**The ASrock 939dual-SATA2 (ULi M1695) thread**

[wunkley]

Right, I should have this little fella delivered tomorrow. Mainly because:

1. The AGP/ PCI expressx16 dual goodness - I've got a Galaxy 6800GT at the moment which is still strong, but will probably upgrade in the next 6 months or so...

2. I have the dreaded NForce 3/ 6800GT pausing and freezing problem. I've tried EVERYTHING for the last year to sort it. If in doubt see this massive thread at NVnews http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=32759

I've been running my 6800GT at 380/1100 at 1.4 volt modded for the last 6 months or so. This works ok in most stuff, but gets the checkerboard effect in some games and 3dmark 2001. Apparently via based boards can run the 6800 series at normal volts ok, fingers crossed this one can do too (I've really had it with fannying aroung with this nforce 3 - MSI neo 2 plat by the way)

So, is anyone else planning on getting the new ULi M1695 based board, if so post your thoughts and results here...

 

[wunkley]

Bumpage...

 

[wunkley]

The Amtrak man has just this second arrived!
Got to reformat and reinstall so much stuff....this could be a long day.

 

[wunkley]

Right, I've finally got it up and running. All went quite smoothly actually.
You're right about the lack of overclocking options though. With this bios the only thing you can change CPU wise is the multiplier, which on my Newcastle 3500+ won't go above 11, so I am stuck at the default 2.2GHz (11x200). Why is there no FSB/ HTT option, am I missing something? I'm sure I read in the anantech preview they overclocked their board massively.

Spell - how did you get your 3000+ to 2.2? Was it just with the multipier settings or something else? Also which new bios is it you've got, and where cam I get it?

6800GT wise I've currently got it at at default 1.3 volts, 380, 1100 with Fastwrites on. Seems to be ok so far, will do some more tests...

 

[wunkley]

Have just been running the 6800GT at 400, 1080 with FASTWRITES ON!!! This is at default 1.3 volts too!
All running very very well, no freezing/ pausing as yet. Running the core at that speed even with FW off with the neo 2 plat would freeze up instantly. So far so good.

If a bios is released that lets you up the fsb then this board is a little beauty.
What are the chances that it will happen???

 

[wunkley]

You need to flash the bios to get overclocking options, once this is done you can change fsb. Remember to set the agp pci lock to asynchronous. The bios is available here:

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2005/asrock/bios/939DM21.15.zip

I've had the board for a few days now along with a x2 4200, I'll post my results tommorow am tired now, good luck with overclocking it.

Yep, I found this beta bios last night (1.15)
All flashed ok and I can now up the fsb! At the moment I'm only running 210 with memory at 1:1 and the timings tight as they'll go - 6,3,3,2. Am prime 95 testing as I write and have been for about 2 hours so far, no problems. This is much better than the neo 2 plat, couldn't even run that board past 205fsb with the memory at these timings!

This is a great board so far. Only £50, is better than my neo 2 plat (which was double that when I bought it), I can now run my 6800GT at ultra speeds with fast writes on at stock volts and not get the dreaded pausing issue (I need to test this further though before I can say it's 100%), and it has a PCI express slot for when I want to upgrade the graphics. Fantastic.

How do you set the AGP lock? It only mentions PCI (asynchronous or desynchronous) in the top option of the CPU bios bit and I'm using an AGP 6800GT....

 

[wunkley]

Just done a looping benchmark run of 3dmark 05 - each graphic test 10 times so 30 in a row. Worked like a charm, no pauses/ freezing and got an average score of 5640, my highest ever. This was at 400 core, 1080 mem, fastwrites on.

To answer some other questions from above

1. My RAM is at 1:1 with the fsb (at at 400 in the bios) so is at 210 at the moment. Timings are 6,3,3,2 and at 1T. There are a few other ram settings I'm not familiar with so have left those at auto for now. One important ram setting I've found is one called "ram compatibility" or something similar. If you don't disable this it makes the ram run at 166 speeds I think.

2. SLI - it only has one PCI Express (x16) slot so no, not out of the box. However, the anandtech review (I think it was) mentioned the possibility of a future plug in card that you could fix 2 PCI express cards to. I'm not too fussed about SLI though, at the resoltions I run (1280 x 768 on my widescreen tft) it's not really worth it, and I can't justify forking out for 2 cards at the same time. Plus, by the time you've messed around there will be a new generation single slot model out from nvidia or ATI that will be just as good.

3. PSU - I'm running an Antec 480w Truepower, which has the 20 pin lead and a seperate 4 pin lead. This board is the same as my MSI neo 2 was in that respect and takes both these (ie no 24 pin power cable needed). So, no new PSU required either, another bonus of this motherboard, as most PCI express boards need a 24 pin psu so I believe.

