ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

[Vhagar]

I've read through a big chunk of this thread, and I'm going to keep reading, but it's obnoxiously long and I figure I'll be best served posting ASAP.

c2d e6300
768MB corsair DDR1 400/ 2GB Corsair DDR2 667
PNY 7900gs
2x Seagate SATA150 120gb


I got this board a few months ago as a transitioner, have been using 768mb of DDR1 400 in it, running @400mhz 2.5-3-3-8, pretty much everything fine.

I just today got my 2GB of Corsair Twin2x2048-5400C4 in, (2GB DDR2 667)

After some tweaking I got the dang thing working, it would hang on boot at first. However, I have yet to find a completely stable setup. Right now I'm at Optimal Defaults (with IDE Drive Strength at Normal). I've found this to be most stable, it runs at 533, 4-4-4-12, default CPU speeds.

What's happening is that it's just completely freezing at some point. Sooner when I fire up a game, but it'll eventually do it just in windows too.

I couldn't seem to get it to run at 667 no matter what, although after re-reading some more I'm going to go in and tweak some more settings. When I had settings mixed/matched (Pipeline, IDE Strength, memory clock and latency, spread spectrum, voltage high/normal) in various configs, I would sometimes get lockups even at 533. I was trying to run at 275mhz FSB, from optimal defaults with just a few settings changed, but no dice.

I am NOT using the flexibility option. It puts my memory speed at 200/400, which for ddr2 333/667 is a joke.

Anyway, anybody got any advice on the BIOS settings? I'm reading through this whole thread, but a little help would be nice. I'm not too worried, I'm going to get a new motherboard in a few weeks, but I'd like to know whether this RAM is any good, whether it is really the motherboard that's essentially limiting me to 533.

My PSU might be a concern. It's an Enermax 430watt, and it's at least 4 years old, probably close to 5.

 

[mcnannay]

Well its been awhile since anyone has brought up the Suspend to Ram issue...where you can only get it to go into s1 not s3 (fans shutting down). Well I found a guide while searching around and finally got S3 to work correctly on the 775dual-vsta.

Link to the site:

http://www.jsifaq.com/SF/Tips/Tip.aspx?id=10770

 

[bigsnyder]

@Vhagar

I wouldn't worry about trying to run your memory at 667Mhz. When Anandtech reviewed this board last year
in a series of three articles, there was actually a slight performance hit at 667Mhz vs 533Mhz. Have your ran
a few cycles of Memtest? If you get errors here then your memory might be suspect.

 

[Raikku]

I run my GSkills at 533-setting, and 'cause my Fsb is at 291Mhz, they run actually at ~582Mhz(or something).

I tried 667, but i got only errors and lock-ups, i managed to get 'em work with very relaxed setting, but it didn't made any sense, when in 533-setting i can keep my 2x1Gb
memorys in 3-4-4-9 with 1T (without Flexibility). Obviously my PC is much more faster that way.

One interesting thing is that at least my GSkills seems to like lowest voltage setting.

 

[tno]

So, has anyone done any Pentium D overclocking with this board? I've got a D 945 that I wasn't able to take over 217FSB with another board, I blamed the mobo. I had so many issues trying to get this guy to work that I haven't dared disturb this board with much experimenting with overclocking. What I have tried has been at once discouraging and encouraging. Bringing FSB up to 217 was no sweat and the mobo has shown its strength in absolutely demolishing prior benchmark records at the same settings. Ticking it up further while not having the whole case and cooling settled yielded a 225, but bringing it up to 233 caused a POST recovery. So, is the 220 range going to be my hard cap? Do these clock higher? I'm pretty sure I've seen some 945's at least hit 4.0. And hell, if the 805 can clear such hurdles certainly a 945 should be able to go that fast. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Jason

PS - Before anyone tells me to toss the 945 and get an E4300, I've got plans to make such a move in the future (say after the August p/d's) but in the interim I'd love to get this guy to churn along at a good clip. Thanks again.

 

[Conky]

I just set up a new system with this 775Dual-VSTA, an Intel E4400, a new SATA3 Seagate 160GB HD(jumpered to SATA1.5), an IDE 160GB WD HD, a Lite-On DVD RW, 2x512mb Corsair DDR RAM and a GeForce4 Ti4400 AGP. Basically recycled a bunch of parts while adding a couple of newer parts.

