I was thinking about getting a new Biostar TA 770 A2+ (moving up from an Epox 8rda3+ with Athlon XP Barton 3.0 with a GF 6800GT AGP). I plan on putting a 64x 5000+ or so in it, but I want the newer chipset so that I can put in a Phenom once they actually work properly and come down in price. From what I can tell so far, this board is the best Nvidia 770 offering available (heard the ASUS board layout sucks and runs really hot). Upon reading some reviews on Newegg, someone posted that the board will only support DDR800 though. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are they mistaken? I thought that the max ram speed was governed by the CPU architecture? If the reviewer was correct (I can't find anything to the contrary) would this be something that could be fixed in a possible future BIOS update? Basically, I want to future-proof my mobo as much as possible and I was hoping that this would be a good route to go.... fully supports Phenom, PCI ex 2.0 etc. No DDR3 but from what I hear the price/performance ratio is no where near where it should be right now. Any ideas and/or comments are appreciated.

Thanks!

Ya I have been looking at that motherboard also. The website says it will support DDR2 1066 ram, you just have to have a Phenom plugged in of course. And yes that board does seem to have the best layout of the current 770 chip set models, and I hear the T-Force over clock very well.

Hmmm... I looked at the website and it doesn't say that it supports 1066, but I have seen some other posts that indicate it will... can you link to your source?

Guys, I registered here JUST to save your rears. IF you buy this POS do so with caution and DO NOT flash it with the bios released on 1/18/08, file name A78XA116.BST. It totally hosed my board. The flash went great, then upon reboot came up with about every error in the bios, incl checksum. It's like they didn't even test it. Re-flashing didn't help.

Some other notes:

Biostar doesn't even list the board on the products page. You have to get to the info via a flash banner. You have to keep refreshing the ad until the 770 appears.

The clear cmos jumper is a NIGHTMARE to reach. It's crammed completely up against a lower pci slot. I have to take my audigy out to reach it with a pair of small needle nose. Yes, it's that bad.

Nobody tells you it uses 24 pin PSU and an 8 pin CPU connector.

I never got my IDE drives to work.

Needless to say this sucker is heading back to newegg. I can't believe how bad it turned out to be. I even gave it great reviews at first. What a hassle. Worst is calling MS YET AGAIN to reactivate XP. grrrr.

I just thought that I'd let everyone know that there is literally NO info on this board out there. In fact, I googled Biostar TA770 and it was the NUMBER 1 GOOGLE HIT! I'd like to see a comprehensive review.

Short Review:

Ordered from Newegg on Wed 16th of Jan:

Biostar TA770 A2+ $81.99
EVGA 8800GT $249.99
Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Box $99.99 (good price! now it is back to $129)
2 Gig Kingston DDR2 1066 (2x1gig)
Western Digital 500GB 7200RPM SATA 150 $104.99
Cooler Master Hyper TX2 $21.99

I ordered on Wednesday before bed on Wednesday the 16th. UPS saver overnight was $15 more than regular shipping so I sprung for it thinking it I would have it for the weekend.

WRONG.

Everything shipped EXCEPT the memory which shipped (supposedly) from a different warehouse on Friday. I was supposed to get in Monday but I guess it will come today (I hope) (Tues 22nd).

I initally planned on gutting my old box and moving new parts into it, but upon further reflection and since I have a pretty good old rig (Barton 2500 oc'd to 3000 speed... not sure what MHZ that it though...GF 6800GT 1gig DDR) I decided to keep the old rig as-is (to use as a media center PC in the living room) and buy a new case.

I went to the local Micro-center on Sunday and picked up a Antec Sonata III quiet case with built in 500watt earth-power PSU for $99 (no rebate). I also picked up a SATA Samsung 20X DVDR with Lightscribe for $35 (OEM).

I got everything home Sunday evening and started the install.

First impressions:

CPU - Nice box. Stickers included in box. Sealed with holographic AMD sticker.

Cooler - This thing is freaking huge. Has a chintzy small power connector instead of the molex ones I see some using.

Mobo - Looks nice. Chipset heatsink seems a little loosely attached. Plenty of room on the board. SATA ports are at the very bottom front corner of the board. If you have a big case, do yourself a favor and get a >24" sata cord. Mine BARELY reached.

