Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 Motherboard Strangeness -- nVidia PCI IDs on C51 (GF61x0+nF4x0)

[Robert L Cochran]

Thanks Bryan. I guess I shouldn't have bought the Plextor. I've been 
wanting faster burn times for a long while now.

As regards the power LED, the case connector is a unitized 3-pin plastic 
connector meant for a 3 pin header. I'll have to reseat the +5v and GND 
pins in a new 2-pin connector for this board, right? I guess I'm not 
about to de-install the motherboard just so I can solder an alternate 
3-pin header on it.

Bob

Bryan J. Smith wrote:

>On Tue, 2005-12-27 at 22:56 -0500, Robert L Cochran wrote:
>  
>
>>#1 -- I also installed a Plextor PX-716SA DVD-RW drive. This is an SATA 
>>drive and I can't boot off it with a bootable DVD. The drive is 
>>installed on the motherboard's SATA2 connector (this is a plain SATA 
>>connector, item #13 on page 2 of the manual. It is not item #10, "Serial 
>>SATAII connector", the red one.) 
>>    
>>
>
>In Windows, that drive is _only_ guaranteed to work on the SATA channels
>Intel ICH6 or ICH7 southbridge chips.  The reason is simple, there is a
>_huge_ augmentation of the ATA register/support to support ATA
>Peripheral Interface (ATAPI) devices such as optical drives.
>
>In other words, do _not_ buy SATA ATAPI devices today.  The overwhelming
>majority of SATA controllers can't support ATAPI, and there are some
>missing industry standards for doing such.  In fact, the Plextor is
>using a simple ATA-to-SATA converter inside the PX-716A, so the driver
>is -- in fact, just an standard ATAPI drive.
>
>  
>
>>#2 -- I'm interpreting the PLED pins of the System Panel Header (item 
>>#17 on page 2 of the manual) to mean Power LED. On my Lian Li case, the 
>>Power LED wires are 2 wires in a 3-pin connector. The middle connector 
>>pin is empty. Yet, the PLED pins on the motherboard header are for a 
>>2-pin connector.
>>    
>>
>
>Move the appropriate GND or +5VDC to the appropriate pin.  I do that
>all-the-time.
>
>  
>
>>But wait! Just to the left of it is the Chassis Speaker Header, item 
>>#18, and if you look closely, there is text saying something like 
>>"PWRLED" or some such and there are 3 wave-soldered holes on the 
>>motherboard right next to the Chassis Speaker Header.
>>I'm confused about where to plug in the Power LED connector.
>>Any comments?
>>    
>>
>
>Some mainboards offer both a 2-pin and a 3-pin LED, yes.
>So either will probably do.
>
>When only a 2-pin is offered, I pull out the appropriate GND or +5VDC
>and move it to the middle to fit.
>
>  
>
>>One final note. If you get this motherboard for yourself and install 
>>Fedora Core 4 on it, be sure to have the latest glibc and kernel-smp 
>>rpm's and install them right after the Fedora install, so that you will 
>>have networking available from the onboard NIC.
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, it's clear nVidia has changed the PCI IDs on the GeForce 61x0 +
>nForce 4x0 ... see my blog entry here ...  
>http://thebs413.blogspot.com/2005/12/linux-on-nvidia-c51nv44-nforce.html  
>
>So it is _not_ the same as the other chips in nForce4/Pro series.
>
>  
>
>>The system seems very nice -- I'm using it now, restoring backed up data 
>>to the new drive. The 4400 processor seems nice and speedy.
>>    
>>
>
>You're going to see improved response time because of how Linux handles
>MP scheduling.  The Linux kernel prefers to sacrifice response time for
>throughput, by minimizing re-entry and the associated context switching.
>On MP, you can now have 2 re-entries without any additional context
>switching -- and the response time on a desktop or workstation is
>noticable from the user-level.
>
>
>  
>