Official GIGABYTE X38-DQ6/X38T-DQ6 Info/BIOS Thread

[radical]

Also why do you want to build the raid array after installing windows? why not use the intel raid bios (ctrl-i).

When you want to migrate your existing data from an existing drive to the array, it builds the RAID5 array. You can only do this with the tool in windows. I built the first drive from a mirror on my old machine. Got it so the machine would boot from it then built the "new" array from the "existing" drive. Everything appeared to be going well - it was taking a heck of a lot longer than it should have, but otherwise ok. Then sometime during the night it ran out of disk space, the machine hung up and would not boot back up properly (see BIOS comment).

All Intel says about it is that they support NCQ, not that the drives have to be NCQ:

In 2007, Intel Matrix Storage Technology continues its support of hardware storage features. 3Gb/s support doubles the hard drive to chipset transfer rate, providing additional responsiveness and headroom, the eSATA support in ICH9R extends this high performance interface outside of the desktop and provides expanded connectivity. By including support for Serial ATA Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), Native Command Queuing (NCQ) provides additional performance & faster boot times, hot plug capability to allow drives to be added or removed with the PC running, and staggered spin up to reduce power loads on machines with multiple drives.

Besides, I have no trouble creating the array, wouldn't it complain if the disks were not the right type?


As BigDK said, does your hdd's support NCQ ? cause it seems that Intel's AHCI/RAID works only with NCQ drives ...

Uhhggg, you might be on to something there. I can't find anything that says that (Intel only supports NCQ drives)! But yes, I think the drives are not NCQ. Just regular ordinary WD500 SATA2's. Oh well, I guess I have another reason to go to a different MoBo now! I can return the MoBo, but not the drives.... Besides, the BIOS setup is screwed on the board too! I tried to go to it and it just kept scrolling numbers/letters, like someone was leaning on the keyboard (and they weren't).

One last thing - RAID 5 software should still be quicker than RAID 1 (which I ran before), as long as the disks are all on the Master ports of the 3 sets of SATA pairs (which is the way I have it configured) on the Intel Matrix controller.

[ChrissTi]

radical: Before I bought this WD750 (supports NCQ), I had 2 Maxtors (no NCQ). Without AHCI/RAID enabled (AHCI/RAID controler set in bios like standard IDE) the drives were detected quick enough. When I enabled AHCI/RAID, the drives were very slow detected, and ... didn't wanted to boot from them (it seems like your have the same problem).

Besides, the BIOS setup is screwed on the board too! I tried to go to it and it just kept scrolling numbers/letters, like someone was leaning on the keyboard (and they weren't).

Well that can be a mobo problem, but also it can be a memory compatibility problem, or even a memory problem. This mobo is a little freaky with memoryes ...

[Hornet331]

One last thing - RAID 5 software should still be quicker than RAID 1 (which I ran before), as long as the disks are all on the Master ports of the 3 sets of SATA pairs (which is the way I have it configured) on the Intel Matrix controller.

No way a software raid 5 is faster then a raid 1, raid on is the basic read speed of the hdd, which depends on the hdd model itself, but i can be quite fast.

raid 5 gets you a bit better read speed, but write speed is horrible compared to raid 1 and not talk about raid 10 or raid 0.

Thats why i have gone with raid 10, i have tried raid 5 on my 965p Ds4 with ICH8R and i didn't liked the performance (it was a 4 drive raid 5 array). If you really want good performance with a raid 5 array there is no way arround a hardware controller.

anyway:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/h...d_0_bis_raid_5

here some numbers what to expect from the i700 in raid performance.

[Slowhand]

@ headshotWI
for Vista you don't need extra Raid/AHCI drivers like with XP. They come with Vista, so don't worry about it.

[jimmsch]

Will the F3 BIOS run the new E8500 or maybe even the Q9450? Or does that support only start at the F7 BIOS?

