Building new system, feedback on Asrock 939dual-sata2?

Mr. Perfect · Post by **Mr. Perfect** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 1:15 am

I'm planning on replacing my A-XP machine, and I was wondering what experiances people have had with the Asrock 939dual-sata2. The hardware sites gave it good reviews, but there's nothing like feedback from someone with long-term, hands-on experiance.

I plan on throwing an Opteron 170 in it along with an AGP 9800 untill Nvidia and ATI get their refresh cards out and I can find a PCIe card that I like. Anyone try an Opteron inthe board? Any problems with the AGP?

[Edit]I should probably mention that the machine will not be overclocked, so OCing capabilities arn't a concern.

frugal_guy · Post by **frugal_guy** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 7:33 am

I rebuilt my primary system with an ASrock 939Dual-Sata2 and Opteron 144 last month and have had no serious problems with it. Things to think about are:

1) There are only 2 fan headers on the board and the fan speeds cannot be controlled with software like SpeedFan. This means that, unless you want to run the CPU and exhaust fans at full speed, you'll need a hardware solution for controlling fan speeds. This is not inexpensive if you want fan speeds to be raised and lowered automatically according to temperatures.

2) If you still use IDE connectors or a floppy drive, the board layout is odd. I've been able to come up with a nice cablegami solution for my IDE cables, but there is no attractive solution for running a cable from the floppy port to a drive. Yah, I know, who cares.

3) The ULI chipset is cooled by simple passive heatsinks and runs cool.

4) When I killed my old AGP video card a couple of weeks ago, I was able to replace it with a new PCIe 6600GT. Having both slots was useful for a brief time.

5) I run Linux most of the time with occasional use of Windows ME. Loading Linux on the updated machine was a little problematic since the lan driver for the ASRock was only supported in the latest kernels (2.6.15). On the other hand, WinME still runs on the ULI chipset (unlike nforce 3/4)so I didn't have to waste $90 or so to upgrade to XP home which will be unsupported at the end of the year. That money is much better spend on a Ninja and a couple of real quiet fans.

For the price, it's turned out to be a satisfactory mobo, but next time I'll pay more attention to the fan headers.

geekbanter · Post by **geekbanter** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 11:10 am

The ASrock 939Dual-Sata2 is a good, solid board. I have one in my brother's machine and the installation was pretty straight forward. The only complaints I have is that the drive connectors are in akward positions. The cables can be folded out of the way nicley, but the floppy connector is especially challenging. The bios can be confusing at times as they don't always use the common terms used by other boards, and other settings can be a bit confusing (seems translated). Also take note to install the AGP driver for the motherboard (on the CD) and reboot before installing drivers for agp cards.

Other than those couple of small issues I really like this board. It has great passive heatsinks, good undervolting, and CnQ works as I hoped. I expect this board to last a long time as it feels, looks, and acts competently put together. I reccommend getting a Ninja, some Nexus or Yate Loon fans, and some fan mates for a very quiet, if not silent machine

derekva · Post by **derekva** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:41 pm

I just switched from an D865-PERL / P4 2.4 system to a 939Dual-SATA2 / Opteron 144 system. So far it is extremely stable (even overclocked to 2.0GHz from 1.8GHz. I'm running it with an AGP FX5950 Ultra which will (hopefully soon) be replaced with a PCIe 6800GS. Just a few impressions (some are repeats of others' comments):

- Drive connectors are not the best (as others have mentionied)
- Power connectors could be better located as well
- CPU location not optimal for passive cooling (since it is located at the upper center of the board, rather than upper left)
- AGP performance is great (once you install the ULI AGP driver)
- You may want to switch the AGP slot speed to 4x in the BIOS as it is more stable than the 8x.
- You can't undervolt with the stock ASRock BIOSes

- Chipset runs nice and cool with passive heatsinks
- CnQ works well (as opposed to some other chipsets / boards)
- For some odd reason, the BIOS defaults the memory to PC2700 - this can be manually set to PC3200
- Decent overclockability and stability (heck, I'm 200MHz higher with stock voltage)
- Socket has enough real estate for big heatsink solutions
- It's cheap

and performs close to other S939 boards

-Derek

stupid · Post by **stupid** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 1:31 pm

It would be nice if someone built a m-ATX board using the ULi 1695. But since nVidia bought out ULi I doubt there will be anymore motherboards based on this chipset. No word from ABIT since their initial announcement, so it safe to assume they halted developement, or it never got off the ground.

I would use a m-ATX version for my Aria so that I can continue using my AIW 9600XT with the option of going to PCI-e later on. the price would most likely be getting rid of a PCI slot for the PCI-e. Oh well, whatever, it not going to be developed anyway.

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 2:04 pm

frugal_guy wrote: 1) There are only 2 fan headers on the board and the fan speeds cannot be controlled with software like SpeedFan. This means that, unless you want to run the CPU and exhaust fans at full speed, you'll need a hardware solution for controlling fan speeds. This is not inexpensive if you want fan speeds to be raised and lowered automatically according to temperatures.

2) If you still use IDE connectors or a floppy drive, the board layout is odd. I've been able to come up with a nice cablegami solution for my IDE cables, but there is no attractive solution for running a cable from the floppy port to a drive. Yah, I know, who cares.

1) this seems to be a general trait with asrock, as i noticed when i plugged in my cpu fan to the board on my fileserver. i think I'll have to invest in a scythe samurai since i need a new hsf anyway for that one then...

and the included controller is a plus

2)also something ive noticed, but i rarely use my FDD anyway

this is a socket a asrock board, so not too relevant to this thread, but that clears something up for me anyway

diver · Post by **diver** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 3:55 pm

A lot of these have been sold. You might check some of the customer reviews at Newegg.

