ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

[raskren]

So I'm evaluating DDR-II kits and most low latency RAM has to be run at > 1.5v.

However, the 775 Dual-VSTA only lists memory voltage as "high," "normal," "low," and "auto." Does anybody know what the exact voltages are?

How annoying!

 

[vmyap]

i have a ddr400 (2 pcs of 25g generic) mems, the ddram:fsb ratio is 4:6 is that alright? My processor is Pentium D 915. and how would i set the ddram; fsb ratio to 1:1? is that possible on my case? thanks

 

[bigsnyder]

@raskren

Good question. I would like to know as well

 

[sickNtired]

Bog: supposed to have the official 2.60 bios functions and thermal throttling fan control function working

 

[StephenMSmith]

Originally posted by: 2old2rock

Originally posted by: StephenMSmith
Can anyone here confirm that this board can do S3 Standby (ie. suspend to RAM)? I'm having the same problem I recall someone else posting about before I bought this board -- none of the fans (cpu, case, etc) turn off. Everything else does, but it seems the BIOS isn't notifying the power supply of a standby or something? Does S3 work for anyone?

Has this issue died? or been fixed and I can't find it?

If its still alive my answer is ALMOST.

I asked ASRock tech support about suspend on their boards and got a reply with an attached 2.40c BIOS the tech support guy asked me to try.
1) Does not work with my AGP ATI X700 Pro. It blanks the screen, fans & disks running, and will not respond to anything. For you old timers its a big red paddle reset situation. Goes in & out of hibernation just fine.
2) Tried it with my PCI-E Sapphire X600 XT, and it seems to work. I can't be sure if I have a compatibility problem somewhere or a bad card. With no drivers installed it goes in and out of standby just fine, just in that godawfully slow default VGA mode. With latest catalysts (7.1 & 7.2) it works great on a fresh install until you let it go into standby. Then about 1/10 the time you get a graphical corruption/freeze coming out of standby. If it doesn't freeze there, invariably I get a VPU error that restarts in VGA within a few minutes. Takes about 3 reboots before it runs for hours without a VPU. Tried earlier catalysts that are supposed to work for other x600XT (6.3, 5.8). Also tried running with just the drivers & no CCC. Similar pattern. Instead of VPU error messages I'd just get freeze/restart in VGA and a few more BSODs. Updated to most recent VIA drivers, did most of this again with similar pattern. What's really weird is I swear it seems like everything would run fine until the first time it went into standby or hibernate. It was like that corrupted something. Shipping the card off to a friend to rule out hardware problems. Sent reply back to ASRock that I can't make it work.

So like I said, almost had S3 working, just need to rule out bad card. Happy to post this 2.40c (DOS only) if anybody wants to check it out. Anybody gotta a spare PCI-E card I can borrow to test? :laugh:

I'd love to try it out. I had no problems entering/resuming S3 standby w/my X850XT PE. The problem was that the board did not turn off any fans, which was a showstopper for me. Do the fans turn off in S3 w/this 2.40c BIOS?

 

[jshupp872]

If the fans don't turn off, it is only S1 sleep. I could never get S3 sleep to work.

 

[Javvis]

Per request ...the following are the Voltages on the Asrock 775 VSTA Board:

agp "high" 1.59v
agp "low" 1.54v
--------------------
DDR "high" 2.73v
DDR "norm"2.63v
DDR "low 2.53v
--------------------
DDR2 "high" 2.0v
DDR2 "norm" 1.9v
DDR2 "low" 1.8v


Now back to my previous post question: I've purchased several of these Asrock 775 VSTA boards & recently built a system as listed below:

1.) 3.0 ghz Cedar Mill.
2.) 2 sticks 256mb Geil 3500 DDR memory sticks .
3.) AGP Card.

I set the FSB to 233 & the memory to 200 ...& it booted up at 3500 mhz without any increase in processor (30 C) temp.

I noticed while using the newest version of Everest ...that my Memory was running at 217 mhz & the memory/FSB divider was 6/8. I've always thought that it's better to run 1:1 or possibly 1:2. (Flexibility option is turned off)

Could someone please explain this memory/FSB divider thing for this board in detail using my setup with DDR & also if I switched to DDR2. I would like to run at 1:1 ...how would I do this ? I've looked elsewhere & could only find minimal info regarding this.

I've got a new 6300 CD2 ...but, I think the 4300 or upcoming 4400 would work better on this board because these CPU's have lower FSB (200 vs. 266) & higher multiplier.

 

[2old2rock]

Yes, fans all shut down. Came out of standby ok. Be warned, Even though it came from ASRock tech support, I was never clear whether it was problems with bios or my card causing all the crashed (see original post)

Now that I've made the offer I have no idea how to post it to the board. thought there would be an attachment function here somewhere... If somebody can tell me how I'll be happy to post the 2.40c.

 

[imported_bog]

does anybody has problems / knows how to improve core voltage drop on this board?
I am running a D820 @ 3.55GHz, temps are OK (max 60 degrees in ORTHOS), but core voltage drops from 1.26 standby to 1.16 load and that moment I get errors.