Thanks -Jim

[Supershanks]

gigabyte/jmicron ports are only of use when you've run out of intel sata ports am running on my abit ix38 quadgt the same matrix raid0/raid5 i was running on the dq6. see Matrix Raid for more info

luck

[ChrissTi]

gigabyte/jmicron ports are only of use when you've run out of intel sata ports am running on my abit ix38 quadgt the same matrix raid0/raid5 i was running on the dq6. see Matrix Raid for more info

luck

so it works and raid 5

[radical]

Don't think the memory is a problem, it was running for days without an issue. Oh well, not my problem now, I returned for refund. They thought it was strange that it would have to be NCQ disks too, but like I said, can't return the disks, but can return the MoBo.

In the past when I have had issues like this it was usually a flaky disk, but that is not the case here. Then again, that was usually with Hardware RAID sets. And I didn't have an issue booting off the singe Maxtor 80Gb (no NCQ) once I installed the drivers on the Gigabyte controller and then moved it to the Intel controller! Speed seemed normal as well. I would not be surprised if Intel neglects to mention that you need NCQ drives to go RAID on their controller . Seems like an oxymoron to me, because RAID 5 is faster than 1 and I have an old controller that does 1 (no NCQ) with no issues what so ever (thats where the Maxtor came from). It really is too bad, because the Intel Matrix windows tool is extremely easy to use and seems to work well.

We will see what happens, I ordered a 780i board and have to wait for re-stock. It's got a different manufacturers controller.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.

[Buggalugs]

radical: Before I bought this WD750 (supports NCQ), I had 2 Maxtors (no NCQ). Without AHCI/RAID enabled (AHCI/RAID controler set in bios like standard IDE) the drives were detected quick enough. When I enabled AHCI/RAID, the drives were very slow detected, and ... didn't wanted to boot from them (it seems like your have the same problem).
.

That would be because Intel says it doesnt support mode changes in BIOS after installation.

Intel says a motherboard must be configured before installation of OS in the mode of your choice and mode should not be changed afterwards....well the document said Intel "doesnt support" changes made in RAID/AHCI BIOS mode after installation of OS.

[Richard Dower]

Realtek 889A drivers, version 1.85:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false

[ChrissTi]

Buggalugs: It maybe, but to wait 10 more than seconds to detect a non NCQ drive ?!!!... Does it sayes that in that documentation ?

I noticed that if the AHCI/RAID drivers are not installed, and you enable AHCI/RAID in bios after you installed the OS in IDE mode, the OS gives a blue screen, and you can't do anything but reinstall the OS.

I don't know what radical did, but it seems that there are people that have their hdds on RAID 0 and 5 and it seems that it works.

[Buggalugs]

Hmmm im not sure ChrissTi but all i know is you should pick a mode , install and not change the BIOS settings after or you will have problems. Im not sure about Radicals issue either but i would be surprised If his problems come from the lack of NCQ Sata drive. Anyhow he has ditched the board so....

[ChrissTi]

Hmmm im not sure ChrissTi but all i know is you should pick a mode , install and not change the BIOS settings after or you will have problems. Im not sure about Radicals issue either but i would be surprised If his problems come from the lack of NCQ Sata drive. Anyhow he has ditched the board so....

With WD7500AYYS (has NCQ), I have no problem. I installed the OS with AHCI on and then I tryed to disable AHCI and ... is still working with no detection problems .

[radical]

I can tell you what I did - I installed the OS on the Gigabyte controller. Then I moved it to the Intel controller, with it set to just SATA (non-RAID). I then proceeded to build the RAID 5 array in the OS with the Intel Matrix tool. You can build the RAID 5 array from an existing disk and that is what I was trying to succeed at.

FYI

[radical]

Could be a non-NCQ drive. No where in the Intel docs does it say that it has to be, but then again, sometimes they are not all that clear in that kind of documentation.

Like you say - I moved on to a different board now. Even the retailer agreed it should not have been an issue. Maybe is was a manufacture batch with bad chips.

