ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939

[olliejk]

I've been having some trouble and I'm trying to track down if it is
could be related to my ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 mobo. On cold
boots I often get a blue screen of death with little info in the memory
dump. Basically it indicates there is SOME kind of hardware error.
Happening out of nowhere, it only happens on boot-up. It also happens,
however, when I connect certain USB devices. It doesn't happen with
everything. My old MP3 player (was a hard drive one) my joystick, and
my card reader are fine. My printer ( HP 2575 all in one) and new MP3
player (Creative ZEN Vison M) cause the BSoD. Also, it occasionally
will restart instead of shut down. It will go through the entire
shut-down sequence, but powers right back up again (and yes I did
choose shut-down not restart). I've had these problems through 2
different video cards. I've tried all sorts of chipset changes and USB
device changes, but to no avail. Before I spend more hours trying
different BIOS settings, does anyone know if this is a KNOWN problem
with these Mobo's? I suppose there is an outside chance it is the power
supply (I've heard of weirder).

---ollie

 

[Lenster]

You might have better luck asking here

http://www.ocwforums.com/bbs/forumdisplay.php?f=31

 

[Wayner]

I've been having some trouble and I'm trying to track down if it is
could be related to my ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 mobo. On cold
boots I often get a blue screen of death with little info in the memory
dump. Basically it indicates there is SOME kind of hardware error.
Happening out of nowhere, it only happens on boot-up. It also happens,
however, when I connect certain USB devices. It doesn't happen with
everything. My old MP3 player (was a hard drive one) my joystick, and
my card reader are fine. My printer ( HP 2575 all in one) and new MP3
player (Creative ZEN Vison M) cause the BSoD. Also, it occasionally
will restart instead of shut down. It will go through the entire
shut-down sequence, but powers right back up again (and yes I did
choose shut-down not restart). I've had these problems through 2
different video cards. I've tried all sorts of chipset changes and USB
device changes, but to no avail. Before I spend more hours trying
different BIOS settings, does anyone know if this is a KNOWN problem
with these Mobo's? I suppose there is an outside chance it is the power
supply (I've heard of weirder).

---ollie

I seem to recall a problem this motherboard had with cold boots and early
BIOS versions.

Try updating your BIOS here.

http://www.asrock.com/support/download.asp?Model=939Dual-SATA2

Wayne

 

[Paul]

I've been having some trouble and I'm trying to track down if it is
could be related to my ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 mobo. On cold
boots I often get a blue screen of death with little info in the memory
dump. Basically it indicates there is SOME kind of hardware error.
Happening out of nowhere, it only happens on boot-up. It also happens,
however, when I connect certain USB devices. It doesn't happen with
everything. My old MP3 player (was a hard drive one) my joystick, and
my card reader are fine. My printer ( HP 2575 all in one) and new MP3
player (Creative ZEN Vison M) cause the BSoD. Also, it occasionally
will restart instead of shut down. It will go through the entire
shut-down sequence, but powers right back up again (and yes I did
choose shut-down not restart). I've had these problems through 2
different video cards. I've tried all sorts of chipset changes and USB
device changes, but to no avail. Before I spend more hours trying
different BIOS settings, does anyone know if this is a KNOWN problem
with these Mobo's? I suppose there is an outside chance it is the power
supply (I've heard of weirder).

---ollie

I see only one jumper to select whether external peripherals
run on +5V or +5VSB. That is the PS2_USB_PWR1. Now, I don't
know if that controls all the USB ports, or only a select
few. It could be that by connecting USB devices that draw
close to the max (500mA) allowed on a USB port, that it is
causing a problem. Most motherboards use multiple headers
for that voltage selection, so there would be less of a
problem with high current USB devices.

I would set that jumper to the 1-2 position, and use +5V
to power the USB headers. Then, there is no chance of
overloading the +5VSB (if that is what is happening).

