ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 - Socket 939 with PCI-E and real AGP and Socket AM2 upgrade path

[imported_thesurgeon]

First of all, nice to meet everyone.
Secondly, I recently went on a newegg spending spree and picked up an Asrock 939-Dual MB, Athlon X2 3800+, 2GB of OCZ Platinum memory, and a Maxtor Diamondmax 10 250GB hard drive. This was largely due to the advice I got from lurking here, so thanks to you all.
Thirdly, I'm having a problem. Everything is running fine with my setup except I can't get the bios to detect my new hard drive. Thankfully my old Windows XP install was not too traumatized by having most everything replaced at once, so I'm able to boot off my IDE 80GB drive with no problems and scour the internet for answers. The conclusion I'm reaching is that I either have a bum drive or a bum SATA controller on the motherboard. The drive appears to be spinning up, and in fact I plugged it into my girlfriend's computer (an Asus K8V deluxe) and it was detected in the bios's RAID setup utility there.
Furthermore, at one point I tried switching it from the SATA1 port to the SATA2 port on my motherboard and it was detected for a couple of reboots, then it vanished again. During the time that it was here I never actually entered Windows to see if the drive was found there...it was just detected in the bios.
I also never tried to go through all the steps needed to get an SATA drive working (to a point where it's writable/chkdsk-able) with the K8V motherboard.
Anyway, I thought I would pick the cumulative brains of this board and see if anyone had heard of a similar problem. I guess I'm 90% sure it's a bum SATA controller on the board and am clinging to this small hope that I won't have to wait another couple of weeks for a replacement before I can play with my new stuff.

Any ideas? All suggestions, no matter how obvious, are greatly appreciated.

 

[niggles]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Nesta
I got one of these coming in the mail coupled with a 3200+

Anyone running Win XP x64??

I'm running WinXP 64. Haven't really used it long enough to know whether I like it or not, but so far so good.

I'm guessing you've had no mobo driver issues then.

 

[deadmouse]

Originally posted by: thesurgeon
First of all, nice to meet everyone.
Secondly, I recently went on a newegg spending spree and picked up an Asrock 939-Dual MB, Athlon X2 3800+, 2GB of OCZ Platinum memory, and a Maxtor Diamondmax 10 250GB hard drive. This was largely due to the advice I got from lurking here, so thanks to you all.
Thirdly, I'm having a problem. Everything is running fine with my setup except I can't get the bios to detect my new hard drive. Thankfully my old Windows XP install was not too traumatized by having most everything replaced at once, so I'm able to boot off my IDE 80GB drive with no problems and scour the internet for answers. The conclusion I'm reaching is that I either have a bum drive or a bum SATA controller on the motherboard. The drive appears to be spinning up, and in fact I plugged it into my girlfriend's computer (an Asus K8V deluxe) and it was detected in the bios's RAID setup utility there.
Furthermore, at one point I tried switching it from the SATA1 port to the SATA2 port on my motherboard and it was detected for a couple of reboots, then it vanished again. During the time that it was here I never actually entered Windows to see if the drive was found there...it was just detected in the bios.
I also never tried to go through all the steps needed to get an SATA drive working (to a point where it's writable/chkdsk-able) with the K8V motherboard.
Anyway, I thought I would pick the cumulative brains of this board and see if anyone had heard of a similar problem. I guess I'm 90% sure it's a bum SATA controller on the board and am clinging to this small hope that I won't have to wait another couple of weeks for a replacement before I can play with my new stuff.

Any ideas? All suggestions, no matter how obvious, are greatly appreciated.

did you update your bios? apparently it ships with an old bios version. v1.30 is available here. that might help, not sure. i flashed the bios first thing, so i dont know if that will help ort not, but i guess it cant hurt.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: niggles

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Nesta
I got one of these coming in the mail coupled with a 3200+

Anyone running Win XP x64??

I'm running WinXP 64. Haven't really used it long enough to know whether I like it or not, but so far so good.

I'm guessing you've had no mobo driver issues then.

nope, but i'm using IDE and not SATA.

 

[BlackPear1]

Surgeon - I had a similar problem and eliminated it by clearing CMOS and loading default settings. My Raptor was still not shown on the bios IDE section but appeared in the boot section and worked properly. Later the drive mysteriously appeared in the IDE section. Did you try a different SATA cable? Will you be using your new drive as the boot drive? If not, I suspect that you may run into lots of problems if you try to run your new board and CPU on an old XP install - you have a nice new rig and it deserves a fresh OS install.
As for the bios update, I have found 1.20 to be more stable and flexible than the new 1.30 so I went back (I'm also running X2 3800+), but it can't hurt to try if you like.

