I didn't even know about this thread. I still have an Asrock 775 Dual VSTA. Has always been unstable and slow. Just for fun, at some point I started upgrading using a beta BIOS. A Pentium Dual-Core E5800 was installed along with my old HD4870. I think RAM is 2GB 667MHZ @ 533MHz. This was all a few years ago, so I have to ask you a few questions. Quad cores don't work on this board? 4GB RAM (3.5GB usable) is possible? The 533MHz option has more throughput than the 667, is that still true? DDR1 400 RAM would be even better, I read something there. But it's not available in 2x2GB? The graphics card is massively slowed down by the x4 slot. Does anyone have numbers for me? 30%? I don't know, maybe more? Does anyone have any other tuning tips for me? As far as I remember, I had to go deeper into the RAM settings so that there weren't constant blue screens. As I said, it was all a long time ago, the PC is also stored away at the moment, so it's all just theoretical, thanks.

Around 3 Gb is usable. VSTA can work with Core 2 Quad 6xxx at least (with beta BIOS).

The graphics card is massively slowed down by the x4 slot.

Not really.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-05-26, 10:21:

Around 3 Gb is usable. VSTA can work with Core 2 Quad 6xxx at least (with beta BIOS).

The graphics card is massively slowed down by the x4 slot.

Not really.

It's very game / benchmark dependent. ie. 8800 GTS 512mb in 3dm01 is around 15-20% slower than 16x slot.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-expr … sis,1572-8.html

Here's a short comparison between 320mb 8800gts cards. Obviously architectures, memory allocation etc. affect the performance of different gpus.

That actually proves my point. Unless you're not going out of your way and overload VRAM (320mb 8800GTS vs 512 Mb X1900XT) - there is no drastic difference.

can you get an Intel Core2 Q9300 to run on these boards, if so with which bios? also i would like to run 4GB on it to run win 10 and win 98 in parallel. does this work without problems under 9x?

mr666acdc wrote on 2023-12-15, 23:33:

My build: […]
Show full quote

My build:

4CoreDual-SATA2

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770

MSi GeForce FX 5950 Ultra AGP with Elsa 3D Revelator Glasses

MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning 2 GB PCI Express CRT Emudriver connected to Sony-PVM14M4E

Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro SB0550 PCI with panel

ESS Solo-1 V1.1 with Serdaco DreamBlaster Synth S2

Cooler Master V750 Gold V2 White Edition Hybrid

Lamptron FC9, DVD Writer and Gotek OLED Mod

CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock TF2

Windows 98 Second Edition 80GB ATA
Windows XP Professional SP3 500GB SSHD
Windows 10 Pro 512GB SSD

As you can see, this mainboard will run even the best LGA775 processor that exist - QX9770. So yes it could run lower ones like Q9300 and the rest of C2Quad processors. As for RAM, you must flash the latest Beta BIOS - 2.20A.
Here is a link where you can find the Beta BIOS for it :
https://soggi.org/files/motherboards/bios/asr … 20_220a_beta.7z

Regular quad 9xxx will work at reduced speed, because Core4Dual has support only for 1066 bus. Although it's probably for the best, considering weak VRM.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-05-28, 07:13:

Regular quad 9xxx will work at reduced speed, because Core4Dual has support only for 1066 bus. Although it's probably for the best, considering weak VRM.

As @Serpent Rider said earlier, the FSB will be 1066. And...that VRM weakness should be considered when choosing the right processor for it.
For example i own several extreme edition processors.
X6800, QX6800, QX6850 and QX9650.
But i decided to use on my Core4Dual SATA2 R2.0 the X6800 which is a dual core only and it works by default at 1066 Mhz. And i am using it with unlock multiplier at 13x which is more then enough.
But i have bought some small heatsinks with thermal tape which i use on each VRM transistor in order to prevent overheating and fail.

This was marketed as a budget upgrade transition board fwiw. They even mention in the manual that 5% fsb drop is recommended for 1066MHz cpus.

Hello
Im having problems loading the graphics drivers on windows 10 - tried 32bit and 64bit versions - the GPUs are not detected although i can see the via cpu to agp bridge installed in device manager. Ive got windows 10 version 1511 cause that one was the last one to support agp bridges . The via drivers dont install obviously cause its a windows 7 thing . Oh iim using a GTX570 and HD3850 agp - bios is the 220a for the 4gb - everything works in windows 7 64bit . Amazed the HD3850 can get 30-40 fps in unigine heaven .Has anyone got windows 10 working on this motherboard - do i have to "upgrade from 7 to 10 " instead of fresh install - how can i choose the 1511 windows 10 version if i have to upgrade - lucky ive got them all on seperate SSDs so i dont stuff everything up . I thought everything was backwards compatible between windows 7 and 10 - am i supposed to do a repair install with my windows 10 disk over the windows 7 - thanks

AGP won't work with Win10, since there is no GART/chipset AGP driver for Win10 (you may try to disable Driver Signature Enforcement if you have WinVIsta/7 AGP driver).
As last option disable ATI AGP card/port in device manager, and see if Windows 10 is better.
Trying to make Win10 on such board with GPU setup is alchemy, you have to try weird things and hope for the best.

