DS3 Question...AHCI with Gigabyte sata disabled?

[shawn1998]

If I disable the Gigabyte sata2 ports, do I still have the ability to have AHCI with the Intel ICH8 ports? I have a Plextor sata dvd-rw (755SA), so I have no need for the ide port provided by the add-in controller. I tried to install the Intel Matrix drivers, but the install process failed (said I didn't have compatible hardware or something like that).

How do I configure my bios settings so that I utilize my a Seagte 7200.10 (perpendicular recording) sata2 hard drive to it's full potential? I've asked this question in other threads, but can never seem to get anyone to respond. Any help would be greatly appreciated. (Yes, I've used the search function, but couldn't find an answer)

Shawn

[Lestat]

AHCI isnt going to get you any better than normal (unless you have tested said perpendicular drive on another baord or this board with AHCI and seen a particular difference, thus i must update my memory warehouse with this new information)

and the board does NOT use the ICH8 for SATA it uses the butt ugly and craptacular JMicron for all the sata ports.
dont believe me... enable AHCI and find out what drivers you have to install they say jmicron not intel.

and you cant disable the sata ports without disabling all the sata from what i have tried atleast

i use a silicon image 3132 pci express sata raid card. works like a charm and got it for 20 bucks on ebay
its a tiny little card and its the first and only card i have ever seen actually use the pci-e 1x slot.
fits perfectly in the first slot on the mobo..
better than that stupid jmicron

[shawn1998]

I used the DS3 for about a month with all of the hardware in my sig. I recently swapped it out for the P5NSLI so I could run SLI. When I had it installed, I had the Gigabyte sata ports disabled and my two Raptors (not in raid) worked just fine. They showed up in device manager as running in DMA mode 5 and used the Intel ide drivers that installed with the INF (version .1006, the latest). The only problem is when you disable the Gigabyte sata ports, the next option of AHCI is greyed out.
So based on what you are saying, AHCI is only supported by the Gigabyte sata ports. Well, not a big deal I guess. I plan on installing the board into my second system, paired with an E6400 tonight.

Thanks for the response. I'll post back tonight after I do some experimenting when I install the E6400.

Shawn

[Lestat]

installing the intel drivers only gets you the vanilla Intel IDE drivers.
it doesnt give AHCI or full ICH8 SAta support.

this is a gigabyte jmicron controller not intel IDE ICH8 SATA.

this is one of the big reasons why this board is so cheap. if they had went with the Intel ICH8 Sata/RAid it would have increased the cost of the baord.

now i know the website says its ich8 but like i mentioned installing the intel drivers doesnt do anything. you have to install the jmicron driver. which... yuck just get a pci-e 1x sata controller.

search for the silicon image 3132 pci-e controller there are a few of them and the Sil controller is much better than the intel and the jmicron.

[shawn1998]

Interesting. I may have to look around for a good sata controller. I am a little confused, though. There are two sets of sata ports on the DS3, 1 set for the native Intel ICH8 and the other for the Gigabyte. If I disable the Gigabyte, I still have the Intel ICH8 ports available, which means installing the Gigabyte/JMicron drivers do nothing for me (which I did when I first assembled the system). It's just that under system properties, the Raptors show up as ide drivers, as well as does the Plextor 755SA and the drivers used are dated for August 2006 from Intel. Installing the Gigabyte drivers does not change this at all (with the Gigabyte controller disabled in the bios). This is telling me that the board does indeed use the Intel ICH8 sata controller, but doesn't have the ability to use AHCI (which kinda sucks, if you ask me).

When I booted up the computer with the Gigabyte sata controller enabled, there were about 10 (I'm guessing from memory) ide ports in the post screen. If I disabled it, there were only 4.

I may end up looking for that si 3132 sata controller if I can't figure this out.

Again, thanks for the help.

Shawn

[bing]

About SATA capabilities, check this out ICH7R vs ICH8 vs ICH8R vs nForce4 SLI X16 MCP vs nForce 570 SLI MCP (http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2-chipsets/index.x?pg=2)

[Lestat]

the orange slots are the standard SATA the purple are the RAID.
both are infact controlled by the jmicron chipset.

now.. i know that you dont have to install the drivers for the orange slots but you do if you turn native mode off. when you turn native mode off they instantly require that you install the JMicron drivers.
now whats nice since the jmicron drivers and chipset suck, is that you can tell it to not use the jmicron and simply tell it to let you chose the driver and then you chose the standard IDE Primary and secondary drivers.
but you have to do this 4 times. 2 times for the primary and 2 times for the secondary. (4 orange slots)
I also do not know if you lose any other functionality by using the generic drivers.

i have not noticed any difference but i really never pay any attention unless its on a situation like this.

i'll tell ya what. ill go thru and test different modes tonight or this weekend and let you fellas know what I find out. now this will be my results and as always may differ from yours.

final note. if you do disable the ide/sata option under the bios you will lose your cdroms. since the ide port is part of the jmicron chipset if you disable it... yup you lose the IDE port also. totally frickin retarded

[shawn1998]

Ahhh, that makes it a little clearer. Thanks! I think I'll do a bit of testing tonight when I put the DS3 back together. I'll post back, too.

Shawn

[shawn1998]

About SATA capabilities, check this out ICH7R vs ICH8 vs ICH8R vs nForce4 SLI X16 MCP vs nForce 570 SLI MCP (http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2-chipsets/index.x?pg=2)
Wow, excellent info. I guess that pretty much answers my question on AHCI. Pretty crappy, if you ask me. Thanks for the link, it helped out alot!

Shawn