Padre

Well, asrock is an offshoot of Asus, and looking at some websites, its seems theyve allowed this ssssssystem teh flexibility to pretty much overclock on a whim.

UNlike the old Mobo and CPU, I could not overclock (mobo was just too unstable)

In any case, it seems some of the setup configs within the Asrock Bios are some that ive never seen or considered before.

Would anyone know of a good stable configuration in regard to multiplier vs voltage tweaks, and moreso, HOW this cna be done with this board (be it asus or asrock)

any help appreciated.

Links already checked, but i still woudlnt have the faintest as to WHICH settings these elements are refered to...

How to overclock ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA - Ebuyer Forums

urban_s0ulja

ive read your post about 4 times and im still confused....

are you basically asking how to overclock your computer?
provide spec mobo/cpu/ram etc then people can give you a indication on how overclockable it is. Some proc are "made" to be overclocked whilst others arent.

i personally dont over clock as i think its a waste of time, but as i understand overclocking involves just raising your Front side bus(FSB) and increasing volatage untill you reach a sweet spot. Im prob wrong and someone will correct me

__________________
(Advertising Space For Rent) $20 A Year. Pm Me

Padre

no, ur right, its abotu FSB and voltage etc.. the speciic question was actually about how to overclock THIS particular board.. I have no interest in the theories behind the reasoning or the what happens when u overclock, but i was spcifically after the how to overclock with THIS particular board (as the Bios is very different to what im used to)

Im also wondering about ram latency and config, as i have no idea what this board is refering to.. its all techy jargon..


As for spec..
Asrock 4coredual sata2
Intel Q6600 Quad core @ 2.4ghz
2gb Corsair DDR 667mhz both ways (as high in capacity and as fast as the board supports) Yes this is a minimal board, but the reason i got is is coz i have 7 HDD's on this and i cant do a fresh install due to the licensing of my apps. that and i dont have time to dick around with reinstalling every app
This baord supports AGP alongside quad cpus, and also supporrts standard PCI cards, which i have plenty of due to the HDD's and what have you. )
Nvidia 6800GT which is overclocked within windows itself using ntune

as it stands, the unit screams.. the only thing really holding it back is the GFX card but to be honest i really dont need anything higher than this as this machine is used for video editing and processing, not gaming.
Although Crysis runs like a dream on it, gfx card is not something id fork $500on when i can get an XBox 360 for that purpose if i was that desperate

therufus

Take it back, spend the extra money and get a decent board. Asrock have shocking reliability. Yes, they are a brand of ASUS. But Maxtor are now a brand of Seagate and Maxtor still suck.

If you want to overclock, get a real ASUS or a Gigabyte.

urban_s0ulja

alot of other boards dont have the featuers his using though.

ive only seen asrock boards with those features.

__________________
(Advertising Space For Rent) $20 A Year. Pm Me

Padre

No i WONT take it back for number of reasons...

I have 7 (yes 7) IDE hard drives on the old build.. not including the 8th which is the system drive..
i also have an Nvidia 6800gt AGP gfx card.
With PCI, i have a PCI firewire card, PCI soundcard, and a PCI scsi card,

In addition to that, i have over 20k worth of software which not only took at least 3 weeks to tweak for performance, but each took a considerable amount of time to install, register and configure.

To me, time is of the utmost importance as I have none of it, and this board is a good cross unit which will work for my needs while i build a second quad core system based on Vista64 and utilise PCIe GFX SLI and a complete raid configuration with mirrors and the like

In turn, all i needed to do during the install was delete anything related to intel and alow the system to do its thing as it found the new hardware. It as that simple and i dont think i spent more than 30minutes sorting out the kinks.

As it stands this board has done quite well in the performance aspect of what i require (rendering) and has indeed beaten almost every other configuration out there in regard to render time vs bang for the buck vs actual configuration spec. Its actually a low specced quad core, but the performance without overclock is still up there with the best of them.
Believe me, i know guys whove spent at least 3k on their gear and their render times are slower than mine.