Also, remember to Disable two PCIe options in BIOS (mentioned earlier in this topic), that otherwise make Fermi cards unstable on this board.

yeah but the original windows 10 1511 does support the agp bridge chip apparenty - i can see the via bridge chip driver in the device manager - and im using the 3850 which has the rialto bridge chip - but im not even getting the gtx570 to be detected on the pcie bus at the moment - 1511 windows 10 doesnt even detect that - pcie settings are disabled in bios thats why it runs flawless in windows 7 . both cards do - but in my windows 10 install both are just standard vga cards and the nvidia drivers say no compatible card detected
"You just called it bang on my friend! I'm sticking to Win10 Version1511. At least I know everything works perfectly on that Version...
well until I here otherwise that is. 😀" and "Intel: Last chipset was from 2004 (i865), official GART for XP and supported by Microsoft's generic AGP driver from Vista through Windows 10 build 1511.
VIA: Last chipset was from 2006 (PT880 and other AMD/Intel derivatives), official GART for XP, possibly had native Vista drivers but has also been supported by Microsoft exactly like the Intel chipset.
Ill pull the gtx570 out and see what happens first- see if windows 10 detects the card- nah didnt make any difference

What is your primary graphic adapter bios setting?

JonPP wrote on 2024-06-08, 10:47:

yeah but the original windows 10 1511 does support the agp bridge chip apparenty - i can see the via bridge chip driver in the device manager - and im using the 3850 which has the rialto bridge chip - but im not even getting the gtx570 to be detected on the pcie bus at the moment - 1511 windows 10 doesnt even detect that - pcie settings are disabled in bios thats why it runs flawless in windows 7 . both cards do - but in my windows 10 install both are just standard vga cards and the nvidia drivers say no compatible card detected
Ill pull the gtx570 out and see what happens first- see if windows 10 detects the card- nah didnt make any difference

Few things to note :
1) "via bridge chip driver in the device manager", may refer to PCI to PCI bridge (for integrated stuff, USB, Audio, etc.), PCI to PCI-e (in this case it's PCIe port, and missing or not working driver for that = no PCIe GPU for you), AGP chipset bridge (same as PCI-e).
2) There is resource conflict, which prevents GPU from showing up.
Diagnosing this can take a while, and I hope you know what memory/resource allocation looks like to check what is where.

Just because "it's compatible" doesn't mean it works "out of the box".
Try swapping AGP card for one without AGP bridge, and see if that fixes no GPU issue in PCI-e port.

it actually says "VIA CPU to agp " in system device manager - so i assume thats the AGP bridge driver they were talking about in this 1511 version Interestingly i removed the AGP card and it didnt even find the gtx570 card !!!!! and the display adapter just dissappeared in the device manager - when i put the AGP card back in with the 570 and restarted the "std VGA adapter" appeared again - ive no idea whats going on . I just wanted windows 10 to play my steam games with this build since they canned support for windows 7 . I would have thought at least Windows 10 would find my GTX570 - crazy - anyway ive just downloaded version 1507 - see if that works - its not finding anything and windows 7 boots finds and runs both cards - i just have to swap which card in the bios b4 restart and bingo

Seems odd that it became unsupported.
Gotta wonder if the driver will work on later versions if it is extracted into a folder and installed manually.

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-05-26, 08:45:

I didn't even know about this thread. I still have an Asrock 775 Dual VSTA.
...

Have a look at my specification page of the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA -> https://soggi.org/motherboards/asrock/4CoreDual-VSTA.htm - there should be nearly everything you need, except some of the drivers.

Imperator wrote on 2024-05-28, 06:38:

Here is a link where you can find the Beta BIOS for it :
NOT SUPPORTED URL

Could you please remove or change (to the corresponding .htm page) the link as hotlinkling (also called inline linking) is not allowed on my website. Thanks in advance.

-----------------------------

========= Summary =========

4CoreDual-VSTA
-> BIOS 2.20 / 2.39 (Beta), specs, manual and drivers - follow the link above

4CoreDual-SATA2
-> BIOS 2.20 / 2.20a (Beta) - follow the links below

4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0
-> BIOS 2.20 / 2.20a (Beta)- follow the links below

775Dual-VSTA
-> BIOS 3.10 / 3.19 (Beta)- follow the links below

All mentioned latest BIOSes (incl. Beta) are available for download on my ASRock page -> https://soggi.org/motherboards/asrock.htm, flash tools on https://soggi.org/motherboards/bios-update-fl … h-utilities.htm. It's hihgly recommended to use AFUDOS 4.40 / AFULNX 4.27 / AFUWIN 4.48 / AFUWINx64 4.48 for flashing.

kind regards
soggi

Have a look at my specification page of the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA -> https://soggi.org/motherboards/asrock/4CoreDual-VSTA.htm - there should be nearly everything you need, except some of the drivers.

Thats cool thx, but i dont`t have a 4Core. Or does all of this also apply to the Dual VSTA?

Oh sorry, my fault - thought you have a 4CoreDual-VSTA. Don't know why, I even quoted "...775Dual-VSTA." from your post.

But... except the BIOS (which you can find on my ASRock page for the 775Dual-VSTA), missing official quad-core support and a slightly different manual it's pretty much the same.

kind regards
soggi

No problem, I don't even know if the PC with the 775DUAL VSTA still works. The upgrades were intended for my heavily modified Flight Simulator X at the time. No longer necessary. All I can tell you is that it was a bad purchase for me at the time. No idea if it's technically feasible, but with a full PCI-E slot and proper DDR2 support it would be the ultimate board for tinkering and testing. Too bad.

In the retro area I lost myself to the DOS/Win 9X era anyway. 😀