GA-Z68XP-UD4 Marvell GSATA3 and eSATA Ports both don't work

[Mravojad]

Hi to everyone,

I bought a new GA-Z68XP-UD4 Motherboard and try to connect 8 SATA hard disks. With the SATA-Ports 0 to 5 works fine, but if I connect some hard disk to SATA 6 or 7 (both are managed by Marvell 88SE9172 chipset), my Windows 7 64bit Home Premium don't boot.
Additionally the eSATA-devices are also not recognized.
Of course I activated the use of Marvell chipset in BIOS (Section Integrated Peripherals, GSATA3 Controller Enabled and eSATA Controller Enabled)). I tried with both options (IDE and AHCI). I don't run RAID.
Is possible to connect 8 SATA hard disk on this motherboard?
What could I try more to connect hard disks to the GSATA3-port of Marvel?
Thanks in advance!

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

Could you post a list of your hardware please so that we could have a better idea of what your system comprises of.

What PSU have you got and how old is it ?

[christillis]

I have this problem too, same motherboard and I have observed:

System lags severely when anything is plugged in Marvell ports.

If optical drive plugged in, it disappears from device manager if used, or even if other drives are accessed.

Failed to write to optical drive, starts but then locks machine up.

I HAVE TRIED:

- Unplugging hard drives and optical drives until system stable, diagnosed it's the Marvell ports

- Installing latest Marvell drivers from Gigabyte website ((Marvell Storage Utility Version: 4.1.0.1921 (date: 2011/11/16). Marvell SATA Controller Driver: Version: 1.2.0.1010 (date: 2011/11/16))

- Updating BIOS from F3 to F6 (latest)

- SMART checking all drives (apart from Opticals of course )

My sys config should be in my sig.

Be really nice to have a stable machine and use at least 7 of my 8 sata ports...it's the reason I bought this mobo in the first place!

Nice to see Dark Mantis comment, gives me hope! 

[hdtkid]

I have same probs with this mobo,

have tryed to put the Esata from IDE, AHCI ,Raid , nothing helps.

tryed all the latest drivers ect.. nothing.... i to am using win 7 64bit home premium.

i updated my bios from F5 - F6 after discovering the Esata wasnt working.

tryed DVD drivers and web bassed driver and the controler installs but Esata will not work.

how ever my addon card Silicon Image SiI 3132 SATALink Controller
works 100% so i have a work around for now but i need that pcie slot free. and the ports should work in any case.

be it a bios or driver isue something isnt right here. as i know the drive works fine. and with the drive on the esata addoncard it works fine. also work on my laptop.  

must be the marvel drivers

also in the marvel utility it does not give me a lot of confidence thats its a web bassed app (opens in IE). my addon card needs no such thing. just plug and play SIMPLE IS BETTER. i also dont liek the fact it require my password ect to lod in .. what on earth is that thing all about ?

i hope gigabyte figure this out soon coz with a few of us having the same probs it cant be hardware related must be a driver or bios isue.

EDIT:  contacted gigabyte suport and was told to change bios to optimized defaults,  check the device manager for uninstaleld items, and to confim my windows was genuine. ,,,, also to run a simple config, (start removeing bits of hardware till was down to things that couldnt be removed)

but nothing has worked.  i even tryed reformatting incase something got screwed up on the inital install. but no go.

christillis or Mravojad, if you have got yours working please let me know how you achieved this

[Fatman]

Don't use the Marvell ports. Use intel ports only as the Marvell are crap!

[hdtkid]

Don't use the Marvell ports. Use intel ports only as the Marvell are crap!

when the Esata ports are controled by the marvel chips your advice isnt an option.. thanks for the input.

[hdtkid]

well im getting to the botom of this...

see if you can keep up ...

Under windows 7 64 bit

with my seagate 1tb drive in my esata case on the motherboard eSATA port it dont work.  (works fine on my laptop and if i plug it in to my add on PCIE card.

if i change the hard drive in teh eSATA case to one of my old 160gb samsung drives. it works fine when connected to the mobo ports.