Al i care about is render time, this means PCI throughput to the HDD's and an efficient means of memory management, of which this board performs quite well, irrespective of the room ambient temperature which in turn affects the CPU temps
the speeds im getting a re consistant and constant. to be honest i dont think i even need to overclock, but id liek that option at least.. lol

hope this explains afew things

scruffy1

hahahaha... your uber machine looks nice but those are words worthy of a noob

i run an asrock dual sata2, and it allows me enough options to overclock my venerable (but new to me) opteron 165 under air (and quietly at that) at 2630 on 1.375vcore - that's undervolted just a touch for a 46% overclock that is orthos stable and hits 55c max on dual 100% core use; this is with the 2x1gig ocz ram running 2-3-2-5 at 1T

aside to urban_sOulja : that's why people overclock - i have the equivalent of an opteron 185 (same silicon at less than stock volts, binned differently so basically twins rudely separated at birth) for $75 instead of $220 - sure the 185 might go even further, but not at that price

the asrock has agp and pci-e for video, and can run both concurrently
the drivers for vista are imperfect, but as i run xp it is of no consequence

i can't comment on quality control, so individual mileage may vary

i also have a collection of asus boards, and agree they are great, but the asrock smites the a8v v2 for 939 jigging, and i have read and seen good results with other boards from them

to padre :
if you are rendering, i am not sure, but would using rivatuner to turn the 6800 into a quadro further enhance your efficiency? i believe so

there is an option in rivatuner to load the video bios as a quadro instead (i know, because i did that with my 6800gs tricked to full ultra, to no great benefit in my case as a gamer, but it is very easy to do - and undo); essentially the quadro is the exact same nv40 gpu core and you can make it be an fx4000 for $0
NVIDIA Quadro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


if you are interested and can't work it out for yourself shoot me a p.m. and i'll try and send instructions when i am back on my home machine where all the necessary software is a few clicks of the mouse away

enjoy !

Padre

"to padre :
if you are rendering, i am not sure, but would using rivatuner to turn the 6800 into a quadro further enhance your efficiency? i believe so"

I did run riva tuner and tweak the pipelines, but for some reason the bios on THIS card (Xpertvision 6800GS/T) didnt let me do it... i have no idea so i didnt bother. The only thing i use the GFX ad for however is Magic Bullet 2 which uses the GPU for rendering (its a plugin)
The actual Apps i use do not utilise the GFX card aside from Blufftitler or Particle Illusion..

Ill drop you a PM as your board is identical to mine and id like to slightly bring this unit up a notch .. maybe to 2.6 or 2.8ghz.. hell i might even get it up to 3ghz stable.. who knows..
I know the ram can handle it but CPUZ shows the board running at 329mhz, so its currently underclocked

In any case, Ill drop you a note and we can chat from there..

scruffy1

the gpu on that 6800agp may well be nv42 or nv45 core(??) - if that's the case rivatuner won't successfully unlock extra pipes or shaders, as they are laser cut i believe... nv40 is the winner here, but pipeline quad results are a bit of a lucky dip... sometimes perfect success, other times no luck without artefact; shaders seem easy to switch on successfully though
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce..._chipset_table
GeForce 6 Series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


note that whilst i am a 939 whore, the mysteries of intel remain so... i can direct you to people who know better than me, but as best as i glean you are stuck with a locked multi and no dividers... all you can do is ramp up the fsb and test stability, then up a bit more, and repeat
if you fail to pass orthos, bump the vcore a jot, noting temperature is your enemy
you may need to pump the northbridge voltage to stabilise your overclock too, and that means better cooling there is a good idea too

my board is 939, yours isn't (?)

let me know how it goes

PhillTheQuad

padre
from your specs on this beast you built
you only need to oc the cpu,
the asrock bios should allready have seperate oc features as far as cpu,ram,vga
so you really only need to up the cpu fsb 10mhz at a time,watching temp,
so cpu multiplier x 10-30mhz above stock fsb should be suffice
as quoted on ocau, upping voltage on stuff causes stress.
if its not fast enough, buy a faster pc
thats my opinion anyway.

__________________
cheap hosting for members
admin@nelsonbaycomputers.net

Padre

I believe the mulitpler is at 9 This is greyed out in teh BIOS and cannot be changed. 9x266 gives me the 2394, but CPUZ shows me that its running at 2304
The stock speed (auto selection) is set to 266
I did try to change this and will try to increase once again after I sort out some work Im doing.