 

[Javvis]

What is the difference between the modified 2.40c & modified 2.60a bios ?

 

[raskren]

Thanks Javvis for the voltages! Did you measure these yourselves or are these values documented somewhere?

I'm not sure that your CPU and RAM combo can run at 1:1. Cedar Mill is a dual core Pentium 4, right? NetBurst never seemed to mind running a non-1:1 divider or loose timings.

If your FSB is set to 233 and Everest lists RAM as 217 mhz, you're not running a 6:8 or 3:4 divider. It doesn't sound like the application is not detecting the speed properly. To get 217 from 233 you'd have to be running a really weird divider like 14:15.

To run at 1:1 you'd need 533 Mhz DDR-II to pair with a C2D.

 

[StephenMSmith]

Not sure how to post either. I realized a week ago you can't put images in posts either. Wish they would use the std bbs that everyone else uses. How big is it? Can you email it?

 

[raskren]

If you need to post an image just upload it to imageshack.us and post the link to the image here.

 

[2old2rock]

Originally posted by: Javvis
What is the difference between the modified 2.40c & modified 2.60a bios ?

I don't know. Does 2.6 go into suspend to ram (S3)? 2.40 was supposed to, but I could never sort out whether I had a hardware problem with that card, a chipset/driver incompatibility or what (see posts pg 59). I'll try 2.6 on my AGP card if that will clarify anything?

Update: I still have no idea what 2.60 is supposed to do. When I try to go into standby it shuts down my AGP video card, leaves everything else running, and stops responding. Have to power down to restart. Hibernate still works.

Boot times slowed so much I thought I had really fried something!!! I liked my 2.40c better, but I think most folks are sticking with 2.1 until something better comes along?

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: Javvis
Per request ...the following are the Voltages on the Asrock 775 VSTA Board:

agp "high" 1.59v
agp "low" 1.54v
--------------------
DDR "high" 2.73v
DDR "norm"2.63v
DDR "low 2.53v
--------------------
DDR2 "high" 2.0v
DDR2 "norm" 1.9v
DDR2 "low" 1.8v


Now back to my previous post question: I've purchased several of these Asrock 775 VSTA boards & recently built a system as listed below:

1.) 3.0 ghz Cedar Mill.
2.) 2 sticks 256mb Geil 3500 DDR memory sticks .
3.) AGP Card.

I set the FSB to 233 & the memory to 200 ...& it booted up at 3500 mhz without any increase in processor (30 C) temp.

I noticed while using the newest version of Everest ...that my Memory was running at 217 mhz & the memory/FSB divider was 6/8. I've always thought that it's better to run 1:1 or possibly 1:2. (Flexibility option is turned off)

Could someone please explain this memory/FSB divider thing for this board in detail using my setup with DDR & also if I switched to DDR2. I would like to run at 1:1 ...how would I do this ? I've looked elsewhere & could only find minimal info regarding this.

I've got a new 6300 CD2 ...but, I think the 4300 or upcoming 4400 would work better on this board because these CPU's have lower FSB (200 vs. 266) & higher multiplier.

I have come across this explanation by Slipstreem in regards to ram dividers. I'm sure I have posted it here in this forum somewhere before, hope this helps.

Quote
Hi peeps!

I've noticed that quite a few people who are relatively new to overclocking seem to be having trouble setting their DDR memory up correctly on this motherboard.

The following may be helpful to someone...

You cannot lock the memory speed on this motherboard, but you can manually change the divider to bring the memory speed back down when you overclock.

The dividers aren't expressed as dividers in the BIOS. They are expressed as DDR speeds which can be a little confusing.

I'll try to explain:

At 200MHz FSB (quad-pumped 800MHz for an E4300), the motherboard will give the following memory speeds for its stated 'DDR' speeds when used with DDR memory...

'DDR400' = 1:1 = 200MHz = DDR400,
'DDR333' = 6:5 = 166.7MHz = DDR333,
'DDR266' = 3:2 = 133.3MHz = DDR266.

These dividers hold true until the we reach an FSB of 240MHz where a new set of dividers are invoked as shown below. Now, suppose that we take the FSB straight up to the level that most unmodified Dual-VSTA motherboards will reach. This seems to be around 290MHz. The dividers and memory speeds will then be as follows...

'DDR400' = 4:3 = 217.5MHz = DDR435,
'DDR333' = 8:5 = 181.25MHz = DDR362.5,
'DDR266' = 2:1 = 145MHz = DDR290.

These new dividers make perfect sense when you consider that at an FSB of 266MHz, the memory speeds are actually DDR400, DDR333 and DDR266 again. This gives the correct memory speeds for processors running at a quad-pumped speed of 1066MHz, ie, the E6300, etc.

So, we don't have precise control over the memory speed achieved for a given FSB, but we can predict what it will be and select the appropriate 'DDR' setting in the BIOS for a given FSB.

Good DDR memory with slackened timings should manage at 290MHz FSB on the new dividers. If it doesn't, then knock the setting in the BIOS down to the 'DDR' setting below the one that matches your memory's actual DDR speed and try tighter timings to compensate for the underclock.

