ASRock 939Dual-SATA2

Does anyone know whether this mobo is faster than DFI nf4-d in terms of say.... everything? LOL. Reason I ask is, because I have both, and i wanna sell one of them and obviously i'll get a much higher price for the nf4-d. Just wondering. Thanks
 
its probably faster in terms of....nothing.

but thats not really the question you are asking. the answer to the question you are asking completely depends on your system settings/uses/specs. and your gut feeling. and your money situation. and warranty situation. and maybe even color scheme of your computer, hell i dont know. :p
 
quietRiot said:
its probably faster in terms of....nothing.

but thats not really the question you are asking. the answer to the question you are asking completely depends on your system settings/uses/specs. and your gut feeling. and your money situation. and warranty situation. and maybe even color scheme of your computer, hell i dont know. :p
Click to expand...

lol
 
Faster is not the question. It holds it's own in mainstream. Benefits in order are upgradability, afforability, and then stability.
 
both were very stable for me. i'm running the same parts
opt 146 @3ghz already voltmodded to 1.55 on 939dual
gigaram dual channel mach1000 pc3700 @300mhz 2.9v (not sure if its possible on 939dual due to 1t problems, will have to try, but it might b hard considering the limited memory options, snap i forgot about the vdimm maxing out at 2.7, but luckily i have a ddr booster, which in case it doesn't work out, i'll sell as well)
evga 6800gs oc'ed as well

So those r the basic specs.

Thing is, i probably won't upgrade my cpu again for another 2 years at LEAST. And same goes for memory and graphics card.

I don't need the money, but it'd b better to have some money on hand rather than a spare board in a box doing nothing.
 
Has anyone had a chance to play with this board in WinXP with an AGP Nvidia card?

Nvidia has released new x64 drivers finnaly, but I've been too busy to try it out. Almost leary of upgrading my 75.xx drivers since everything past that so far have not been able to work at all.

For all of you who might say "I run 8x.xx without a problem" this is a known specific issue with AGP and Windows X64.
 
i REALLY want to do the volt mod, but all i have is a cheapo 30W iron and a lot of fear :p
 
quietRiot said:
i REALLY want to do the volt mod, but all i have is a cheapo 30W iron and a lot of fear :p
Click to expand...

Get a conductive pen, much easier on the nerves :)
 
A long but informative thread.
I am planing my first build and I think the asrock 939Dual-SATA2 could be suitable.
I would like to build a 98SE/XP dual boot system so I can do a little old school gaming if the mood takes me.
This mobo seems to have better upgrade potential than the nforce 3 board I was thinking of using.
I thought I would start with
3700+ cpu + Thermalright XP-90C HSF
Galaxy 6600GT AGP video card
74Gb Raptor HD
2x512Mb 2-2-2-5 ram in dual channel mode (Corsair or Mushkin)
Benq DW1650 DVD recorder (I can live without lightscribe)

I have a K8 Motherboard Backplate that came with the RM bracket with the holes in each corner and two screws.
I have two longer screws I planed to use to pass through the RM and backplate into the taped holes in my case.
I would like to use the two screws supplied with the XP-90c and the two I already have to secure the RM to my case in each corner as well.
Since my case has all six holes taped for standoffs I would like to let my case take the weight of the XP-90c instead of the mobo.
Could this work?
So much for that idea. Why would my case have taped holes under the cpu socket that don't line up with the four holes in the corners of the RM.
Looks like I will have to get the drill out!
I would welcome any tips or warnings of any pitfalls to avoid.
 
With this mobo I can't get my +3500 Newcastle past 2350, or 240FSB for that matter. Anyone else have this problem? I'm pretty sure it isn't my ram, a 512mb Patriot XBL.
 
also set the north bridge to 800mhz and ram to 333, it doesnt show the dividers which is lamo just the speeds
 
Damn the latest bios releases destroy any overclocking attempts pretty badly.
 
wee96 said:
Damn the latest bios releases destroy any overclocking attempts pretty badly.
Click to expand...

Interesting you say that. My board came with the 1.6 bios, and would not boot past 274 FSB. I flashed to 1.9 bios, and now I am running at 305 FSB without a problem.
 
Interesting on both counts. What else is the new bios supposed to do/add/fix?

 
It is supposed to have more support for AM2, but I have read around the forums that bios 1.8 and 1.9 are the only ones that will boot past 274 FSB. I wish the options for RAM voltage were better, as I have BH5 ram that I am not able to take advantage of. Have to run a large divider. Oh well, I am happy my opteron 144 is doing 2.75Ghz on default voltage.
 