8800GT - From what I have heard there isn't much deviation in form on these. Standard cooler. Had a piece of plastic film shipped on top to keep it from getting scratched. Came with VGA to digital connector and a SVideo + Compenent cables combo out plug adapter. Card has a power connector (4 pin methinks) at the front of the card.

Case - I have looked at plenty of case lately and this case is really nice. First off, it is HEAVY. The gauge of the steel is appreciably heavier than any other case I have ever handled. Paint job (black gloss) is nice but has a bit of orange peel to it (I used to work in auto industry... I have lots of experience in this area). The PSU connectors are as follows (from memory):

4 SATA ( 2 leads with 2 plug on eavh lead)
1 main mobo connector
1 aux mobo connector (smaller plug)
8(?) molex 4X2
Floppy
PCI
??? maybe missing some here.

The case is laid out pretty nicely on the inside. It has a handy rail that runs about 1/3 of the way down from the top that is 3/4 hollow which allows you to run cables through it for a cleaner look. HD mount transversely (front of drive goes to left side of case from the front). HD cages all have neat little silicon grommets that support the drive. Antec says that this is to reduce noise but I don't know about that. I think they will be more useful as a shock absorbtion/vibration reduction measure.

Case has a large fan at rear which pulls air from the front lower vents of the case. The fan has a 3 position (low/med/high) switch that controls fan speed. Behind the air intake on the front of the case, there is a removable washable air filter (access from the bottom of the case @ front bezel).

As I said before, I am really happy with this case. It is very high quality and has a decent 500W PSU builit into it. Lowest price I could find the PSU for was $60 so you are getting a really nice QUIET case for $40.

Well I get everything installed and got my cable routhing done and fired it up. Sounds good. Mobo beeps continuously because I have no RAM yet. Once I get the RAM in I will post back with MOBO and overclocking results and maybe even some benchmarks.

Brian

Im the one who reviewed at newegg.

Heres why I said ddr2 800mhz. First newegg listed it AND biostar did on the GLOBAL site usa site does not list it yet. Second the box says ddrII 800 and usually, they do list maz supported speed on teh box (nice marketing mess up biostar team) 3rd, ONLY supports ddrII 1066 as it turns out with a Phenom cpu. Its NOT the mem controler dddrII is ddrII. ITs the speed IE the divider since amd uses a division of overall cpu clock speed. Any rate it will run it, the mobo also has to support it if your using spd enhanced timing mode etc etc (also called EPP or SLI). But to reach 1066 on am2 (not am2+) you need to oclock the fsb and use the ddrII 800 divisor.


The new bios IS bad. I dw it too and also got dead board. BUT there is a way out folks. First boot blocker should have activated and then you can boot off of cd or floppy to reflash. The primary boot block is protected and not overwritten during flash. So make a flash cd or floppy and reflash. I tried new bios 3x its just plain bad. I told Biostar about this so it should either be fixed or removed soon.

Just reflash using the Older bios on there site it works good. (there only 2 on site for this get the one with c in its name)




Hope this helped clear the mess up Im reviewing this board and just registered here to give some insight and maybe save a few dead boards while Im at it. I will certainly cover this in the review and give biostar some bad marks for the bios issues. Otherwise its been a GREAT board, the best Ive owned so far. Now if they can just fix the bios mess they made.

Hope you didnt rma it yet cause the board is still good Just follow the cd flash process if you need help I can guide you I saved mine from the exact same issue you had. All the info was found on biostar website for recovery though it wasnt easy to find. OH and awardflash isnt on the global site anymore. Its on USA site (freaken mess-have to go back and forth between the two sites!). You wan AWDFL882. Wrong award will NOT work as it willact like 100% then hang. I used a older one at first since biostar hid theres. Didnt work that way. Only there awardflash worked for me.

I am glad you got it working. Yeah, I did send it back. Got me an Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless coming on Thur. It's kinda what I wanted in the first place and I never could get my ide working on the Biostar and there was a pretty long delay on boot which may have been from using an nvidia gpu from what i understand.

I dunno, with Bio's seemingly lacking support I just went ahead and joined the masses...

