OK assembled everything no problem.

powered on, nothing.

after a ew minutes and a lil luck i got it to post, but the image would flicker, and eventually cut off.

pursue this repeatedly, so I figured its either the Mobo Slot or the GFX Card itself, I eventually reseated it a dozen or so times, and the last time i cleaned off the contacts for both the PCIe interface and the Crossfire contacts (just in case) and blew out the slot some, and so far its been running non stop trying to get Windows to install.

windows would black screen in setup at the same spot until i dropped the memory back to DDR1333.

After that, setup would blue screenand then get stuck in a BSOD loop that it rebooted before i could read the issues.

did this till i took one stick out,
After removing a stick, windows installed quickly without a hitch,
now im in a vanila Win7 install on 3GB of ram instead of 4, so Im gonna update everything and stress test the CPU and GFX.

Any thoughts on some of these problems?

Swap one of the sticks and run Memtest, to check if that one was faulty.
Move one stick to the empty slot and see if everything runs okay, run Memtest again.

After this you should be able to tell whether that stick of memory is faulty, or if the motherboard has a bad memory slot/issues with 4 sticks.

You seem to indicate you were running above 1333.

OC memory speed is not much of a positive factor with AMD -- things rarely run faster with faster memory. However, OC memory is a source of issues. Also, using 4 sticks can be a source of issues -- PARTICULARLY when over clocking. OCers use 2 sticks.

The memory controller is built into the CPU. I think your CPU likes 1066 and may run with 1333 -- or may not -- depending on the motherboard. Higher than 1333 is "asking for it" Thing is, even 800 is enough to get virtually full performance (FPS wise) -- as my own tests have shown. The newer AMD CPUs run 1333 (e.g. Phenom II X6).

I don't mess with the memory timings. I let the MB and CPU automatically settle on what "they" like. I never have issues. I use the unlocked multiplier for OC the CPU (again OC AMD memory doesn't do anything worthwhile for games). A small boost in memory speed (say a couple percent) during OC "fine tuning" is OK. Of course, I have had a couple bad memory sticks in my life -- none in the last few years.

ok lemme Recap, My first post was from my MP3 player (Zune HD), So I had to condense a lot. not to mention the typos from the small keyboard lol


Received the Last of the parts yesterday.

I Took the cover off of both sides of the case, looked to see if the mainboard tray was removable (it wasnt), So i Set it (the case) on its side and pulled all the Power, USB, Audio, LED and Switch Leads to the side. Popped out the I/O PLate and popped the plate that came with the mainboard in.

Then I Put the Mainboard mounts in the holes that I needed for the mainboard.

Grounded myself to the case, and Gently lowered the mainboard into the case, and then positioned it and put in the mounting screws.

Then I connected the Pins for PWR LED, HDD LED, PWR SW, RESET SW, and the PC Beep Speaker. Then Connected the 2 Headers for the front pannel USB Ports, eSATA and the HD Audio Header for the Front panel headphones.

Next I opened the Ram package and placed the Ram in Slots B1 and B2 (the ones away from the CPU Socket), Then opened the CPU package and lowered the CPU into its socket and closed the clamp. Then Mounted the CPU heatsink and clamped that down. noticed i had plety of room so i moved the ram to A1 and A2.

I Added the Modules I needed to the PSU (2x PCI 6Pin, 1 For SATA, 1 For 5v Molex (for extra fans), and the 5Pin Molex to 3 Pin Fan Adapter)

Then I hooked up the Front Fan to SysFan1, the rear fan to ChaFan1, and the CPU to CPUFan1, the 24Pin ATX Power and the 12v 8 Pin CPU connectors to the mainboard, hooked the Side panel fans to the Molex to 3 pin adapters.

Plugged in PSU

Pressed power to ensure the system had power, system powered up and gave beeps for HDD detection, CPU / ram test, no bootable media, etc (I'd seen and heard this board boot up prior to this so I know the beeps were the boot seq. and not bios beeps even though there's no VGA present). Also tested the reset switch.

Next I opened the XFX 5830 Box, and noted the documents and how long and heavy this sucker was (seriously, makes my eVGA 8800GTS look Small).

Lowered into PCIe x16 Slot, pushed the clamp over on the rear of the slot, srewed in the back plate, connected the 2x6 Pin Power connectors. Hooked up LCD via HDMI.

Pressed Power... Nada..... System would power on, but fans would Idle at low, HDDs powered up, but it wouldnt post.

So I took the GFX Card out, and powered up and listened for the Boot Sequence Beeps. System Posted. and Beeped when it coudlnt find bootable media as expected.

So I unplugged the 6 Pin Power leads from the card and put it back in, and powered up without the power leads and the system would power on and idle, no post, with the vga fan spinning up to max rpm and back down to idle in a sequence. Which was expected.