1.8/1.9 Do indeed go past 274HTT however there seems to be all kinds of weird ram ratio problems with it. i tried it and had all kinda problems not being able to oc ram at all so i went back to OCWB2 and runnin my opty 287x9 fine now
 
Updated BIOS to 1.9, loaded up the unified drivers from nVidia and it's even more stable. I'm only running a mild OC and it seems to like it better. I've probably pimped out this board to half a dozen people with good ram, GPU and other components.

I don't think this thread will ever die, since the AM2 Support is in there now :).

Peace,
Tim
 
and to think that Kyle never thought much of this board and never put it on the [H]ard page cuz it wasn't [H]ard enough...

lol


-=R=-
 
lordroy said:
and to think that Kyle never thought much of this board and never put it on the [H]ard page cuz it wasn't [H]ard enough...

lol


-=R=-
Click to expand...

Part of that is because as far as a board that will perfrom amazingly well, it's not. For those of us that have made / are making the transition from AGP to PCI-e and want to go A64, this board is a great solution. Does it overclock like a LANParty super delux or ASUS "platinum"? No, but you can get it for like $40 shipped from NewEggs Refurb, or spend about $70 if you want it new.

Nice thing is the board really is built by ASUS (same company) - and all the ASRock boards are a bit different than you'd see else where. Hopefully nVidia will keep supporting our ULi chipset since it works quite well :)

Peace,
Tim

 
somecallmeTim said:
Part of that is because as far as a board that will perfrom amazingly well, it's not. For those of us that have made / are making the transition from AGP to PCI-e and want to go A64, this board is a great solution. Does it overclock like a LANParty super delux or ASUS "platinum"? No, but you can get it for like $40 shipped from NewEggs Refurb, or spend about $70 if you want it new.

Nice thing is the board really is built by ASUS (same company) - and all the ASRock boards are a bit different than you'd see else where. Hopefully nVidia will keep supporting our ULi chipset since it works quite well :)

Peace,
Tim

Click to expand...

No doubt. When I read that nVidia was buying ULi, I started thinking, as I'm sure most people did "Aww Crap, there goes all the support for my board and chipset". Now all we can do is hope that they don't kill future development of this chipset in favor of sticking only with their nForce chipset. Somehow, I still don't think we'll win that one, though... :(

 
I just ordered one of these yesterday. I got it new from newegg...

if it works out it's a great deal... I just hope I don't run into too many major problems... I have been wanting this for a while to eventually move to a PCIe card... but I figured it's probably pretty mature now so I made the purchase.

I hear it doesn't come with a backplane for the heatsink area? hopefully I can find an extra one.

anyone using this with XP64? hows it working out with that?
 
man it was hell getting my system switched over to this board... but I did it.

I have a tip for all:

remember to also unplug all devices including usb header ones... also any IDE ones that are not needed in the install.

even when things are disabled on this board, the install can still see that it is there and hangs!

I run a repair install every time I switch motherboards so I can keep my install... but it would hang at different places untill I actually unplugged everything, including from ports that I had disabled!
 
Yashu said:
man it was hell getting my system switched over to this board... but I did it.

I have a tip for all:

remember to also unplug all devices including usb header ones... also any IDE ones that are not needed in the install.

even when things are disabled on this board, the install can still see that it is there and hangs!

I run a repair install every time I switch motherboards so I can keep my install... but it would hang at different places untill I actually unplugged everything, including from ports that I had disabled!
Click to expand...

ya i couldnt repair with this board i had to start over :((
 
I had no luck with a repair install either. Wiped and started fresh. I have had this board at 334 FSB so far. I need to look into better memory at this point to get the most out of my setup. The board is laid out kinda funky, but it is performing well for me so far.
 
god damn this board!

I am not sure why, but for some reason I cannot run fear with the 80 series nvidia drivers since switching to this board.

it will only run with my older standbys 77.56

now it *may* be that I am using a quadro... and I can try to run it as a gamer card, but have any of you guys had trouble trying to play FEAR? I get the dreaded black screen problem that I never had before with my other motherboard.

now alot of you guys are reporting high HTTs... I tried to run my CPU at 250HTT X 8 with ddr500 rated ram and it won't even get past the XP loader. I am about to take this ram (patriot pc4000) back to the store.

I can run fine stock and 1T with my low latency ram. I would have liked to get the ddr500 to work though.
 
