I recently took delivery of this board from Tekheads, intending to use it with Win XP64 as it was advertised as being fully compatible.

http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=609203

However I cant, as this board has a few annoyances and a couple of more serious issues which prevent both normal and optimal use.

The HD Audio Bus requires a UAA Bus Driver Hotfix patch from Microsoft, or so ASRock claim on the driver CD (shame they couldnt slap a prominent warning on the pdf manual they have on their ftp server!) and the patch needs installing before the sound drivers are loaded.

Right ho you might say. But like many other users I have an SP2 disk. The patch was written prior to SP2 and wont install on this platform as a result, because Windows says my files are newer than the files in the patch and therefore it wont install the patch. There is no solution on ASRocks website, nor on Realteks website, so what is anyone to do?

Im left with the choices of RMAing the board. Adding an analog soundcard. Upgrading to Vista64.

Or perhaps finding an early original pre-servicepack XP64 CD-ROM.

Am I posting just to grumble? Not really. In fact there is nothing Id like to do more than praise this board, but I just cant; well not so far anyway.

If anyone has a workaround for the above issue Id appreciate hearing about it  8-)

However the board has presented other problems too.

Bearing in mind its been loaded with the latest v1.20 AMI BIOS, and then got a clean XP64 install, Im puzzled as to why the BIOS could not correctly detect my DDR3 OCZ 4Gb of compatible memory without me having to manually tag it as 1,333Mhz in the BIOS screens.

What hardware am I connecting otherwise? A quad-core Yorkie Q9300 (1,333Mhz FSB) CPU, three SATA2 Seagates, a SATA Pioneer DVD/RW, Sapphire HD3470 graphics card, plus the 4Gb of OCZ DDR3 dual channel memory already mentioned.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_ddr3_pc3_10666_gold_edition

Im also puzzled why the BIOS upgrade from v1.00 has done away with the option to not display the childish full page boot logo of a space rocket, which to me seems slightly reminiscent of an episode of the Clangers or Joe 90, or are ASRock aiming at an audience of seven or eight year old consumers with their latest offering?

Anyway, from within Windows I have only 3.25Ghz of RAM showing, and certainly not the full allocation as ASRock promise would be displayed.

No doubt this is disabling synchronous dual-channel operation and must be impacting on the performance of the entire system.

Whislt I suspect this is a BIOS issue, there are some board jumpers, however according to the (poorly written) hard copy of the manual which came in the box you should only need to alter them for 1,600Mhz FSB use, so I am therefore reluctant to disturb anything unless someone knows better.

Another moan goes up for the stupid claims in the manual that you can plug in a 24 pin P1 ATX power connector into the motherboards 24 pin socket, doh... and likewise with the 8 pin P2 PSU connector, because with a brand new OCZ 500w PSU this board wouldnt show a sign of life, connected that way!

It only chose to take a first breath when I hacked off the four higher numbered pins on BOTH the 24 pin and 8 pin connectors!

Amazing, huh!

Would it go now? Not quite. Next I had to solder up a small PCB using an old 9 pin USB header cable to allow the 9 pin front panel connector array on this motherboard mate with the Lian-Li front panel wiring loom (never had that problem before, and the Lian-Li case has every conceivable connector already fitted!)

Lord knows what anyone using this motherboard for a first build would do!

Use it as a frisbee I strongly suspect!

So, £150 well spent? Im not sure. Probably if youre on Vista, yes.

No, even then I think that Ill stick with probably.

If youre trying to hold off buying into Vista, and like me, are waiting to see what MS roll out in 2009 then this board simply cant be recommended for use with XP64.

Guess I could try loading XP32, but having already wasted 20 hours meddling with this board I think I deserve a break from it.

Admins, please dont moderate my comments in lieu of trying to assist with these issues, after all - I have been polite and I dont know this forum, so I dont know your politics. However theres no chance of technical support over the weekend and as long as this board is claimed to be compatible with XP64 then I think you should know - as a responsible retailer, about the problems Im describing above (My invoice reference is SO547820 should you want to look me up).

Should anyone else want to use this with W2k, XP32, XP64, then please note you must expect a return to the stone age when loading your OS or flashing the BIOS, because the installation CD and the BIOS updater do not offer you Flash memory options and you will find yourself obliged to step back to a floppy disk connected on the boards ribbon cable for these tasks, and that includes loading the SATA drivers at F6 early in the Windows Setup process.

All in all it is rather like trying to light a fire with two dry sticks of wood, as opposed to having a gas lighter :-(

The memory limitation you are seeing is down to Windows, not the board.

The only OS that will give you your true 4Gb is Vista 64 I believe (the #1 reason for me reluctantly moving to Vista now that I have 4Gb of RAM).

Im sorry to hear about the issues you are having. Latest tech does really seem to need the latest OS these days sadly though.

Welcome to the forums though mate, Im sure some more knowledgable people here can help you out

XP64 detects the full 4Gb in my machine (I did have 6Gb, but one of my sticks died on me).  Im assuming its a board setting, because the AMD 770 series chipset on my board detected and used the full 4Gb with Zero problems.  Thats on top of the 512Mb on the 4870.  