So I plugged the power leads back in. Booted up, LCD came out of suspend, but the image was only on for a second, then flickered off, then came back and then scrambled and went off.

So I shut down to check the power.

Booted again, and noticed if i held the card in the slot at a certain angle it would boot fine, but eventually have the flickering problem.

So After removing and reseating the card at least 20 times in an hour and a half span. I decided to take it out one last time, blow out the PCIe slot, and clean off the contacts for the PCIe Interface (in case something was causing a bad connection) and the XFire interface (in case something got on them that would cause a short).

Reaseated the card and booted up gravy. Checked the BIOS settings for the Memory, power, i/o and CPU menus. Bios Posts all 4 GB of ram and correctly posts the CPU model. for Giggles I Enabled ACC and booted a PhenomII X4, but I didnt keep it unlocked, as I dont have the heatsink for it right now, so I cant comment on if the cores were stable, but they all unlocked, turn ACC back off and booted the normal X2 555 BE.

So Since the Hardware was booting stable I went ahead and hooked up the Harddisk and Optical Drives (which i left unplugged from the Mainboard and Power to avoid repeatedly power cycling them).

So I booted to Windows 7 DVD, it would load the files "Starting Windows" and goto a black screen.... and locked up, Repeated about 10 times and I figured it was a ram issue, so I went into the bios and dropped the clock from DDR1600 9-9-9-24 (the settings that were on the box), to Auto, which turned it back to DDR1333.

Booted the DVD again, and it booted and did everything all the way up to the first reboot (the "Complete Install" step) and it would get to a blue screen, then continue to Blue screen loop. I tried to get past to the Blue screen and re-start the install process at least 5 times over an hour. No Dice there.

So I Pulled the Ram Stick from A2 and setup went all the way through and Installed flawlessly with only 2 GB. Set a Username/password for my brother, and a "Admin" username/password for myself as a back up if he needs repairs to the O/S.

Went ahead and did windows update which took longer than the install, lol, and then shut down, and put the memory stick in Slot B1 instead of A2, Closed the case, booted to Windows Fine, windows recognized all 4 GB. and started the update process again, (Service Pack 1 etc).

I downloaded FurMark to check the GFX Card, and it ran the Benchmark at 40 Frames/sec score of 23xx something w/ windows 7 default drivers (I'll post when I finish updating all the drivers) max temp was 77^C but like i said i havent installed drivers so I couldnt control the fan.

I left it running today while I goto work and will resume installing software and stress testing it tonite, with Prime95 and a few other CPU tortures, as well as Furmak and 3d mark.

later this weekend when I get to my Apartment I'll grab my Ubuntu and "Ultimate Boot CD" DVDs to run memtest (we dont have a MemTest for Windows yet?).


So All In All, if the memory checks out, then I know Slot A2 is bad.

And Im still wondering if the GFX card had something on the contacts causing a bad connection or if the Slot or card is bad, but its been fine since cleaning the contacts, ran Furmark nicely no artifacts.

Phenom II 555 supports:



According to your ASRock manual Caution 3:



If using only two sticks of memory use the blue slots per the Manual:

Right now I have it in A1, A2 actually. (i was thinking A1 and A2 were blue and B1 and B2 were white.

I had both of them in the BLUE slots when it was blue screening, moving one to the white channel and it seems fine, so if one blue slot is bad I'll have to move the other to the 2nd white slot o get dual channel.

Right now everything seems stable, I'm still at work

yeah I put the ram back to Auto and alot of issues went away.


As for Overclocking the CPU, I have to get a decent cooler first,

Im prolly gonna just order a Zalman 9500 or 9700, I know those work well and I have one in my system,

His system seemed much smaller than I thought on the inside so thats why im leaning towards the 9500NT ( with the ghetto AM2/AM3 retention bracket that doesnt require me to take the mainboard apart.) I know people that cooler their overclocked X6 Phenoms with it.

After I get the Decent Cooler I'll Prolly bump it to 4 cores and see if its stable and sloly increase from there, if not I'll just bump the stable cores.

I wonder if it'd help if you tried the RAM in both blue slots or both white at the proper 1333 setting?

According to your manual:



So there you go. Leave them in the white slots and try running them at 1333.

i orignially installed them in A2-B2 (the white slots) farther away from teh CPU but ended up moving them.

I noticed the line about the DDR1600 in the white slots, but I thought it they were clocked back down to DDR1333 by the cpu it wouldnt matter, maybe it does,

So I'll move the 1 Dimm from A1 to A2 that way both will be in the white slots.

so far everything seems stable enough where its at though.


the only thing Im worried about was why the gfx card was being that nasty when I first installed it.

while Im at it, which Catalyst drivers do you recommended for the 5830 Allen