For whatever reason I cannot get the clock multiplier to actually change the clock speed. No matter what I set it to my CPU is always at 2ghz.
It's a Athlon 64 3200+ venice and i'm using the 1.9 bios. The CPU is watercooled. Temps reported by the bios after heaving using is 37c. This seems a bit high. In comparison my 3.4ghz P4 Prescott under load was at 41c.

To get the FSB to overclock at all I have to have the flexibility option enabled. Which is odd because I do have a matching pair of ram. Why is that?

Edit - I overclocked the FSB to 230 and the memory is set at 200(400). The bios reports the clock speed now being at 2.3ghz and windows reports the same thing. However CPUz is saying the clock speed is 1.15ghz with a clock multiplier of 5. And it says the memory is at 143.8mhz. Which is certainly not what is being reported in the bios.
However a run of 3Dmark06 shows that the overclock is indeed in effect.

I then overclocked the FSB to 250mhz. Now everything except 3dmark06 is reporting the clock speed as 1.25ghz. But my 3dmark scores do a reflect a higher overclock in effect.

Edit - I now have the FSB to 260mhz and everything except CPUz is reporting the right clock speed.

I cannot get the FSB to 270mhz no matter what speed I set the ram to. It just won't go.

What program are you using in windows to report motherboard and CPU temps? Motherboard monitor does'nt have this board listed.
 
I have one and I love it. I recommend this board to anyone who needs a cheap board that allows you to upgrade as much as this one allows.
 
This board rocks. running a 3200 Venice at 300x8, 204 FSB 2x256 DDR 400. Bought mine from newegg refurb for 33$ plus 1$ 3 day shipping. Full AGP and PCI-E support, and O/Cs easy.
 
Archer75 said:
For whatever reason I cannot get the clock multiplier to actually change the clock speed. No matter what I set it to my CPU is always at 2ghz.
It's a Athlon 64 3200+ venice and i'm using the 1.9 bios.

To get the FSB to overclock at all I have to have the flexibility option enabled. Which is odd because I do have a matching pair of ram. Why is that?

Edit - I overclocked the FSB to 230 and the memory is set at 200(400). The bios reports the clock speed now being at 2.3ghz and windows reports the same thing. However CPUz is saying the clock speed is 1.15ghz with a clock multiplier of 5. And it says the memory is at 143.8mhz. Which is certainly not what is being reported in the bios.
However a run of 3Dmark06 shows that the overclock is indeed in effect.

I then overclocked the FSB to 250mhz. Now everything except 3dmark06 is reporting the clock speed as 1.25ghz. But my 3dmark scores do a reflect a higher overclock in effect.

Edit - I now have the FSB to 260mhz and everything except CPUz is reporting the right clock speed.

What program are you using in windows to report motherboard and CPU temps? Motherboard monitor does'nt have this board listed.
Click to expand...
Speed fan will work.
 
Vengance_01 said:
Speed fan will work.
Click to expand...


Nice app. But how can I tell which temp is for what? Temp1 is 31c, Temp2 is 33c and Temp 3 is 29c. Local Temp is 39c and remote temp is 49c.

What does all this mean?
 
ok I found a bug in this board...

I had some ddr500 ram and I ran at 8X250 to be 2ghz...

well I can set it that way and boot, but everest reports WORSE scores then when I run ddr400...

not only that, but cpuz is reporting that everything should be ok. it sees the correct ddr500 speeds.

I have no idea what is going on.


not to mention that I can't use any 80 series nvidia drivers...
 
Yashu said:
ok I found a bug in this board...
I had some ddr500 ram and I ran at 8X250 to be 2ghz...
well I can set it that way and boot, but everest reports WORSE scores then when I run ddr400...
not only that, but cpuz is reporting that everything should be ok. it sees the correct ddr500 speeds.
I have no idea what is going on.
not to mention that I can't use any 80 series nvidia drivers...
Click to expand...

Try checking to see if it might have dropped the timings for your RAM ?

My board does a terrible job of defaulting at RAM timings. It just picks really low ones and plays it safe...

Force the timings to whatever they're advertised to work at and your scores should be decent.
 
I forced the right timings.

I mean... even at 3 4 4 8 it would be faster and less latent at 250mhz then 2 3 2 5 at 200mhz.

but this board doesn't seem to follow that rule, that is why I think something weird is happening.

basically even crap timings are better at ddr500 then fair timings at ddr400. certainly in bandwidth. I tested again just now and at ddr400 it scores better in everything.

I check with a64tweaker and I am not on 2t at ddr500 and the timings look correct... I just don't know.
 
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