Why did they post that bios? then they wrote me and told me it works great in the systems they tested. I don't get it

the long delay is the overclocking feature that powers the cpu on first with certain startup voltage etc. the manual mentions it a little (but not in much detail).

Why they posted that bios I have no idea.......but it sure isnt working on pcs out side of their labs, how could it effected BOTH of us the same way if it isnt on their end heh. I tried the windows and dos flash with clear cmos enabled and disabled in windows. I tested that bios in every way I could.....it wouldnt work. I even had just keyboard and monitor with NO extra pci devices hard drives or anything. Bios is just plain bad or got corrupted on their site.

Biostar co. isnt bad in my opinion its one of my favorites in fact. Ever since my last few asus boards gave me headaches I stopped paying the extra for them. They all have a problem here or there or just a bad product even. In this case it was just a mess up somewhere. The problem is thats a HUGE messup. I have the Biostar Tforce550 for like a year and its good board. Flashed that a few times with no issues. Overclocks good, but I think this TA770 can do alot more (especially on fsb).

I just wanted the 770 chipset, super low power use, really cool running with pci-e 2.0 and a pci-e integrated sata controler and lan. OF course native Phenom support too, am2+ has HT3 and the advanced power features that allow the quad cores to use less power (like advanced cool and quiet). Regular Am2 board will run Phenom but HT3 and power saving modes wont work. No garuntee on ddr1066 speeds either.

Just a update for those interested the WORKING bios on their site, one with c in its name. Finally enabled DDR1066 ON AM2 cpu's. This is great news. We got the 1066 divider it appears, nice!

Having problems installing Vista from SATA optical drive. Froze up every time. Anyone have any ideas? I did a small bit of research and found that if I swap SATA with EIDE it may work. I sure hope so. I don't want to waste another 5 hrs tonight So far I am pretty unimpressed with the bios. Ugly ass boot screen and yes it does take a few seconds to get going. Anyone know if you can disable boot graphic. Terrible "i love mother earth" style green graphic splash screen.

RTFM, hehe. It tells you the longer boot is to power the cpu up first with start up voltage to increase oclock success. Logo is easy to disable just go back into that ugly bios and look around it literral says disable logo.... The bios impressed me, it took everything the T550 had and added some more. Tons of mem tweaks AND tweaks for the a64 internal mem control (wooopaaaa!). Id say it must just be me, but alot of other hardware sites and enthusiest liked it too! heh.


Xp went right on BUT I had to delete the MBR and recreate my hard disk partitions. Again RTFM, if covers this. Its the sata IDE emulation new boards use sometimes they arent compatable and must recreate MBR and partitions. Hey its still better then that F6 crap my asus made me do, which forced me to make a boot cd. Ill like emulation better.

So if you havent wipe the drive (after data moved of course). You need NO partions, no anything. Start over. XP went right on for me after that. Vista prob hanging cause it cant access the hdd right Id think.

El_brio - You can disable it, in advanced bios features, disable Full Screen Logo Show - No more lovely orb on a T.

At everyone else having problems - I have fixed mine and shall share it with you - DO NOT FLASH THE BIOS WITH THEIR WINDOWS PROGRAM - you will have issues - BootBlocker may pop up.

On my machine I downloaded http://bootdisk.com/plan20/flashcd.zip using the Ultra-Iso trial I made the boot disk with the following -
Well crap - Biostar took it off the site - http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en-u [...] p?S_ID=310

Now its only the 12-20 bios not the 1-20.
If you are brave - http://www.lejabeach.com/Biostar/TA770A2+/ has the newest bios.
Regardless - Make the boot CD to include the Flashing utility (also on lejabeach) and the bios - Let's use A78XA116.BST as the bios.
Once the CD is burned with Flashing utility and the 116 Bios. Reboot (or if you are using another computer to burn, boot the dead one). It will boot to the CD and say the bios utilities are on R: (This may or may not be correct, on my system they were on the S: Drive). When you have located your bios utilities. Type the following -

AWD887 A78XA116.BST /py /sn /cd /cp /cc /cks /r

This should overwrite your existing bios so that nothing is left from a previous version (I got errors before not typing the commands after because it wouldn't update some sectors.)
Now Boot!