 

[imported_Woody]

Originally posted by: thesurgeon
First of all, nice to meet everyone.
Secondly, I recently went on a newegg spending spree and picked up an Asrock 939-Dual MB, Athlon X2 3800+, 2GB of OCZ Platinum memory, and a Maxtor Diamondmax 10 250GB hard drive. This was largely due to the advice I got from lurking here, so thanks to you all.
Thirdly, I'm having a problem. Everything is running fine with my setup except I can't get the bios to detect my new hard drive. Thankfully my old Windows XP install was not too traumatized by having most everything replaced at once, so I'm able to boot off my IDE 80GB drive with no problems and scour the internet for answers. The conclusion I'm reaching is that I either have a bum drive or a bum SATA controller on the motherboard. The drive appears to be spinning up, and in fact I plugged it into my girlfriend's computer (an Asus K8V deluxe) and it was detected in the bios's RAID setup utility there.
Furthermore, at one point I tried switching it from the SATA1 port to the SATA2 port on my motherboard and it was detected for a couple of reboots, then it vanished again. During the time that it was here I never actually entered Windows to see if the drive was found there...it was just detected in the bios.
I also never tried to go through all the steps needed to get an SATA drive working (to a point where it's writable/chkdsk-able) with the K8V motherboard.
Anyway, I thought I would pick the cumulative brains of this board and see if anyone had heard of a similar problem. I guess I'm 90% sure it's a bum SATA controller on the board and am clinging to this small hope that I won't have to wait another couple of weeks for a replacement before I can play with my new stuff.

Any ideas? All suggestions, no matter how obvious, are greatly appreciated.

I think I have this one figured out.......

I have that same Maxtor HD. I plug it into my SATAII port because I have a RAID0 using up both my SATA1 ports. The Maxtor is my boot drive and Windows installer had no trouble seeing the drive during the installation of XP. It will work fine in any of the SATA ports.

One thing I noticed is that whenever I plug in a new drive on any of the SATA or IDE ports the BIOS resets the order or priority for the various drives. You have to manually set this up each time you change the configuration (typically only once after installing the drives).

When entering the BIOS select the "Boot" menu across the top

The select "Hard Disk Drives" and press enter

Select "1st Drive" and press enter then select the drive you want to be the boot drive. If you have a second drive you can select that also.

Use the "esc" key twice to back up to the "Boot" menu again and verify the "1st Boot Device" is the desired drive.

You can also check under "Advanced" - "IDE Configuration" and verify that the SATA controller is set up properly. You may need to use "IDE mode" on the SATAII controller to install Windows and switch to "SATA mode" after Windows and your mainboard drivers are installed. This is what I did but I'm not certain if it's necessary.

Press F10 to save and exit, restart, and all should be good.

Your board probably shipped with BIOS 1.20 which is fine. I wouldn't update the BIOS unless you have other trouble with it....compatibility issues, etc.

One thing I noticed that I think is unusual with using the SATAII controller for my boot drive is that I have a "safely remove hardware" option in my taskbar for my boot drive. I haven't been brave enough to try it by I assume if I did accidentally remove my boot drive in Windows a restart would fix it.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Woody

Originally posted by: thesurgeon
First of all, nice to meet everyone.
Secondly, I recently went on a newegg spending spree and picked up an Asrock 939-Dual MB, Athlon X2 3800+, 2GB of OCZ Platinum memory, and a Maxtor Diamondmax 10 250GB hard drive. This was largely due to the advice I got from lurking here, so thanks to you all.
Thirdly, I'm having a problem. Everything is running fine with my setup except I can't get the bios to detect my new hard drive. Thankfully my old Windows XP install was not too traumatized by having most everything replaced at once, so I'm able to boot off my IDE 80GB drive with no problems and scour the internet for answers. The conclusion I'm reaching is that I either have a bum drive or a bum SATA controller on the motherboard. The drive appears to be spinning up, and in fact I plugged it into my girlfriend's computer (an Asus K8V deluxe) and it was detected in the bios's RAID setup utility there.
Furthermore, at one point I tried switching it from the SATA1 port to the SATA2 port on my motherboard and it was detected for a couple of reboots, then it vanished again. During the time that it was here I never actually entered Windows to see if the drive was found there...it was just detected in the bios.
I also never tried to go through all the steps needed to get an SATA drive working (to a point where it's writable/chkdsk-able) with the K8V motherboard.
Anyway, I thought I would pick the cumulative brains of this board and see if anyone had heard of a similar problem. I guess I'm 90% sure it's a bum SATA controller on the board and am clinging to this small hope that I won't have to wait another couple of weeks for a replacement before I can play with my new stuff.