I hope this makes sense.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: bog
does anybody has problems / knows how to improve core voltage drop on this board?
I am running a D820 @ 3.55GHz, temps are OK (max 60 degrees in ORTHOS), but core voltage drops from 1.26 standby to 1.16 load and that moment I get errors.

Sounds like you need a good solid performing PSU.

 

[StephenMSmith]

Originally posted by: 2old2rock

Originally posted by: Javvis
What is the difference between the modified 2.40c & modified 2.60a bios ?

I don't know. Does 2.6 go into suspend to ram (S3)? 2.40 was supposed to, but I could never sort out whether I had a hardware problem with that card, a chipset/driver incompatibility or what (see posts pg 59). I'll try 2.6 on my AGP card if that will clarify anything?

Yeah, please do. I'm curious if 2.5 or 2.6 incorporate the S3 fix in this 2.40c. I gave up on S3 several BIOS's ago and removed the option from XP and it's kinda a pain to get it back in there.

 

[Javvis]

Thanks Javvis for the voltages! Did you measure these yourselves or are these values documented somewhere?

I'm not sure that your CPU and RAM combo can run at 1:1. Cedar Mill is a dual core Pentium 4, right?

No ...I found the Voltages on a couple other Forums ...also, Cedar Mill is a single-core 65nm processor.

So ...I can't run 1:1 unless I use DDR2 memory ? Is there a website that lists different user configurations/results with this board ?

 

[Javvis]

I don't know. Does 2.6 go into suspend to ram (S3)? 2.40 was supposed to, but I could never sort out whether I had a hardware problem with that card, a chipset/driver incompatibility or what (see posts pg 59). I'll try 2.6 on my AGP card if that will clarify anything?

I was referring to the modified 2.60a bios ...not the regular 2.60 version.

 

[Javvis]

To the person who had a high pitch noise around the processor ...this is due to a bad transistor that is located near it.

I would RMA the board ...if it's still under warranty.

 

[imported_bog]

Originally posted by: Mr Vain

Originally posted by: bog
does anybody has problems / knows how to improve core voltage drop on this board?
I am running a D820 @ 3.55GHz, temps are OK (max 60 degrees in ORTHOS), but core voltage drops from 1.26 standby to 1.16 load and that moment I get errors.

Sounds like you need a good solid performing PSU.

10x, but none of the power supply voltages are dropping, 3.3V, 5V, 5Vstby, and 12V are all rock steady, only the processor voltage is dropping when processor is heavy loaded.

 

[raskren]

According to the post above, DDR 400 should run at 1:1 when paired with a 800 Mhz quad-pumped CPU. However, this doesn't appear to hold true with your setup.

With a 1066 Mhz C2D you would need to pair it with 533 Mhz DDR-II.

Quad-pumped CPU bus = 1066 / 4 = 266
DDR RAM = 533 / 2 = 266

Hence, 1:1

 

[nj]

Does anybody else have a flaky PCI-E slot? AGP works fine but when I use PCI-E I have to reseat a couple of times just to find the right angle before it will give me a post or anything.

Really frustrating because I can't take the PCI-E card out. The best way I can explain it is that feels like an old NES cartridge. I do some hocus-pocus, reseat maybe 10 times and the thing fires up for whatever reason. Odd and annoying. Everything is at stock and the system is very stable once I find the right "spot". Card is basically new and at stock too (7900gs) ... fires right up in other systems.

 

[ajsasr]

I just bought this board to replace a AMD system I had. I love the fact that I can reuse my AIW 9700 Pro AGP card, and DDR400 memory.

I'm having a problem though. First off I'm not doing any overclocking, and I'm running a D915 processor. The initial install of XP works fine with my DRAM set to 200MHz in the BIOS. Once I install SP2 though and reboot, the system crashes and reboots at the username screen. If I go into the BIOS and change my frequency to 166MHz, then everything works fine. I'm using Inferion memory. Am I missing a setting that I need to change? No drivers have been installed at this point other than what's on the CD that comes with the Mobo. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[wallace91]

I have the most annoying problem. I installed windows xp2 on my dual vsta setup (e4300-2.4@266fsb. ddr400 2 gb dual channel, ati 9800pro agp, 80 gb wd ata drive.) Windows works fine, i can do anything i want and even benchmark and test everything no problems. But after i reinstalled windows whenever i play games the keyboard lags or is really far behind. I have tried everything and even tried switching back to 2.1 bios from 2.6. This only happens in games, also a system interrupt controller came up but when i redid the bios it went away. I have tried every driver there is from VIA and asrock. Is this board dead should i just rma it? What could it be.

Also when i try to boot up windows again now it find errors with the disk i used not more than a week ago, that i know works because i have used it on 3 peoples computers in the last 2 weeks and i have tons of copies of the disk. It tells me on start up that it is missing nld.something or ntr. But it will not let me boot into the windows cd. Then if i try any other cd's it finds errors. What could this be.

Does this sound like its problem with the processor or the mobo?