Rad

[ChrissTi]

I can tell you what I did - I installed the OS on the Gigabyte controller. Then I moved it to the Intel controller, with it set to just SATA (non-RAID). I then proceeded to build the RAID 5 array in the OS with the Intel Matrix tool. You can build the RAID 5 array from an existing disk and that is what I was trying to succeed at.

FYI

Wrong You have to make the raid from tha scratch ... not to install on standard sata. If you don't install it from scratch you will get a big blue screen because the OS does not have installed the raid driver.
The mobos were good.

[radical]

Hey Buggalugs and ChrissTi, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I think if you have only one drive, you will have no problem switching BIOS settings after installation. I think that the Intel ICH9R will detect it is only one drive and run AHCI, or ordinary SATA and not RAID. You might loose the Command Queuing ability, but it should still work.

That probably would change when you have more than one....

Just my thoughts, I have found nothing from Intel to dispute or verify this.

[radical]

Wrong You have to make the raid from tha scratch ... not to install on standard sata. If you don't install it from scratch you will get a big blue screen because the OS does not have installed the raid driver.
The mobos were good.

Hey ChrissTi, nope, not true, I tried both ways. To build your array from an existing disk, that disk has to be on the same controller and eventually part of that array. If you "build" the array from scratch in BIOS, it erases that existing disk! Then you can not build from existing.

I didn't get the Blue Screen when it was building the array, it was running perfectly happily. I got the Blue Screen with one disk (no array) on the Intel controller when it tried loading the drivers for the Intel controller at installation. I followed the Motherboard manual Exactly as they laid out for one disk and it still Blue Screened (both motherboards).

I had to try it this way, because I had no other recourse - I tried everything to install on the Intel controller (and I do mean everything).

[zicada]

Got some new memory today, after frying my old Ballistix 8500's.
Either those old sticks were really sub-par, or they had horrible issues with this board.

I decided to shell out for OCZ Flex 9200's, and im definately happy did that

im at DDR2 1100 4-4-4-4 PL6 (TRD 6) 4 hours into OCCT now

First time ive been able to get below 50ns in Everest with over 10k in read. Sick sticks!

At this point im getting better performance out of the new F7 than F3 too, plus the droop is alot better in F7.

Once my E8400 arrives ill go for the sub 10sec Pi 1MB and join the XS team

Im lovin this board more and more!

[ChrissTi]

I didn't get the Blue Screen when it was building the array, it was running perfectly happily. I got the Blue Screen with one disk (no array) on the Intel controller when it tried loading the drivers for the Intel controller at installation. I followed the Motherboard manual Exactly as they laid out for one disk and it still Blue Screened (both motherboards).

I had to try it this way, because I had no other recourse - I tried everything to install on the Intel controller (and I do mean everything).

Well I'm using Vista ... not XP. Vista has a standard ahci/raid driver, and it doesn't need to load a raid driver on boot ...
Well I'll put and XP, on a secondary partition, just to see if it works or not.

[HeadShotWI]

Well I'm using Vista ... not XP. Vista has a standard ahci/raid driver, and it doesn't need to load a raid driver on boot ...
Well I'll put and XP, on a secondary partition, just to see if it works or not.

I know you guys have said this a few times but I could NOT get vista to install properly without loading the driver manually from gigabytes page for vista ultimate with my bios set to AHCI mode. I did not try RAID mode.

[radical]

Ya, didn't want to got the Vista route just yet. Was going to put it on my GA-8INXP first and see if I was ok with it. Good luck, hope it works for you.

[ChrissTi]

I know you guys have said this a few times but I could NOT get vista to install properly without loading the driver manually from gigabytes page for vista ultimate with my bios set to AHCI mode. I did not try RAID mode.

I don't know what to say ... I had no problems at all ...

[rbsmontemor]

Some results with vdroop modded X38-DQ6 and bios F7:







With just water...and the modded mobo:



I can post thumbnails if you prefer

Rbs.

[Kashelz]

Hmm, vdroop mod for X38-DQ6? Is this real? Is these pics correct? I want to mod mine too.







Is it real working, that there is no voltage difference on Quad CPU at full load and idle, its amazing then