Any ideas? All suggestions, no matter how obvious, are greatly appreciated.

I think I have this one figured out.......

I have that same Maxtor HD. I plug it into my SATAII port because I have a RAID0 using up both my SATA1 ports. The Maxtor is my boot drive and Windows installer had no trouble seeing the drive during the installation of XP. It will work fine in any of the SATA ports.

One thing I noticed is that whenever I plug in a new drive on any of the SATA or IDE ports the BIOS resets the order or priority for the various drives. You have to manually set this up each time you change the configuration (typically only once after installing the drives).

When entering the BIOS select the "Boot" menu across the top

The select "Hard Disk Drives" and press enter

Select "1st Drive" and press enter then select the drive you want to be the boot drive. If you have a second drive you can select that also.

Use the "esc" key twice to back up to the "Boot" menu again and verify the "1st Boot Device" is the desired drive.

You can also check under "Advanced" - "IDE Configuration" and verify that the SATA controller is set up properly. You may need to use "IDE mode" on the SATAII controller to install Windows and switch to "SATA mode" after Windows and your mainboard drivers are installed. This is what I did but I'm not certain if it's necessary.

Press F10 to save and exit, restart, and all should be good.

Your board probably shipped with BIOS 1.20 which is fine. I wouldn't update the BIOS unless you have other trouble with it....compatibility issues, etc.

One thing I noticed that I think is unusual with using the SATAII controller for my boot drive is that I have a "safely remove hardware" option in my taskbar for my boot drive. I haven't been brave enough to try it by I assume if I did accidentally remove my boot drive in Windows a restart would fix it.

Careful, Hot Swapping is not supported on this Mobo.

 

[lektrix]

Man, this thread is so long it's impossible to read through every post..

Can someone give me an update on how this board is doing?

I was afraid of buying it since it jus came out so I got an used DFI NF3 Ultra-D.. is there any reason I should convert to the ASROCK?

 

[Nesta]

sandorski

Glad to hear you are brave!

Can you give us a brief overview of the remainder of your spec that is humming along nicely?

Thx

 

[imported_thesurgeon]

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.

I got it working not too long after posting my message and haven't had a chance to update this until now (what with installing Windows and all). The problem seems to be that I cannot use this SATA hard drive and my old IDE hard drive at the same time. I don't know if this is a standard issue for motherboards or if something is wrong with mine specifically. Anyway if I have the Maxtor plugged into SATA port 2 and physically unplug the IDE hard drive cable from the primary IDE socket on the board, the Maxtor is detected. It might also work if I just disable the primary IDE in the bios. The fact that the hard drive has to be plugged into SATA port 2 leads me to believe I may have a weird board.

I am using the 1.30 version BIOS, that was one of the first things I tried (and also because I understood it to be better for overclocking than the original...I've got to use this huge Zalman 7000 heatsink for something).

I'd like to get both hard drives working together at some point...there are some things I'd like to transfer over. But I'd still like to avoid returning the motherboard and trying all over again. So I'll see if I can figure anything out. For now I'm having too much fun to worry about that stuff.

If anybody has any other questions for me or suggestions I'll be checking periodically.

 

[imported_thesurgeon]

Originally posted by: BlackPear1
Surgeon - I had a similar problem and eliminated it by clearing CMOS and loading default settings. My Raptor was still not shown on the bios IDE section but appeared in the boot section and worked properly. Later the drive mysteriously appeared in the IDE section. Did you try a different SATA cable? Will you be using your new drive as the boot drive? If not, I suspect that you may run into lots of problems if you try to run your new board and CPU on an old XP install - you have a nice new rig and it deserves a fresh OS install.
As for the bios update, I have found 1.20 to be more stable and flexible than the new 1.30 so I went back (I'm also running X2 3800+), but it can't hurt to try if you like.

Hmm...that's interesting that it didn't show up in the IDE section but did in the boot section. I didn't run into that, though, just no detecting whatsoever. I'll definitely try clearing the CMOS once I start to work on getting the IDE hard drive installed so I can transfer files.

I suppose I should ask if anyone else is succesfully using an IDE and SATA hard drive at the same time on this board?

