Broken motherboard?

[SpykerF1]

Hi, I'm looking to get a new mobo because I have just bought an 8800gt only to find the AsRock 4 coredual-vsta doesn't allow it to be used, luckly a mate has recently got a new mobo due to thinking his old one had broken.

The problem was that it wouldn't post at all, but he now thinks his ram may have been causing it because his new mobo has done the same, but by removing the ram and putting it back in his pc posted again. Do you guys think his old mobo will be fine and it was just the ram causing him problems? I'd rather find out on a forum than go to the hassle of taking my mobo out and trying his old one only to find out it doesn't work.

It is a gigabyte board with 650i chipset so it would be very good for me and obviously cheaper than buying a new one as it would be mates rates. I'm really hoping it works so I can play some games like COD4 and Crysis at full detail (I have a 17" monitor now so I think it will be playable, until I get my 22" that is )

Thanks for any replies.

 

[Toxcity]

Cannot see why the 8800GT doesn't work in the Asrock board.

One of my PCs have the very same board and it is pretty good.

I would just get your mates motherboard and see if it works..

 

[SpykerF1]

Well I tried it and the fans span up to full speed and I enabled PCI-E as the main slot for graphics cards before but nothing comes up on the screen, after a few goes at replacing it with my 6600 and changing options, I googled the mobo and graphics card to find out that the chipset doesn't support pci-e 2 cards and that to get my 8800gt to work I would need to flash the bios on the 8800gt to gen1 (Which I'm not to keen on doing as it voids the warranty and I've heard it could mess up the card) so I emailed AsRock and they replied with the same response of how to get the card to work with my mobo.

*Edit* But I do agree it is a good board, both of my motherboards have been AsRock and for a budget kit they have been very good to me.

 

[Hatman]

Cant see any sense is that really, it SHOULD work....

gen1?? What gen1? Where did you read this?

 

[SpykerF1]

This is the email I got from As-Rock about the problem, and after reading about people with the same problem saying after the flash to gen1 it does work whereas before it didn't

"Dear Sir,

Thank you for contacting ASRock

The nVidia 8800GT PCIE VGA card is GEN2 mode VGA card.

Unfortunately VIA PT880 PRO/Ultra chipset does not support GEN2 mode VGA card.

The only solution is to set 8800GT PCIE VGA card to GEN1mode.

We have tested ASUS 8800GT PCIE VGA card. After flashing GEN1 mode BIOS for ASUS 8800GT,

it works fine on PT880 PRO/Ultra chipset motherboard.

Please contact VGA card vender to get the VGA BIOS with GEN1 mode for your 8800GT PCIE VGA card.

Sorry for your inconvenience

Best Wishes

ASRock"

Thanks for the quick responses guys.

 

[Rastalovich]

Eh ?

Any1 who know`s about this care to fill me in ?

Btw. Asrock mobos may not be world renouned enthusiast boards, but I do know the 939 mobo I got is solid.

 

[SpykerF1]

The 8800gt won't work with the AsRock 4coredual-vsta (which is what I have at the moment) unless you flash the 8800gt's BIOS to gen1. I want to know if the problem my friend had with his old motherboard was to do with his ram (which would mean I could use it, and my 8800gt) or if it was as he first thought and it was his motherboard which was broke.

 

[nepas]

what the hell is gen 1?

are they talking about PCIE1 and PCIE 2?

if so if so that makes even less sense as my 8800gt works very well in my old pcie1 dfi mobo,the whole thing about those cards is they are backwards compatable(sp) with pcie 1 boards(if i am not mistaken)

I have never heard of a gen 1 or gen 2 8800gt.anyone else?

 

[Hatman]

Nope nothing.. makes no sense to me :s

Must be PCI-E... but even then there is nothing that can stop it working there and you cannot turn your card from pci-e 2 to pci-e 1 because it can do both lol.

 

[SpykerF1]

It's because the chipset doesn't support the gen2 bios, that is why it doesn't work, and please could you keep it on topic and help me to work out if my friends motherboard will work or not before I go taking everything out etc.

 

[nepas]

what gen2 bios?

as far as i know there is no such thing(I have had no problems whatsoever with my 8800gt,and I got mine as son as they launched)

WE are staying on topic: i.e. no-one has a clue about this "gen2" business

 

[SpykerF1]

The topic was whether the motherboard would work or not, and the gen2 bios obviously does exist due to the email I received from As-Rock, and if you had read it you would see the reason my current motherboard won't let me use a 8800gt is because of the chipset, which is why yours runs fine (you don't have the same chipset)

 

[Hatman]

Well if you wanted on topic, I googled it.

Seems its something to do with having crappy 4x pci-e bandwidth or something. Dont know much about this board but that must be why. So I looked it up.

Ha ha, I find it has 4x bandwidth on PCi-E slot. I really do reccomend getting a new board. Youre going to miss like 50% performance with a 8800GT.

650i will be gd.

 

[SpykerF1]

I know the problems with my board I want to know if the symptoms my mate had with his old board were a sign that his board was nackerd or whether it is as he now thinks and it was the memory stopping his pc from posting

 

[Rastalovich]

I see where ur going.

The thing is if u guyz think there`s a problem with the gigabyte 650i, the only way ur going to work it out is actually trying it.

Posting problems can be multiple things b4 u think of the mobo being ill.

 

[SpykerF1]

Ok cool thanks,

I thought when he first said about it that it was the mobo and since he's said he thinks it may have been the memory I didn't want to get my hopes up, and thought I might get a better idea as to the problem (Which I have now as I've never encountered the problem before and thought it could only be the mobo) if I posted here