I have (Four) 320GB IDE Hard Drives.
I have two 320GB SATA Hard Drives.

Here's what I have in the slots:
[AGP] GeForce 6600.
[PCI Express] Nothing.
[PCI] Hauppauge PVR-500 (Rev E492).
[PCI] Hauppauge PVR-500 (Rev E492).
[PCI] Hauppauge PVR-500 (Rev E492).
[PCI] Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS.

By the way, this Motherboard likes to reboot all on it's own when running Beyond TV 4.6, but so far, Beyond TV 4.4 seems stable.
I think it's been mentioned here before, but It appears as though I can't do RAID Striping with this board on the SATA Ports.
There isn't an option for it in the RAID Setup BIOS Thing.
Also, one core is running at 2.13 GHz, but the other core is running at 2.05GHz.
I dunno why...

A point of intrest is that there is a capacitor on the motherboard near the bottom PCI Slot that prevents insertion of the Hauppauge PVR-500 Card.
There's a way to get around it with Rev E392 of the card
Ya just have to remove the metal plate and twist the Red RCA Audio Jack off, essentially breaking that port off.
However, you can't do that with the recent revision of this card, E492, because they changed the plastic part that holds the RCA Audio and Composite Video Ports to the board, it's now one solid piece with no give.

Edited To Add:
I Forgot to mention some of the details of my setup.
I'm using a Cooler Master CM Stacker STC-T01-UW Case,
(I had to buy two extra 4-in-3 Drive Modules seprately from a diffrent online store)
and an Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply.

My BIOS Version is 2.40.
Should I roll it back to 2.10 even though I don't want to do any over-clocking?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Joe The Dude
I Forgot to mention some of the details of my setup.
I'm using a Cooler Master CM Stacker STC-T01-UW Case,
(I had to buy two extra 4-in-3 Drive Modules seprately from a diffrent online store)
and an Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply.

My BIOS Version is 2.40.
Should I roll it back to 2.10 even though I don't want to do any over-clocking?

What 4-in-3 drive modules did you get? I just ordered one from NewEgg for $45, but I'm interested in others. Was yours cheaper by any chance?

 

[raskren]

I had this board briefly and am waiting for another one.

I just wanted to add that I received a DOA board. If you take a look at the Newegg reviews, it seems that 10-20% of reviewers are also receiving DOA boards or are having IDE controller issues. But, since I don't know how many boards Newegg has sold, this really isn't a fair assessment of reliability.

My flaky power supply may have fried the first board but I guess we'll never know.

 

[Joe The Dude]

Here's a link to the 4-in-3 Device Module I ordered:
http://www.sundialmicro.com/cooler_master_4in3_device_1821_146.html

I ordered two of them, and with shipping and tax, it came out to be around $50 USD.

They're specifically designed for the CM Stacker case.
You can probably get them to fit into a diffrent case, if you do the following:
1) Mod your case to remove internal "Ledges" between the 5.25" Drive Bays.
2) Remove the black, plastic rectangular strips on the side of the module (they come off really easy).
3) Either drill holes in your 5.25" Drive Bay Covers to let in air, or get a case that comes with Wire Mesh 5.25" Drive Bay Covers.

You might also want to replace the 120mm fan it comes with, with one that has a higher RPM, but that's really up to you.

 

[craftech]

Originally posted by: Joe The Dude
Here's a link to the 4-in-3 Device Module I ordered:
http://www.sundialmicro.com/cooler_master_4in3_device_1821_146.html

I ordered two of them, and with shipping and tax, it came out to be around $50 USD.

They're specifically designed for the CM Stacker case.
You can probably get them to fit into a diffrent case, if you do the following:
1) Mod your case to remove internal "Ledges" between the 5.25" Drive Bays.
2) Remove the black, plastic rectangular strips on the side of the module (they come off really easy).
3) Either drill holes in your 5.25" Drive Bay Covers to let in air, or get a case that comes with Wire Mesh 5.25" Drive Bay Covers.

You might also want to replace the 120mm fan it comes with, with one that has a higher RPM, but that's really up to you.

You were wize to order a spare. They have a sleeve bearing which will almost always be quieter but will also fail long before a ball bearing.

John

EDIT: My system issues a security warning when I enter that website. Might want to check them out.

 

[jshupp872]

I just wanted to let people know.

I installed a brand new ATI x1950 pro 256 meg PCI-Express video card to replace my x850xt pe AGP card last night. When I installed it, didn't change anything in the bios (forgot). It botted up, changed the drivers. Then I rebooted all was well. However, I rememebered that my bios was incorrect now, so I rebooted and change primary graphics from AGP to PCIE and also dropped my PCIE speed from 117 (overclocked) down to 100. WHen I did that, I was getting horrible texture tearing in Supreme Commander, and corrupted graphics in Vista. I bumped it back up to 110, and all is well again. Not sure what the deal is, but I am happy now.

 

[HX]

Originally posted by: jshupp872
I just wanted to let people know.

