ASRock 775Dual-VSTA bios, mod, recap?

[trodas]

This is another 775 mobo I get for the sole purpose of fun and pushing the AGP limit(s) with some serious CPU's. The mobo does support not only AGP, but also PCIe and not only DDR(1) rams, but DDR2 as well:

http://hwbot.org/hardware/motherboard/775dual_vsta/

So, it is a remarkable piece of hardware Also after updating the bios to latest official P3.10 version ( http://www.asrock.com/mb/VIA/775Dual-VSTA/ ), there are plenty of bios options to play. More that I imagined:



And that is not all! There are existing modified bioses ( http://pctreiber.net/asrock-bios-downloads?did=103 ) that since v3.10a give the possibility to boost the maximum supported ram from 2G (2x1G, you cannot use DDR and DDR2 rams at once, lol) to 4G (2x2G sticks). Current unofficial bios version is 3.19a.

Of course the really available ram on 32bit systems are something around 3.3GBy (all the buffers and your GFX card memory must fit into 4G address space), but it is still a good leap forward, compared to being stuck with "just 2G of ram."

What attract me on the board is 4 phase regulator and good overclockability. When the poor Celeron D 336 on ASRock 775i65G R3.0 hit the wall at FSB 154 ( http://valid.canardpc.com/lregg7 ), the same CPU is not having problems at FSB 164 with this mobo ( http://valid.canardpc.com/rnd2tg ) and when pushed beyond stability, then 175MHz FSB is possible: http://valid.canardpc.com/fxw94m

Sure, sure, 3677MHz from 2.8GHz CPU is nothing spectacular, but w/o incrasing the Vcore it is not actually bad And it looks like that incrasing Vcore could be done by just replacing one SMD resistor with zero resistance to another SMD resistor: http://www.controsensi.it/Mods/4CoreDual-SATA2/Contents_Eng.htm

That is quite good and what it even better is, that near the CPU socket, there are place for 4 (!) stolen CAPS for Vcore regulator! That empty places could get very nice polymer (and small-enought to fit under the heatsink mount) caps. And on the bottom side, there is place just under the CPU for two serious tantal-polymer caps :nana:

So I see a big potencial in this mobo. Just if I understand the settings a bit...

 

[AlienIsGOD]

I used to own this board made going to PCI-E and DDR2 more affordable as i could do it piece by piece

 

[Devon68]

Ah AGP we meet again. I was planing on getting this board a few years ago when I still had a single core cpu but could not afford to buy a new system.

 

[brandonwh64]

I read a while back where someone got a quad core Q6600 to work in this model board.

 

[trodas]

AlienIsGOD - true, that is the strenght of this board. However the tests with DDR2 seems kinda disappointing. Maybe that is because of used CPU for the testing? Well, I upgrade it easily...


Devon68 - yep, AGP with Core 2 Duo. That is recipe for fastest AGP results... witch is my goal there.


brandonwh64 - yes, possible ( http://forums.ocworkbench.com/showthread.php?t=56325 "Yes I was using a Q6600 on an Asrock 4Core Dual VSTA."). With 3rd party bios you can use 4G ram (2x2G), while last official bios give you only 2G top. Also you can use 4 core CPU's there easily. I'm more inclined to some powerfull CPU's like 1066MHz Core 2 Duo Extreme X6800 or 1333Mhz Core 2 Duo E8600
For max OC seems to be good use E5700. After all, E8600 is 333x10, but E5700 is 200x15 - eg. the clock go up much faster when overclocking, so speed might be better with E5700, as it is likely to reach more MHz, even it have just 2MB of cache, compared to 6MB on E8600 or 4MB on X6800:
http://valid.canardpc.com/rjg1fw

...and yes, it can take on even the Core 2 Duo E8600 "Wolfsdale" CPU, as visible on this score:
http://hwbot.org/submission/2322337_matti_oc_3dmark2001_se_geforce_7800_gs_48003_marks

That CPU did not have unlocked multiplier like my Core 2 Duo Extreme X6800, but it feature 45nm process, less TDP (65W as oposed to 75W) and higher overclockability. On top of that, 6MB L2 cache really counts, compared to "just" 4MB on X6800 Overal it could reach 5GHz when in luck, average O/C is 4.6GHz:
http://hwbot.org/hardware/processor/core_2_e8600_3.33ghz/
(me getting bad ideas )

All-in-all, it is rather interesting board and we see how well it will overclock. So far I only have a little troubles with it, probably related to previous used bad behaviour: there is one pin on the CPU socket with added melted ball on it. Everything works, but it is just weird and hopefully other CPU's (beside the tested Celeron D) will work well too. And I cannot fully push down the 24pin ATX PSU connector into the ATX 20 pin. There is visually nothing that get in the way, but somehow at the end of the connector (neat the CPU) it just leave about 1,5mm from the fully seated connector. Could be because of using 24pin PSU connector and the need to cut a bit the plastic at the end, I check this later to see.

Other than this I just could not wait to get good caps to the mobo, mod it (Vcore increase) and see, how far it will go with the overclock.

Also I try to persuade guy, who made a ASRock Conroe885 bioses with different memory dividers that the default ones (like 5:4 and 1:1 forced settings) to try something like that for the ASRock 775i65G ... and when possible for the VIA PT 880 Pro chipset, then for this mobo as well.
Dunno, how if this old chipset could handle for example 400MHz on the DDR2 rams (PC 8000 with 2:3 divider) ... but if it can, then I'm sure that some records will be broken

 

[Tatty_Two]

I had one of these too (during my early days on TPU), if I recall I got a friend who runs a small electronic repair business to do a hard mod for me to increase that CPU voltage for overclocks, I think the board I had was hardware locked for voltage adjustment.

Might have to see if I can dig out some of my old posts on the subject sometime.

 

[Mifares72]

Hi,
Pls tell me: can I use this mobo with an E8500 processor?
E 8500 have FSB at 1333 and 775 Dual vsta have the FSB at 1066.

My bios version is 3.10. With that version i've managed to install an GT440 video card - not specified in reccomended video cards from the mobo producer.
I dont know from where to update the bios to 3.19a. I've got the file from yous post but idk how to update?!