The Windows XP Pro install went flawlessly even though the board was only updated to the 2.20 BIOS (flashed to 2.70 after Windows install). It originally posted and booted up with no problems at my last used setting of 292FSB or 2.92Ghz with the 2.20 Bios! :laugh:

I turned it to stock speed for the XP install and then cranked her up to 2.67GHz right after that. Haven't tried any higher yet and might not because I am using the factory Intel heatsink and it's running fast enough for what I want from it.

This motherboard is one of my all-time favorites for it's simplicity and the fact that it pretty much works with whatever parts you have. The E4400 is perfect for this board too. ASRock kicks butt for cheap boards. :thumbsup:

 

[bvalpati]

Does anyone know what the earliest BIOS version that will recognize an E4300 is?

 

[mikospy]

use 2.70... but 2.70A is better cause it dont have problems with ACPI (entering to sleep mode) It is functional in Linux and Windows too... If you want, send me mail to mikospy @ gmail. com

 

[bvalpati]

Well unfortunately I don't have a chip to flash this board, what's the cheapest proc I can get to use to flash it?

 

[mikospy]

celeron 325 is the lowest possible proc for 775 dual vsta

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: bvalpati
Does anyone know what the earliest BIOS version that will recognize an E4300 is?

I would try to boot it up with the E4300, I can?t recall there being a particular bios update to enable the E4xxx series CPU?s.

 

[strafejumper]

my asrock shipped with and im on bios 1.50P or something like that
running E4300 in it
not sure if i should upgrade the bios - doesn't seem like it will change much if i do

 

[bvalpati]

The chip on the board says 1.10 so hopefully I'll be fine. Still waiting on the proc to arrive.

 

[jsbeddow]

To member: mcnanny
I too have spent a great deal of time trying to get S3 Suspend to RAM to work, and am frankly surprised you have found a way to get it working:would you mind posting more details on your setup? For my own part, I am currently running the 2.70A Beta/Modified BIOS, and can nearly get S3 to work after a great deal of tweaking with registry settings, dumppo.exe configs, and finally the MCE Standby Tool that brings all of these settings together in one place. It is really frustrating because I am tantalizingly close: it will S3 suspend and resume correctly, but only for short periods of time (up to a minute or two), after that, it will always hang with a black screen and locked up system (no keyboard buttons respond) upon attempting to resume.
My system uses one stick of 1GB DDR2 800 (an ADATA Vitesta rated at 1.8 Volts, running at 667MHZ), an old AGP ATI AIW 8500DV, and an LSI Logic PCI SCSI board to run my SCSI scanner. This setup is otherwise very stable--I have no other problems. I have tried various tips and tricks---unplugging and/or disabling USB devices like mice, and changing their "arm for resume" status, all to no avail. I am starting to wonder if it is some part of my video card or driver that causes the problem, thus my curiosity as to your setup.
I kook forward to hearing more for any other users experiences with S3 on this board. Thanks.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: jsbeddow
To member: mcnanny
I too have spent a great deal of time trying to get S3 Suspend to RAM to work, and am frankly surprised you have found a way to get it working:would you mind posting more details on your setup? For my own part, I am currently running the 2.70A Beta/Modified BIOS, and can nearly get S3 to work after a great deal of tweaking with registry settings, dumppo.exe configs, and finally the MCE Standby Tool that brings all of these settings together in one place. It is really frustrating because I am tantalizingly close: it will S3 suspend and resume correctly, but only for short periods of time (up to a minute or two), after that, it will always hang with a black screen and locked up system (no keyboard buttons respond) upon attempting to resume.
My system uses one stick of 1GB DDR2 800 (an ADATA Vitesta rated at 1.8 Volts, running at 667MHZ), an old AGP ATI AIW 8500DV, and an LSI Logic PCI SCSI board to run my SCSI scanner. This setup is otherwise very stable--I have no other problems. I have tried various tips and tricks---unplugging and/or disabling USB devices like mice, and changing their "arm for resume" status, all to no avail. I am starting to wonder if it is some part of my video card or driver that causes the problem, thus my curiosity as to your setup.
I kook forward to hearing more for any other users experiences with S3 on this board. Thanks.

Have a look in this below link, the thread has some discussion on that very topic from a few members at the moment.