Also (for those using unlocked chips) using the newest Bios you can turn off the K8 Cool and Quiet in the overclocking area and change the multiplier (FID) setting - I myself am using the BE5000 - I was able to get 15.5x200 for a smooth 3.1ghz (500mhz jump) at stock voltage.

If overclocking is your style. Another fantastic forum to read is over at the Rebels Haven http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/si [...] 000463;p=1

They talk about using the Phenom - But an interesting read none the less - helped me fix my issue.

All in all, even though the board sucked for the first week with Bios issues, now its a champ and I am thoroughly impressed.

Damn. Tried to flash new bios and it f'd me up. I was hoping I'd get lucky. It looks now like the new bios is off the site. The only one available is

A78XAC20.BST

Will I be able to flash this one from bootblock using awardflash?

Here is what I tried last night:

Made boot disk with award flash and the old bios "backup file" I made before flashing. I noticed that the file was named "backup.bin" since the other bios was a1116XXXXX.bst I renamed the backup "Backup.bst" to try to flash. Rebooted into Dos and tried but got error "This is not an Award BIOS file".

So... tonight I plan to:

Download a78xac20.bst and flash it

Qusestions:

Is this the "old" bios?
Will it flash as is or do I need to rename to .bin?

Thanks!

use this command when flashing -

AWD887 (if thats your flashing utility) A78XAC20.BST (if you use that bios) /py /sn /cd /cp /cc /cks /r

I covered my issues a couple of posts ago - when you go to flash does it overwrite everything? - IE in the flashing utility is it all white boxes or is the first few sections blue (meaning no upgrade)

With the commands at the end this should overwrite it all, giving you the ability to use the Jan 20 bios, but using the 12-20 bios is fine too.

Raeorn, like I said before the a78xac20.bst IS the good one (you said before it was bad one) Looks like they listened cause I emailed biostar tech department with every bit of info from 6 hours of flashing this board in every way possible.

Listen close folks. ITS NOT THE WINDOWS FLASHER -this is a myth since the day asus started it (biostar and other adpotped it later). I FLASHED IN WINDOWS AND DOS neither worked that new bios was just BAD thats all.

I flashed the working one in BOTH XP and DOS- crazy? Maybe but I put hours into finding out was it clear cmos? Was is windows flasher? NOPE it was the bios that simple. Atleast biostar listened......anyways anyone who wants to recover pay attention to this.

FIRST- go to www.bootdisk.com

Get this file

The 1.44 is really a link click it-its a cd boot image with min drivers for flashing. IT WORKS I used it for this exact board and problem.

Now you need the real award flash that recognises this new 8mb ROM. Wrong award means it cant identify nor flash proper. Ill help you find tha tcause biostar hides it about. Its at the US site only so I had to search both Global and us.
http://www.biostar-usa.com/downloa [...] fileid=126
thats the flash link

Now make the disc following bootdisc instructions its REALLY easy. Drop the bios and the award flash in the folder it says.

Now you dont need to type all that either. Just the name of flash program (space) name of bios file

like this AWDFL882.EXE a78xac20.bst

Thats ALL. Now press enter key and it will open flash and run it. When its done it says flash succesfull at bottom will say press enter to restart. Now it MAY NOT reboot. Let it go a minute. If it stays black screen etc. Just shut off pc and remove power plug from case. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Mine wouldnt reboot even after successfull flash without the power cycle the one time. Now on the 4th flash (remember I was testing the bios THOROUGHLY) it did restart proper so its just something to keep in mind.


Again thats the exact cd, flash program and bios I used and brought the board back to life. Just htough Id share the hours of testing with you as I did with biostar.


P.S. Do NOT rename the bios file. Biostar bios are name .bst AND the flash program I linked reads .bst its a way to help prevent using thewrong flash program and really messing up (like loosing boot block protector). Renaming that and using wrong award file could leave you with a really dead bios.

Gonna have to try tonight. I finally had XP up and running last night and then decided to flash the 116 bios to see if I could get VISTA to install. Big mistake trying to flash from inside windows.

Has anyone here flashed 116 bios from dos and had any luck with it?