 

[galadar]

i have one extra unopened new in box from the egg. 1.20 bios., if anyone is willing to buy.

i am from extremeoverclocking.com

ill even flash to beta bios for free.

 

[BlackPear1]

Surgeon - My SATA drive was always detected and appeared in the boot section so my problem may have been different.

I am using a Raptor and a WD PATA drive on my board without problems. In addition to upgrading to bios 1.20 when I did my initial installation, I also downloaded and installed the latest ULi integrated driver, though I'm not sure that would have an effect on the problem you describe. BTW, whenever I have cleared CMOS the boot order reverts to PATA first and needs to be reconfigured in bios.

 

[designit]

Hello All,
below is Screenshots of my Asrock mobo and Venice 3000 overclocked to 2700
@ 300 FSB 1:1 patriot 2x512 XBLK.
My 32M Super Pi is @ 26m: 58.531s
Everest @ 7640Mb/s . I also was able to tighten the ram timing from 3-4-4-10 to 2.5-4-3-9 and gave me 39.2 ns Latency in Everest, and reduced my Pi score. But when i tighten the timing further to 2.5-3-3-8 and used 166mhz divider my score got better redusing Everest latency to 38.6 ns. Been running it full load for 2 weeks solid as rock. Great mobo sofar, very flexible w/ Patriot TCCD Ram. What is Interesting is that I had to use 2T for anything over 270fsb, but even @ 2T my scores were better than a senior member @ OCForum who used 1T on DFI mobo w/ same ram. So don't be alarmed using 2T thinking it's not as good. Apparantly this mobo's 1T/2T is screwd up or my patriot's chip is binned to 2T for anything over 270mhz. Over all, I am very happy and I bet not too many NF4 mobo's could get 300fsb 1:1 out of venice 3000. And if so must have had too many trials. But No one has shown me the proof of 32M Super pi for it yet.

http://img426.imageshack.us/my.php?image=101620050622477ra.jpg

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=43803

http://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=101820051015321oc.jpg
39.2ns
http://img121.imageshack.us/my.php?image=102220051604553gs.jpg
below is 38.6ns
http://img434.imageshack.us/my.php?image=102220051039497ev.jpg

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Nesta
sandorski

Glad to hear you are brave!

Can you give us a brief overview of the remainder of your spec that is humming along nicely?

Thx

Asrock Dual SATA2 BIOS 1.2
X2 3800
2 sticks of mismatched 512mb Samsung PC3200(will only run as PC2100 in dual channel)
Radeon 9800 Pro
Audigy Gamer
Seagate 160mb and Maxtor 120mb
Lite-On 8x DVD-RW
Win XP Pro 64
TT 360 watt Pure Power power supply

I don't overclock, so I can't offer any opinions on that, but others have earlier in the thread. This board was painless to setup and install Windows on(except a small error made by myself). Didn't plug my Power LED and HD Activity LED in properly, but I think I won't blame Asrock for that!

One thing I really like about this Mobo is that if you set something in BIOS that's too agressive(I tried running my ram at PC3200), it'll Reset itself to Defaults rather than forcing the user to do so. Perhaps this is a common feature with Socket 939 mobos, but I haven't heard of it.

So far so good, glad I chose it over an NForce 3 which would have severely limited my Upgrade choices(mainly interested in Video at some future date). Also have to say I'm very pleased with the Performance increase given by the x2 3800, even for my old 9800 Pro. The 9800 Pro was having serious performance issues with CS:S begining after 1 of the Updates from the Summer, it now runs very nicely, better than it ever did on my XP 2800.

 

[designit]

To deadmouth and those w/ HDD not detecting.
If HDD not detecting, reboot again (sometime twice) if no luck, go to bios and under IDE, reset it again, it should wok.
deadmouth-Under Ram setiing, set the flexibility to disable, and manually set your ram timing. Use 166mhz divider first, and then go from there.
Bios 1.2 will not work w/ vcore mod VID4. Use VID3 mod because setting the vcore to 1.35v will give you 1.55 and bios will not reboot to default(which is yoy\ur problem).
Go to OCWforum and read how to Vcore mod, and use the VID3 method. Ther you can also see vdimm mod that gives you 3.05v
In BIO under CPU, change it to manual and sett your multiplier and FSB.
Use NB-CPU to 800, and NB to SB to same.
set burst length to 16.
Depending on ram and without vdimm mod ram voltage setting usually works best if set to auto.
Set CPU -PCI to async.
diable Cool.n Quiet- Disable spread spectrum- Disable boot failure guard.
CPU overclock mode to manual(on top most under advanceed setting) and you will see cpu HTT/FSB from 200-300(1.20 BIOS) here you can set the cpu FSB/HTT to your desired overclocking FSB (>200).
Try all above and let me know if more problems.
I suggest do vcore mod and use Betta1 BIOS by OCWforum. You can do better w/ overclocking.
But if you are just interested to overclock under 270 FSB, BIOS 1.20 is your best option.
The new BIOS by asrock (1.30) is preventing people from overclocking, so for now dont use it. For some reason ASrock does not want 1.30 bios to be used for overclocking.

