GT wrote:
> For video editing reasons (CS4), I would to up my RAM from 2GB. A bigger
> upgrade from my Core2 e6400 is out of budget, so this is a specific
> motherboard+RAM question...
>
> ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA. Manual says max RAM = 2GB (2x1GB DDR2), but manual
> was written when 2GB was a large amount of RAM and the board probably wasn't
> tested on more. Anyone tried this board with 4GB (2x2GB)? I already have a
> non-ASRock BIOS to allow my HD4770 to run, so any thoughts on the above RAM
> upgrade? Another BIOS Update perhaps? Impossible due to chipset limitation?
>
> Google obviously returns various results, such as the below article on
> TomsHardware, but I want to hear from 'real people' with experience!
>
> http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/...edual-possible
>
> BTW, I am aware of the WinXP x86 4GB limit and only 'seeing' around 3GB etc,
> but for my video editing, 3GB is better than 2GB
>
> TIA,
> GT
>
>
Your motherboard is very similar to mine (retired). I used the SATA2 version,
which has a VT8237S Southbridge, for about five months or so. It's possible
they're using the same Northbridge (PT880 Ultra).
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.as...4CoreDual-VSTA http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.as...l-SATA2%20R2.0
Now, when I researched this, the story on the VIA web site seemed to be,
that 2GB was the limit. At the time, DDR2 was pretty well at its lowest
price point, so purely for fun, I bought a 2x2GB kit. I tried 1GB+2GB and
2GB+2GB DDR2 on my board. Both configurations work, that's the good news.
The bad news was, I was getting memory errors. No amount of adjusting
first level adjustments (tRAS, tRCD, that kind of thing) would fix it.
I suspect one of the lower level adjustments might have fixed it, but I
went back to my 2x1GB config. For me, the 2x1GB config was rock solid,
at DDR2-533 CAS3. The DDR2 was showing fewer random errors, than my
previous DDR400 motherboards.
The experience on some other chipsets back in those days, was
that there was a subtle difference between 1GB and 2GB memory modules.
The BIOS needed some kind of "tuning", to make them work well.
And Asrock is not known for responsible BIOS updating. There
is no reason for them to add 2GB module support, in terms of
tuning. Because their motherboard adverts are in line with the
VIA stated 2x1GB limit.
For my board, I ended up using a hacked BIOS from a German site.
All of that stuff seems to have been removed, so the era of
easy fixes is now over. If you do decide to buy a 2x2GB kit,
yes, it might work. But will it work well ? Maybe not well
enough to keep it installed.
In a way, it's rather sad. The hardware on the motherboard, is
pretty decent for the price (mine was ~$65). It's the BIOS
that sucks. Virtually everything wrong with the board to date,
could be traced to the BIOS. The reason I had to ditch the board,
is the BIOS freaks out when it detected a WinTV card with
BT878, so the motherboard had to go. (All the disk interfaces
slow down, due to some kind of bus arbitration adjustment that
sucks all the life out of the busses. I'm not putting up with
that, so I had to get another motherboard.)
For me, it was pretty close to an ideal motherboard. It had four
PCI slots, which is one thing I was after at the time. And I was
able to use my old AGP video card, which was another plus. It
made for a cheap incremental upgrade.
Paul
Ram limit on motherboard ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA 
Linear Mode