Mr. Perfect · Post by **Mr. Perfect** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 11:52 pm

There should be no trouble working around the quirks you guys mentioned, so I'm thinking I'll give this board a go. Point taken on the AGP drivers though.

Thanks for the insight.

diver wrote:A lot of these have been sold. You might check some of the customer reviews at Newegg.

Word has it that Newegg filters the customer reviews. Supposedly only positive ones make it, so I tend to ignore them.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 7:18 am

No one on earth besides OEM uses stock asrock drivers for it.

OCworkbench.com has the PROPER drivers for it that asrock gave them. It definitely undervolts, as well as overclocks very well.

all systems should have a separate north and south bridge. There is absolutely NO performance difference in splitting them up, it is just for them to save money, and that means a problem with cooling it then. This is the last passive uli chipset, so might as well stock up on it.

gustavs_a · Post by **gustavs_a** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:04 pm

Have a problem with this board. After installing Audigy 2 Platinum drivers, the coils start to whine, but only on low CPU usage. Whining starts/stops also when enabling/disabling device in Control Panel.
Also, my OCZ high performance ram doesn't works at the rated specs.

derekva · Post by **derekva** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:31 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:No one on earth besides OEM uses stock asrock drivers for it.

OCworkbench.com has the PROPER drivers for it that asrock gave them. It definitely undervolts, as well as overclocks very well.

all systems should have a separate north and south bridge. There is absolutely NO performance difference in splitting them up, it is just for them to save money, and that means a problem with cooling it then. This is the last passive uli chipset, so might as well stock up on it.

OK. I'll bite. Where are the PROPER drivers for the board on ocworkbench.com (full URLs, please) and which BIOS allows you to undervolt (and what's the full URL as well)?

-Derek

Le_Gritche · Post by **Le_Gritche** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:53 pm

Look in their forum :
Topic: ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 -= F A Q =-

and you can then find a link to :
ASRock Mainboards Beta BIOS

Interestingly in the FAQ I found this :

Is 1T Command Rate functional?
1T Command Rate is supported and functional. A lot of people complaint about 1T Command Rate causing system instabilities. The instability cases are most likely related to the later batches of Venice E6 cores. It seems the memory controller on the newer revision Venice E6 cannot handle 1T Command Rate quite as well.

NOTE: Some people with X2 processors claim 1T/2T setting is not available in BIOS v1.20. (need help to confirm this)

Does someone here can give more info about this Venice E6 problem ?

gustavs_a · Post by **gustavs_a** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:56 pm

Still even after disabling Audigy 2 Platinum the MB is not completely silent, some lower frequency noise is present. However it is not audible in normal conditions.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 6:59 pm

what the heck are you experiencing

I wish some physics geek could interpret this.

SOmeone on her figured out about my paranoia concerning hiss from non mechanical things such as my Linksys firewall/router.

They DO hiss. The dlink I have does not hiss at all, I think I might post thissss in some other forum for those frustrated with the very great performing Linksys thingies. too bad they do.

Anyways, I am buying this board and holding onto it. I think that I will then wait for the prices to drop on x2 4200 chip. I then will switch to air cooled from Reserator because, well I have to move!!! 2x!! that's not happening with a reserator.

fmriguy · Post by **fmriguy** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 7:59 pm

Just wanted to put in my 2c. The asrock has been a great board for my brother, paired with a 3200+ Venice (E6). The board was very stable, but there were two quirks that are worth noting.

1) Be sure to follow the correct sequence for installing the AGP drivers (as others have alluded to). I didn't do it correctly the first time and got very slow framerates in games and strange artifacts.

2) Whenever I inserted a flash drive into the Front Panel usb ports I would hear a subtle but definitely noticeable high whining sound. Very odd, and it could very well have just been something strange with my setup.

As others have stated, ocworkbench.com is a great resource for bioses and settings for the board.

gbeichho · Post by **gbeichho** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:39 pm

There is no real alternative if you don't want to upgrade your AGP video card (I love my AIW 9800 Pro).

However, I am not totally pleased by the quality. I come from a long line of Asus MBs, and they are definately higher quality. Again, I realize it's a budget MB, but it's the only AGP/PCIe game in town.

The biggest quality issue I have is with the SATA onboard controllers and the BIOS. I have had nothing but problems with the onboard controller and my Hitachi T7K250 SATA II drives. With the SATA I controller plugged into the HD (running at 1.5 settings) there were times I couldn't get the computer to POST properly. I RMA'd one board, only to have the next one act exactly the same way. Even under the SATA II controller, I can't get it to work with my drive in SATA mode (only IDE mode).

I even tried a Seagate drive on the SATA controller (ULI) and I saw a whole ton of instability (BSODS under minor load). So, now I'm running a cheap PCIe SATAII controller (I love hot pluggable SATA cards), and I have no problems at all. The system is quite stable and well performing. AMD64 X2 4200.

The only glitch remaining is the HD detection IF I plug in my external SATA drive in. The BIOS boot order gets totally messed up and I have to go into the BIOS to fix it. If you search the groups, you'll see I'm not the only one having trouble with this. I've tried a lot of BIOS versions too.

One other word of advice, I picked up the 1.50c BIOS (PC Treiber) version (not from ASRock) because it supports 1.1V C&Q vs 1.3V.

Building new system, feedback on Asrock 939dual-sata2?

Building new system, feedback on Asrock 939dual-sata2?

Nice board for the money