 

[designit]

Sandorsky,
I have been advised to uninstall AGP driver and all other mobo drivers (in hardware manager) and reboot and install ULi drivers, and then your AGP driver.
Go to ULi website and download the integrated drivers from there instead of form Asrock.
I was told its better this way. So many people have so many different problems that all are caused by not following the instruction and right away sticking the mobo into the case w/ the former system setup and expecting everything should work fine. Well it does not. Win will have registery filled w/ files all in conflicts.
A fresh win install is best way.
Anyway, good luck w/ your new setup, and have fun w/ it.

 

[designit]

Originally posted by: galadar
i have one extra unopened new in box from the egg. 1.20 bios., if anyone is willing to buy.

i am from extremeoverclocking.com

ill even flash to beta bios for free.

How much$?

 

[Cruise51]

Originally posted by: designit
Hello All,
below is Screenshots of my Asrock mobo and Venice 3000 overclocked to 2700
@ 300 FSB 1:1 patriot 2x512 XBLK.
My 32M Super Pi is @ 26m: 58.531s
Everest @ 7640Mb/s . I also was able to tighten the ram timing from 3-4-4-10 to 2.5-4-3-9 and gave me 39.2 ns Latency in Everest, and reduced my Pi score. But when i tighten the timing further to 2.5-3-3-8 and used 166mhz divider my score got better redusing Everest latency to 38.6 ns. Been running it full load for 2 weeks solid as rock. Great mobo sofar, very flexible w/ Patriot TCCD Ram. What is Interesting is that I had to use 2T for anything over 270fsb, but even @ 2T my scores were better than a senior member @ OCForum who used 1T on DFI mobo w/ same ram. So don't be alarmed using 2T thinking it's not as good. Apparantly this mobo's 1T/2T is screwd up or my patriot's chip is binned to 2T for anything over 270mhz. Over all, I am very happy and I bet not too many NF4 mobo's could get 300fsb 1:1 out of venice 3000. And if so must have had too many trials. But No one has shown me the proof of 32M Super pi for it yet.

http://img426.imageshack.us/my.php?image=101620050622477ra.jpg

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=43803

http://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=101820051015321oc.jpg
39.2ns
http://img121.imageshack.us/my.php?image=102220051604553gs.jpg
below is 38.6ns
http://img434.imageshack.us/my.php?image=102220051039497ev.jpg

Nice scores. Do you have a volt mod? What bios are you using? AGP or PCI-E?

 

[imported_Woody]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Careful, Hot Swapping is not supported on this Mobo.

Yes exactly. I'm not sure why my boot drive is showing up on the Windows task bar as a removeable and I don't like it. Since I'm the only one using this machine I just ignore it but does anyone know of a way to make that item in the task bar go away?

On the HDD detection issue. I had the same problem when installing my old drive from my last system into the IDE slot to copy files....the board booted from my old drive into my old install of Windows. When I went into BIOS my new SATA boot drive wasn't even showing up. I was able to manually select it in BIOS and reboot and all was good with the IDE drive connected and the system booting normally from my SATA drive.

I think this board just has a tendency to favor IDE when detecting new drives and resets all the drive parameters.

You can also press F11 during boot and manually select the drive you want to boot from without changing BIOS options. This is handy if you want to temporarily boot from a CD and HDD0 is selected as your boot drive in BIOS.

 

[imported_thesurgeon]

I guess I'm confused as to how to manually select a drive in the BIOS. Are you referring to something different than changing the boot order? When I go into IDE setup with the hopes of being able to manually set the hard drive's parameters in case it's just the auto-detect that's messing up I find I don't have that option. I can only set various toggles for hard drive options that I don't really understand. Anyhow this morning when I booted up I had to reset once before the SATA hard drive (still plugged in by itself) was detected and I could boot Windows...I've heard of this problem I think...hopefully it doesn't turn into something more serious.
Well I'll try and figure out how to get the two drives working now, thanks for your tips Woody.