Nige :: XP64 == W2k3 64bit with an XP front end.  As I understand it Vista is the same thing with a Vista front end.  

Cheers Buddy,

The memory issue is very definitely the board though, or its BIOS, because Ive just come from an inferior Asus PK5C P35 chipset mainboard and it displayed the full 4Gb in Windows XP64 with the very same DDR3 OCZ memory fitted. Its Windows 32 bit (any flavour) which cant display more than 3Gb of RAM, as far as Im aware.

Right now I have no way of knowing if this board is dysfunctional or whether the BIOS is simply in its infancy, but since its a new release I do suspect there will be more BIOS updates as ASRock are trying to push this board out to overclockers and that means theyll have to update the BIOS with proper voltage differentials etc, and ensure it works with as many DDR3 Dimms as possible of course.

The manual is about as clear as mud on the jumpers; except that it does say the end user neednt touch them unless they are using 1,600Mhz FSB (or 1,066Mhz FSB and DDR2 RAM).

Id possibly be prepared to wait for a BIOS fix, a short time anyway, but I need my audio capability badly

Maybe things are different now, but I thought ASRock boards were supposed to be poor cheap alternatives to quality ones from the likes of ASUS?

Quote from: muthId possibly be prepared to wait for a BIOS fix, a short time anyway, but I need my audio capability badly

Just install the MS Audio Driver.  It is essential for proper HD Audio function.  I run XP64 myself, and you should be able to download the driver from MS, or from your Motherboard manufacturer website.

Send an email to their support if theres still a link on their site - they will reply if youre brief.

There are proper BIOS updates available - they work in my win32 system but I dunno about 64bit; http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=X48TurboTwins-WiFi&s=Intel

The audio thing -

* Try renaming the existing Hdaudbus.sys (C:\%windir%\system32), or whatever files its trying to over-write.
* Modify the update.inf file in c:\%windir%\gobbledegook and change the MaxNtServicePackVersion to 512
* SP2 - this may be an option - http://support.microsoft.com/KB/875350

Memory -

Is a BIOS setting buried somewhere.

BIOS Picture -

Moan to Asrock

PSU -

??

Ive got the HD Audio drivers, and they install just fine, making device manager look perfect after installation, except that theres no audio output whatsoever!

There is an MS Hotfix patch needed first, and it must be installed before you slap on the drivers, only it wont install on XP64SP2 because the patch was written for an earlier servicepack version of the OS, and Microsoft incredulously neglected to include the patch inside the XP64SP2 release.

This is a note included on the ASRock Drivers CD-ROM...

"For normal working of High Definition Audio under Windows XP 64bit,
there is a hotfix file provided by Microsoft.
Please install the hotfix before installing the audio driver.
Otherwise, the audio driver may not be installed successfully.

Please click the link to download the hotfix file:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=901105"

If you follow that advice it will lead you here...



Apparently a similar patch is missing from XP32SP3, although because that system is more popular there are some hacked fixes out there for SP3.

Cant help but feel MS are, in spite of promises to support XP on its original lifecycle, trying to drive people to Vista (look at all the OEM versiosn theyve virtually given away to consumers to persuade them to make the jump!) but - apart from bashing MS this isnt actually an MS issue, its ultimately down to ASRock and their resellers because its ASRock who have claimed their hardware can be used with WinXP64 and I see no claims that exclude audio from that   -)

According to several reviews ASRock are shaking off their old image and after a bigger piece of the marketplace, and Id have to say the physical quality of this board is more solid that the earlier Asus PK5C board which I had, although it would seem to be afflicated by teething troubles if youre not using Vista...

My 2 asrock boards have been sweet as, fwiw.

Id love to rip out SP2 by the roots SDP, but Id have to clone the iSO image and remove it from that as opposed to ripping it out from within a finished install of course, and whilst Ive used ultra iSO to take a look... the architecture of the 64bit CD-ROM varies considerably from 32bit (which I am more accustomed to using).

If only I had an original XP64 build CD-ROM, but nevermind, its the way these things go.

Does anyone want to extol the virtues of Vista at this point?  

Quote from: WalrusbonzoMaybe things are different now, but I thought ASRock boards were supposed to be poor cheap alternatives to quality ones from the likes of ASUS?

ASRock is owned by Asus. Thats why asus dont make any bargain basement boards.

The memory limitation applies to all the memory in the system.

If you have 3gb, and 512mb on your GFX card, your going to lose 512mb of system memory in favour of the system memory.

Quote from: soopahflyIf you have 4gb, and 512mb on your GFX card, your going to lose 512mb of system memory in favour of the gfx memory because knighty is awesome

fixed

Id suggest heading on over to your favourite torrent site and getting an ISO of a non-patched XP64 CD . . . if I were into all that pirating milarky you understand.

It may be a VLK disk I have anyway, theoretically speaking......  8-)