In any ase, messing with anything stopped windows from loading up, so ive left it all default, tweaked the PCI bus to async and changed the Ram setting to 667 DR2 (this board supports DDR1 and DDR2)
Ill try to change the ram power setting to "normal", however LOW is apparently standard for 667khz... and this is what its set to

I dunno.. im sick of it.. i jut wana get my work done.. lol

PhillTheQuad

its a intel?
667 sounds right for ram
thats ddr2 stuff,
pc2 5300 IT ESTATE
u may need to unlock\go advanced in bios to oc cpu fsb only.
you dont want to oc vga or ram, its causing the lockups.

__________________
cheap hosting for members
admin@nelsonbaycomputers.net

PhillTheQuad

i read the original link padre posted
admittedly its not a oc board but considering its the only board ive ever seen that supports dd & ddr2 & agp & PCI_X
but im sure a extra 10-20mhz on cpu wont hurt
teach you to buy intel crap anyway lol.

__________________
cheap hosting for members
admin@nelsonbaycomputers.net

urban_s0ulja

yehh ive got a quad as well...same as parde, bought it recently
pretty sure multipler is locked at 9x. i remember my old amd x2 939 wasnt locked as such

__________________
(Advertising Space For Rent) $20 A Year. Pm Me

scruffy1

anything default in the bios will be the worst of available options

the bios cpu speed will call it bigger than cpuz,; dunno why, but i noticed mine does it too (and makes the cpuz reading a little disappointing)

without my ram voltage set to high it won't boot on 2x1gig sticks, and trying the bh5's was a total non-event - presumably high is a huge 2.7 and default is 2.5

wind up some volts if it won't boot - it's not like it will fry your cpu given the settings asrock offers - the only reason i can top out at 2960 (my best so far superpi running speed, but not very stable) is 'cos the previous owner did a volt mod on the board that lets me go as big as 1.5vcore (woo hoo... take that, dfi lanparty !! )

PhillTheQuad

its bcoz the cpu is 1066fsb 4x 266 quad = 4, i should know quads
ram is 667, should have 1066mhz ram for it to be 1 to 1
anyway shouldnt matter nowadays just little less performance
keep it stable is the main objective
windows is more than likely to slow down the performance than any hardware.
i seen a p3 run better than a p4 3gig with 2gigs ram lotsa times

__________________
cheap hosting for members
admin@nelsonbaycomputers.net

therufus

I have decades of experience in IT. Asrock suck. Thats it. If you can get it to work, all power to you. They are consistently poor performers and have terrible reliability. Worst boards ever are PC-Chips, then Asrock, then recent A-Bit (older ones are gold).

Thats my educated opinion. A n00b I'm not.

PhillTheQuad

you got to go back before the forum crash to see the big pic.
padre wanted something to suit his old parts in a semi upgrade.
the asrock being a simple but versatile thing suited his needs as no other could.
bit like a one night stand?

__________________
cheap hosting for members
admin@nelsonbaycomputers.net

Padre

lets hope it lasts longer than one nite... lol

as it stands im now having issues now with overclocking.. i couldnt care less really.. i jsut wanted to see if i could boost it a lil.. but im ahving issues with my HDD's (2 in particular... both have alwyas been flaky but not like this.. ) which windows keeps frying the MBR

Im now running a 3rd recovery in as many days for one particalr drive.. .basically i think there is some issue with the throughput or more than likely my PCI IDE controller is starting to flake out

Checking IRQ conflicts coz this was what hapened many moons ago.. just swaped the cardto another port and there are no cnflicts to be concerned about...

Time will tell

Padre

"without my ram voltage set to high it won't boot on 2x1gig sticks, and trying the bh5's was a total non-event - presumably high is a huge 2.7 and default is 2.5"

well, i boosted th 266 up to 275...
then tried to boot and it failed.. i DIDNT change anythign else (RAM pwer or some shite like that.. its on low.. or normal i think... )
Next try will be leaving it on 275, then boosting ram power settings to high
This baord is flaky, there arent any actual voltage controllers..

Frankly if i cant overclock, i honestly dont care.. im not losing anything as with the config itself has me matching and exceeding the speeds of a Q6700 according to the render tests were doing