I installed a brand new ATI x1950 pro 256 meg PCI-Express video card to replace my x850xt pe AGP card last night. When I installed it, didn't change anything in the bios (forgot). It botted up, changed the drivers. Then I rebooted all was well. However, I rememebered that my bios was incorrect now, so I rebooted and change primary graphics from AGP to PCIE and also dropped my PCIE speed from 117 (overclocked) down to 100. WHen I did that, I was getting horrible texture tearing in Supreme Commander, and corrupted graphics in Vista. I bumped it back up to 110, and all is well again. Not sure what the deal is, but I am happy now.

Hmmmm, and could you post some 3DMark03/05/06 scores? Btw, in what mode your card runs - 4x or 16x ???
Btw, the capability of crad's bus frequency depends on mobo and sometimes of cards GPU ...

 

[Raikku]

I installed G.Skill DDR2 (F2-6400CL5D) 2x1gb, and find out that at least now i cannot run them in 667-mode, although i haven't tried all tweakings yet.
At the start i had many black screen and errors, now i have those memorys in 533-mode, 290fsb and even in async, divider is 1:1.

Well, when i buy next mobo, i have memorys ready for 800Mhz.

 

[HX]

Hmmm, wierd, I've read, that mobo is capable to function correctly with some DDR2-800 kits installed .. maybe next bios will fix this up :>

 

[bigsnyder]

Similiar problem with my Buffalo firestix. 667Mhz caused memtest errors, but 533Mhz runs
flawless.

C Snyder

 

[Raikku]

On other hand with low speeds i can lower latencies(now i have 4-4-4-10, have to try tighter) quite a much, so it isn't so bad situation.

 

[jshupp872]

I will work on benchmarks. I don't usually care about benchmarks, just as long as I am able to play a few games (supreme commander) and my 2d looks good across both widescreen monitors, I am happy.

I would imagine, since the board is only 4x PCIe, that my card is only running in 4x PCIe. According to CPU-Z, link width is 4x, while max supported is 16x. Seems about right.

I just thought it was odd that running the card with default PCI-E slot bus speed caused tearing and artifacts, but overclocking the slot bus speed makes everything perfect. Very odd.

I just installed my Zalman VF900 cooler, ram sinks, and VRM heat sinks as well. She is all stable, running 36 degrees with a silent fan. At 50 degrees i have the fan set at 100% so it gets a little louder, but not much. A lot better than the stock cooler that was at 48 degrees idle and into the 70s loaded. Unfortunately, the card won't overclock much at all, but i really wasn't expecting much out of it.

 

[Ichigo]

When is the new one coming out in North America?

 

[pdawg1717]

Originally posted by: tenax
Well, time to say "so long" on this thread for me. i've decided that while this board has been good to me and will definitely be saved for a backup, i'm moving on to this baby..the new "hot kid on the block" when it comes to a solid budget board:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2914&p=4

ordered express from ncix.com who have them on sale this week and will put her together hopefully by midweek.

after thinking it through, i've basically upgraded to everything i need for a one ide slot, pci-e only mobo. ddr2 ram, pci-e card, sata drive so there's nothing holding me back from giving up the "hybrid" experience. i have a new quiet and very cool silverstone case as well that will help me get back into overclocking land so, that's where i'm going. have fun! the asrock at the price has been a great board for me to buy time on the "conversion" process

So which board did you get? Your link shows several different boards...

 

[Willyboy]

I have been using the Asrock Dual-VSTA mobo for a cple of months now with little or no probs
E6400 o/c to 2.38ghz Will go higher !
2x 512 pc3200 @400mhz
Bios 2.10
Gigabyte 6800GT 256mb AGP
Antec 550 PSU
Sata 80gb maxtor + others

The thing is the set up runs sweet , but i recently acquired a Leadtek 7800GTX Extreme 256mb (Pci-e) which i know for sure is running perfect tried in other pc's, the model is on the compatability list (not the extreme i know )

Problem is when i play eg..Counter Strike i get big graphics corruptions (will try post screenies )
I have set the bios settings to what i would imagine to be correct
To Pci-express primary
made sure the Pci-e Frequency is set to 100..I'm led to beleive this is what the setting should be running pci-e & overclocking
I tried running at default settings too same probs..Tried numerous drivers even the recommended 84.21 (that seemed worse) & also tried a couple of different bios 1.90 & 2.50

The 6800GT is back in now & running great but would like to be able to use my Leadtek


http://homepage.ntlworld.com/will.wombat/cs_office0001.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/will.wombat/cs_office0003.jpg
So any ideas guys how to sort it i have emailed Asrock about a week ago No response yet

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Was gonna go get a 7900GS for this today but i'm worried cuz I've heard of alot of problems with the PCI-e.

Currently using an AGP Radeon X1300 XGE.

Anyone have any experience running a 7900GS PCI-E?

