Research on ASRock 990FX Extreme4: Postponed

[ragnargd]

Hi,
 

Quote

 

tl;dr

the instance of the board i own is not stable, it's not booting even to bios every fifth time or so. I'll continue when i have a new and working testsubject.

Otherwise, test results so far are very promising, this might be the most compatible board yet... if it just were intact...

The best is the behaviour of the AMD-controller: I was now finally able to use a SATA III SSD (BX500 120GB) for W98SE! Before, i was only able to use SATA II SSDs, so this is significant step forward. Still using IDE-Mode/FAT32/no trim yet, but let's see what rloew did there, once i have a working one...

 

I got a used ASRock 990FX Extreme4. I installed an AMD FX 4320, 1GB Ram, and an NVidia 7900GT 256MB, all connected to my VGA/PS/2 KVM switch, at a 1920x1200 Dell.

Naked W98SE installion: Check! System shuts down clean via "Start" or ATX-button.

Well-behaved (means: Detected, does not work on W98SE, but does not trash the system, so can be used to the full by XP/W10 in Multiboot):

- USB2, USB3, Power-saving CPU-states, onboard LAN, onboard HD Audio

...  - I disabled LAN and Audio, as i will use a compatible PCIe 1x Gigabit LAN and SB Audigy(2) PCI later on anyway, for XP/W10 as well.

Caveats (same as with any FX chipset):

- SATA channel 5 and 6 can (and have to) be set to IDE mode, so an SSD and a DVD drive can be used

... - but the AHCI-channels 1-4, and drives at them, are not even detected by W98SE, which is what i like most about the FX chipsets ... :-)

- Using himemx is mandatory, even with 512MB

- Deactivate the Marvell SATA controller! (Did not test the IDE/Firewire controller yet)

   - Will not work, and send system into the dreaded compatibility-mode, disabling any CD/DVD-Drive. Maybe later with rloews driver... WIll have to check AHCI-mode later ...

Installed: IE, DX, Realtek LAN Driver, patched inofficial NV Driver, SP3.0c. Looks good, but because the board seems to have a problem, strange behaviour... Never get to the point to install NUSB.

 

Edited March 17, 2020 by ragnargd