Other than that, if this was my motherboard, I would buy
a NEC chip based, USB2 PCI card and plug that in. Then
connect the printer and MP3 player to it. If you have
USB keyboard and mouse, they could continue to be
connected to the motherboard, so you can continue to
be able to access the BIOS. This is an example of a
NEC based card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815124008

HTH,
Paul

 

[sbb78247]

I seem to recall a problem this motherboard had with cold boots and
early BIOS versions.

Try updating your BIOS here.

http://www.asrock.com/support/download.asp?Model=939Dual-SATA2

Wayne

DING! DING! DING! DING! We have a winner!

check the reviews at anand tech for this board and they will confirm this.
it was the nature of the beast and was corrected with a bios update version
1.2 and later.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2524&p=10

 

[Garrot]

Other than that, if this was my motherboard, I would buy
a NEC chip based, USB2 PCI card and plug that in. Then
connect the printer and MP3 player to it. If you have
USB keyboard and mouse, they could continue to be
connected to the motherboard, so you can continue to
be able to access the BIOS. This is an example of a
NEC based card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815124008

HTH,
Paul

It's not the mb USB controller chip as I have the same mb and no issues
at all. I'm running with 1.20 bios though. If he hasn't updated the bios
then that is probably the issue, otherwise it sounds to me like a PSU issue.

 

[olliejk]

It's not the mb USB controller chip as I have the same mb and no issues
at all. I'm running with 1.20 bios though. If he hasn't updated the bios
then that is probably the issue, otherwise it sounds to me like a PSU issue.

Just an update, there may have been 2 problems feeding off each other.
1st off I did update the Bios. This did not help. I also and played
with the USB jumper settings, and his had no effect. I did notice the
full set of USB drivers were installed twice according to Windows
device manager. I uninstalled everything USB, and let Windows "find"
all the USB on the mobo and re-install it all. Now all USB devices seem
to work. The cold boot problem on the other hand..... was cut in ~1/2.
That's right, it seemed to go away (i.e. I let it cool down for >1hr ,
and rebooted it a couple of times) and I was about to declare victory,
when the problem happened again. Thing is now it seems to happen less
frequently. As someone who's been building PC's since the 90's I'm a
little confused.

Follow me on this, but I think it could still be either a mobo or PS
issue. The "double" installed USB drivers could have just thrown my
system into a slight (to use a highly technical term) tizzy attempting
to connect in some kind of odd way. This could have been happening on
both the boot-up and when I connect certain devices. Whatever the
system was doing to deal with the "double" installed USB could
cause a draw on either voltage or whatever component is weak on the
mobo, thus drawing out the failure mode. Anyway, it's a theory. It is
interesting that this is a known failure mode for pervious bios
version, but updating it did not help. I am trying to borrow a good
quality PS to try to see if this is behind it. If not then I'll just
exchange the mobo.


--- Ollie

 

[Rod Speed]

Just an update, there may have been 2 problems feeding off each other.
1st off I did update the Bios. This did not help. I also and played
with the USB jumper settings, and his had no effect. I did notice the
full set of USB drivers were installed twice according to Windows
device manager. I uninstalled everything USB, and let Windows "find"
all the USB on the mobo and re-install it all. Now all USB devices
seem to work. The cold boot problem on the other hand..... was cut in
~1/2. That's right, it seemed to go away (i.e. I let it cool down for
victory, when the problem happened again. Thing is now it seems to
happen less frequently. As someone who's been building PC's since the
90's I'm a little confused.

Most likely just a warmup fault thats due to a bad joint
or cracked trace with that particular motherboard if a
power supply swap makes no difference.

Follow me on this, but I think it could still be either a mobo or PS issue.

Yes, particularly that cool down effect.

The "double" installed USB drivers could have just thrown my
system into a slight (to use a highly technical term) tizzy attempting
to connect in some kind of odd way. This could have been happening on
both the boot-up and when I connect certain devices. Whatever the
system was doing to deal with the "double" installed USB could
cause a draw on either voltage or whatever component is weak on the
mobo, thus drawing out the failure mode.

That last is very unlikely. Even if two copys of the driver
are fighting over the hardware that shouldnt damage
anything, its should at worst just produce the BSOD.