My other hardware is:

Pentium D 820 Smithfield 2.8ghz
2x 512 OCZ DDR 400

 

[jshupp872]

As noting in my previous post above, I just installed a x1950 pro PCIE video card and experienced the same graphic tearing and issues in the 3d games as well as some corruption in Vista. However, when I bumped the PCIE speed in the bios from the default 100 mhz up to my overclock setting of 117 mhz, all the corruption and tearing went away. Might be worth seeing if you are having similar issues.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

cool I just got the card. I'll probably install it tonight and I'll report back with any issues.

 

[Skeeedunt]

I've had this board for a few months, and I'm very happy with it (overclocking aside).

Couldn't seem to get the board stable at 280FSB, so I lost interest and just decided to run at stock. Admittedly I didn't try very hard, but none of the tips seemed to help. No big deal for for me though.

Original equipment included some Kingston HyperX DDR400 2x512 sticks and an ATI X800Pro AGP. Worked great.

Currently running Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 5-5-5 1.9V 2x1024 sticks and a Sapphire X1950XT 256MB PCIe. Works great.

I was trying to put together some nice benchmarks to show the difference, but I lost some of the numbers :\ The gist of it, though, was approximately double the avg FPS in FEAR @1440x900 4xAA.

Just thought I'd chime in to add to the knowledge base.

 

[Willyboy]

Originally posted by: jshupp872
As noting in my previous post above, I just installed a x1950 pro PCIE video card and experienced the same graphic tearing and issues in the 3d games as well as some corruption in Vista. However, when I bumped the PCIE speed in the bios from the default 100 mhz up to my overclock setting of 117 mhz, all the corruption and tearing went away. Might be worth seeing if you are having similar issues.

I have been warey of doing that see post by "Beachboy" page 36 he suggests its not good to increase it much i have however resolved the Graphics problem after reading an earlier post someone stated ..He had read PCIE Downstream Pipeline [auto] should be Disabled in the Bios & with one or 2 other bios settings its now running with no probs ! & i have increased the Pcie Frequency to allow overclocking as when not increased it would hang at desktop with only very small o/c 's ( thats the info you get if you google it)
So now plan to run Orthos see how stable it is!

 

[BaseGrizzly]

I've owned the Dual-VSTA for a while (without problems) but just recently I added 2 SATA drives onto the onboard SATA controller. When I enable the RAID (specifically the RAID Utility), at bootup my LSI Logic U160 SCSI card is no longer detected. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

I've already tried moving the SCSI card to a different slot, to no avail. Nothing in Windows helps as the SCSI card is not detected at all when RAID is enabled -- it just skips past SCSI identification.

 

[aussieburger]

my friend has a 7900gs with this board and has no problems

 

[imported_bog]

Some experience with this board, may be helpful for other bad luck people

First board - DOA, did not power up

Second - worked fine with DDR 400, 768M (single channel of course - I bought the board to upgrade in time) BIOS 1.9. Accepted moderate over clocking (220MHz on D820) rock stable; I did not tried more, I wanted DDR2 first.
Then I inserted 2G DDR2 800 (KingMax) and everything started go wrong, lot of errors in Memtest. I played with memory timings and frequency, compatibility even, I tried also advanced settings combinations, put memory in single channel or just 1 stick - no results

I wrote to Asrock, they answered but of course sent me to memory mfg. No point to say that memory was tested in other computer and was rock solid with most aggressive timings.
I upgraded to BIOS 2.5 nothing changed. To make my computer work I under clocked FSB to 190MHz - the highest stable frequency.

Then I noticed that at stock speeds always the first pass in Memtest was OK, the errors, so it suggested temperature problems. I started spotting with a small fan - it was the northbridge - but it was working OK till just 34 degrees what to do during summer. Anyhow, it was 38degrees in games, so I changed the fans system. Someone here posted that the only important fan is the exhaust - not true for me, but I noticed that lateral fan + exhaust was the worse combination, removing never mind which decreased the temp. For me the best was to remove the exhaust and keep lateral to blow air directly on northbridge.

With 32 degrees the computer became stable at stock for proc and any memory freq and timing. But no overclock at all, at 205MHz already memory errors. On the other side all possible tests were passed at 240MHz, all programs worked fine (including orthos, sandra, pcmark, 3dmark, memtest86) ... except HL2, and my son loves counter strike so ... Why mem errors at 205 and much more stable at 240? not a clue.

In the end I downgraded bios to 2.1 (why I didn't listen the elders before), and the board started to accept some overclock. It passes all tests including HL2 benchmark at 220MHz - didn't tried more, needed to go to work.
The other improvement - with stock settings significant higher mem bandwidth (5100 / 4700) and lower latencies (125/149) (SANDRA) then with 2.5bios.

My brief conclusions were:
-board is VERY sensitive to northbridge temp
-BIOS newer versions does not keep compatibility issues solved before, so unfortunately one has to try different ones
-running full bench of tests and passing them does not assure everything is OK (for me HL2 was most difficult to pass)