 

[imported_thesurgeon]

Ok, I'm back. I see now what you were saying about manually selecting the drive, Woody. Even though you can't set parameters for the drive, when I went into the IDE menu and selected "SATA2" the drive was detected and I had to reboot. It seemed like that might have been the same problem I had this morning with the drive not being detected upon cold boot. Everything is working fine together now, and I can finally move some crap over. I tried the manual drive selection many times when I was having my original problem and it never worked. I also couldn't get the Maxtor drive diagnostic utility to detect the SATA drive. So I don't really know what it was that was going wrong.

But if anyone is reading this and having the same problem, try unplugging your IDE drive and switching to another SATA port. Get the SATA drive to a bootable state with some operating system (and the SATA drivers on a floppy disk possibly) and then try getting both the drives working together.

Big fat shrug.

 

[imported_Woody]

Here's another hardcore question for you ASRock owners:

IRQ sharing. I've noticed my PCI Audigy2 card is sharing IRQ slots with a USB controller and the integrated (on the Audigy card) firewire is sharing an IRQ with another USB controller (a less important issue). Swapping the PCI slot didn't change that and the manual has no listing of IRQ slots per PCI slot like my ASUS board did. There are plenty of unused IRQ slots available and I disable everything in BIOS that I'm not using such as parrallel, serial, and comm ports

I wouldn't care but one flight simulator is giving me problems that are definately sound card related and I was hoping changing the IRQ slot would fix it but I'm unable to do that. My other option is to roll back to earlier drivers for the card.

 

[PingSpike]

Well, I've had this board up and running since I think wednesday now. I've just been fiddling with the options and overclocks, I only played CS:S for a brief period yesterday. Its had a few quirks so far but less so then I usually expect to deal with from a budget board. This is my first foray into A64 territory so its been a bit of a learning experience. I was having trouble in bios getting it to boot from my SATA drive while a PATA drive was installed, the options didn't seem to show two hard drives. Pressing F11 during boot up allowed me to choose the drive though, and since I only was going to have the PATA drive connected for a short while to transfer files I didn't really care.

I find the layout decent for the most part. Since the expansion cards sit so low they appear they will offer better case airflow now. The ATX power connections were situated in such a way that it was pretty easy to keep them out of the way. Ideally they would be on the other side of the processor socket, but this works pretty good too. The floppy drive connector is of course god awfully placed. But it works fine in my case since I have a longer cable anyway. My two optical drives were originally on one channel, and the cable just barely reached from the bottom of the board. These will be on their own channels now that I have SATA so no biggy there either.

I have experienced no cold boot issues.

Right now I've got it running my venice 3000+ at 2250mhz (250 x 9) 1.425v setting with my corsair value select ram running on the 166 divider setting (cpu/11) for about 205. I just switched the cpu to north bridge clock or whatever to 800, but it was working fine on auto. I was sort of frustrated because I was looking for the LDT multiplier setting to keep the Hypertransport bus under 1000mhz and I couldn't find it. But I guess its the cpu northbridge link or whatever, with settings of 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000. I assume it selects the appropriate multiplier that would afford you that setting, if you were running at default 200 HTT. Which is confusing.

Does running the Hypertransport bus at less than 1000mhz (say about 800) result in any signfigant performance loss? I seem to remember reading that the 800 was already more than enough bandwidth for what you need to do, and since there aren't any half multiplier settings its hard to keep it close to 1000mhz while overclocking.

The stock Heatsink seems pretty good, its 44c under full load for about the past 3 hours. I can probably push the clockspeed up more but that will take me a few days to determine. My ram will probably make things interesting in that regard. But I really only want to get 2.4ghz out of this thing. I'll probably just keep running it at this 2250 for a week or so to see how stable she feels outside of prime95.

I'm pretty happy with the buy, although the manual is total sh|t. It offers you only the bare minimum of info, telling you to check the pdf on the cd for more info on bios settings. The PDF tells you nothing that isn't already in the name of the settings themselves, so you're sort of left to figure everything out on your own. But it is a budget board so what do you expect?

 

[designit]

Originally posted by: Cruise51
Nice scores. Do you have a volt mod? What bios are you using? AGP or PCI-E?

Sorry took this long to reply.
I am using AGPSapphire 6600 XT
Yes , both mods. vcore VID4, and 150 ohm resistor for vdimm all per "ED" @ OWC forum.
Using OCWB1 BIOS.