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

 

[asianxtreme]

Hey Guys,
I am very new to this forum, joined like 5 mins ago...
Im not very good at all this computer stuff but I got a BIG problem with my desktop:
Here goes---I purchased this desktop about 8 months ago from LUcomputers in Canada...
E6400@2.13, 2GB RAM, BFG 7900GT, and the 775dual-VSTA..
Anyways the first month or so I began to notice that my computer was restarting randomly.
So brought it to a guy in town to get it fixed...He couldn't figure out what the problem is or
he was just way too busy. So then I took to back and called LUcomputers and they weren't any
help either...I end up sending it up to Canada but the Canadians wouldn't let it go through the
border...Now its back here and I have no idea what is going on...
Some problems:Sometimes blue screen, and sometimes random restarts...No specific times...
Never counted. I tried reinstalling several times...Now it won't recognize one of my HHD 250GB.
So i try an old 80GB and reinstall it. It crashed as well....I was so angry I almost put it in the
oven...Please respond and help....ASAP..Thanks.

 

[bigsnyder]

You didn't say what type of memory you have. If you are running DDR2, make sure it set for DDR2-533. 667Mhz can cause problems. What bios revision is currently installed? Mine has 2.10 and is very solid. Going back to the memory, try to get a copy of memtest to boot from. This will determine if the memory chips are the culprit. Let us know how this turns out.

C Snyder

 

[jdcon]

hey guys.. anyone having any problems with their usb ports? i only get 2.0 on a couple of the ports. anyone try the 2.4 bios that supposed to have to usb updates?

 

[jdcon]

@bigsnyder

really? ddr2 667 has problems with this board? Darn, i was just about to upgrade to new ram..

 

[Raikku]

Anybody tried Ati's new 2900 XT's with this board, do they work?

 

[JustaGeek]

I have been running DDR2 667 OCZ S.O.E. 4-4-4-12 since October 2006 with no issues at all.

But 553 might be performing better since it works 1:1 with FSB. I would not upgrade from 533 to 667, you might actually see the performance drop instead of increase.


The best BIOS for me was 2.1 version, but I am running 2.7 now (my wife's computer). It seems to be working fine with no issues in sleep/hibernation or anything.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: Raikku
Anybody tried Ati's new 2900 XT's with this board, do they work?

Notice this is for the 4CoreDual-VSTA same board really.

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

Originally posted by: Mr Vain
Originally posted by: Stumps
Now you have me all curious about the 1333FSB C2D's in the 4coredual...my Asrock currently has a lowlyP-D820@3.4ghz in it with a HD2900XT vid card.

How does the HD2900XT work with this board?

It works pretty good (assume the PSU is decent) but the PCI-E x4 slot does bottleneck it considerably (so does the 820), but really no worse than an 8800 series, around 10-15% is lost because of the x4 slot (compared to a P35 setup running the same CPU)

:thumbsup:

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: jdcon
@bigsnyder

really? ddr2 667 has problems with this board? Darn, i was just about to upgrade to new ram..

My Geil DDR2 667Mhz works flawlessly with this motherboard @ 533Mhz or at 667Mhz, heck you can even run DDR2 800Mhz @ 667Mhz speed on these boards.

 

[Modelworks]

I have one of these boards also.
Running:
Pentium d 925 3.0ghz @ 3.4ghz
Arctic cooler freezer 7 pro
2 x 1gb super talent ddr2 -667
hipro 400watt psu
leadtek 7600GT AGP card
2- 250gb seagate sata
1 -120gb seagate ide1
1 -liteon dvd burner ide2
1 - chaintech av-710 sound card

was built using spare parts I had from a previous pc.
Runs 24/7 without a single issue.

Wish the board did quad core, but I can still get plenty of use out of it with just dual core.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
I have one of these boards also.
Running:
Pentium d 925 3.0ghz @ 3.4ghz
Arctic cooler freezer 7 pro
2 x 1gb super talent ddr2 -667
hipro 400watt psu
leadtek 7600GT AGP card
2- 250gb seagate sata
1 -120gb seagate ide1
1 -liteon dvd burner ide2
1 - chaintech av-710 sound card

was built using spare parts I had from a previous pc.
Runs 24/7 without a single issue.

Wish the board did quad core, but I can still get plenty of use out of it with just dual core.

It may be possible to bios flash with the 4CoreDual-VSTA bios and then you can use the quad core. I have read about this being done in an NCIX forum awhile back now.
Know that this may be risky.