4. Bios - on this current one (1.15) the fsb will go all the way up to 300 in increments of 1. It doesn't have as many features as the neo 2, but does have some I'm not familiar with.
It has a very basic RAM volts adjustment which you can set to normal or 'high' - no idea what volts this actually is though as I have no program that can tell me and it doesn't show in the bios (any suggestions???)

Any more questions I'll gladly answer....

 

[wunkley]

That's the term - Flexibilty Option - in the RAM settings. You must disable this one to get 'full power' I reckon.

Worryingly I've had a couple of blue screens this morning. Weirdly it's not happened whilst benchmarking but just surfing the web or doing stuff on the desktop???
Have relaxed the ram timings slightly down to 6,3,3,2.5. Still only at 210 fsb...
What's the main reasons for blue screens?

 

[wunkley]

Well what a terrible 24 hours. Have had a nightmare, but fingers crossed everything is back to how it was when I was singing this boards praises the other day.

It turns out I cannot run this board with 1T memory timings either!

The auto setting for that timing in the bios must be 2T which is what I had it at when everything was going ok, after fiddling in the bios I had set the RAM to 1T thinking it would be fine - and that was the cause of all the blue screens and instability probs.
I found this out after reinstalling windows and flasing back to the 1.10 bios.
Am now back on the 1.15 bios, with the fsb at 210 and the ram at 6,3,3,2.5 2T. At these settings I tried the fsb at 218 to get 2.4Ghz, but not stable.

Weirdly Prime 95 seems to run ok at any setting, I find this odd as it was the most sensitive test for overclocking on my MSI neo 2 board?

The king of stability tests for me is (don't laugh) the 'Flatout' game demo. This seems super sensitive and is great for testing motherboard overclock, and graphics card overclock stability issues.

So, what's the consensus on this board now, and what's the best way to overclock it a bit. I'm not looking for silly numbers, but it looks like RAM settings is the problem on this board...

 

[wunkley]

Overall I'd say I'm pretty happy with it, and for £50 you can't go wrong really I guess.

It's not a mad overclocker's board granted, but then again my last board (an MSI K8N neo 2 platinumn) was supposed to be and cost twice as much, and I only used to run it stable at 218 fsb, 1:1 6,3,3,2.5 timings but I could do T1 on that.
How much of a difference is T1 and T2 timing anyway, doesn't seem to make a huge difference with Athlon 64s from what I've read and seen?
The major bonus for me with this board, and the main reason I got it was the 6800GT pausing issue, which now seems to be completely fixed. I have it running at normal volts, 400 core, 1080 mem and it's fine. This has been the most frustrating thing in the last year, this whole nforce 3, 6800 freezing issue has beena joke which Nvidia have done marzipan [all about, which is pathetic.

Small rant over, here's a few comparisons I did using Aquamark 3 (as it's a quick benchmark and gives you seperate GPU and CPU scores):

1.) 235fsb x10 , cpu at 2.35, RAM at 10,3,3,2.5 2T timing and DDR333 speeds:
Score = 66,225 (GPU 9,987 CPU 9,379)

2.) 235fsb x10, cpu at 2.35, RAM at 10,3,3,2.5 1T timing and DDR333 speeds:
Score= 67,774 (GPU 10,247 CPU 10,014)

3.) 210fsb x 11, cpu at 2.31, RAM at 10,3,3,2 2T timing and DDR400 speeds (ie 1:1):
Score: 67,025 (GPU 10,152 CPU 9,863)

235 is the highest fsb I seem to be able to use at the moment, at 240 it won't boot and I have to then clear the CMOS. I think for now I'm sticking with number 3 from above, the 2T isssue seems too unstable at the moment...

 

[wunkley]

Spell - what were your settings to let you get to 270fsb???

 

[wunkley]

Dropped the CPU->NB and CPU -> SB down to 800; dropped my memory speed down to DDR266; CPU->PCIE to Async and left the PCIE at 100. Haven't touch the memory voltage.

Just tried that, wouldn't post and had to clear CMOS (again!!!!)
I set my ram to 10,3,3,3 2T for that. Any other settings to try?

 

[wunkley]

btw u dont need to clear cmos, just turn it on and off a few times, it resets itself then

How does that work? Turn what on and off exactly?
At the moment I'm just taking the motherboard battery out and leaving it for a few minutes.

My A64 is a Newcastle 3500+. Does that affect the limitations of upping he fsb compared to a Venice?

 

[wunkley]

What, you mean turn the main PC power up button on, then off straight away, then on again straight away, then off again etc? Isn't that in danger of shorting something out or something or have I got it wrong??