If i load up my old Windows XP hdd ok it took ages to load coz all the new drivers ect it have to install, but once it fialy booted properly the seagate drive conected to the mobo worked... so it apears to be a conflict between the drivers and windows 7 and my segate drive.


so now i gues my questions is why and what should i look at doing to fix this.

get a diffrent drive for the case and hope it works. , swap the case and hope it works or wait for updated driver for the marvell controllers. whitch seam to be the isue ...

now for the bits i cant explain...
when i use the segate drive in the esata case and have it connected wile the bios is loading it stops the pc from loading at all some times it picks it up other times it dont wanna have anything to do with the drive.

any idears on how to fix this would be appreciated.

cheers

[Fatman]

Let get this right.........You have an external Esata HDD case with a 1TB drive in it? Have you tried to plug it into the back of your M/B Esata port? If so and it didn't work, then do you have the Esata controller enabled in the Bios? I have the same board as you and the rear ESata works just fine (No Marvell drivers installed) However if I want to get the ports on the board to work so I can route a cable to the front of the case I will need to install the driver. And have the Gsata enabled in the Bios........(From memory) As I don't have the Marvell drivers installed I will do this and see if I can get the ports to work with my Esata dock with a 1TB drive in it for you if you wish?

I will check it out again later

[hdtkid]

yep its a external hdd case that you put your own disc in to ..

i have the esata in bios enabled. and set to AHCI (have also tried IDE and RAID)

i have the marvel drivers installed atm, but with or with out them it works on my 160gb drive.

but with or without the marvel drivers it wont read the seagate 1tb drive.

thats for the mobo ports. using windows 7 64bit
drive in question is a st31000524as (seagate barracuda 7200.12 1tb jc 45 firmware)


the addon card it all works fine.

if i use the mobo ports under windows XP 32bit it all works fine.

but also more often than not the bios locks up with the segate drive as well.

something is conflicting in the bios and or drivers. (i am now running the F6 bios updated it from the F5 )

i also have the segate drive installed internaly on the mobo .. i have a corsair force GT drive , a segate 1tb, a wd 1tb, and a segate 500gb drive all installed internaly .. but if i remove them all so its only the corsair drive i still have same problems reading the Esata.

... if you can shed any light on this at all would help me out heaps

[Fatman]

Ok have you tried enabling the Gsata in Bios?


Now that you are running a newer Bios, have you flashed over the Backup Bios so that they are both running the same Version??

This will give you a pretty good idea on how to do this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQkZvMVPC28

[hdtkid]

yeah Gsata is enabled as well its also on the AHCI setting


not sure i rely wanna be messing with the back up bios.

will wait for gigabyte to get back to me i have sent them detailed info on whats going on with all my part numbers ect... probably find its somethign dum that im overlooking or they will find a bug in the bios / drivers that needs fixing

[christillis]

Not useful to you hdtkid (because you'll know), but the eSATA and Marvell ports are enabled IDE by default.

I spent a very boring hour or 2, changing settings, BIOS firmware, then changes in the OS (Win7 Premium) to no avail.

I really look forward to finding what Gigabyte say, I'm sure it's nothing dumb that you've done hdtkid, but quite a bad flaw IMO! Like you though, I don't agree with "don't use it" as a work around - I specifically chose this Mobo because it had 8 SATA ports!

[Fatman]

Ok guys, I have installed only the Marvell SATA Controller Driver (not the Marvell Storage Utility) and set both Gsata and Esata both to ACHI and both the rear eSATA and the Gsata (M/B Marvell) ports work just fine. They both found my 1.5 TB seagate drive in my external dock.


I will now populate both the Marvell ports and the eSata (rear) and get back to you on how I go.

Here is how I have all my drives setup at the moment.

2 x 120gb Corsair SSD's in Raid 0 Sata3 Ports 0 & 1

2 x HDD in Sata2 Ports 2, & 3

Optical drive in Sata2 Port 5  

Ok on the Marvell ports on the motherboard I have

1 HDD 1.5TB set up with esata cable (HDD Dock)

1 HDD as sata

on the rear esata port I have HDD plugged in to a HDD with esata to sata cable.

All ports working as they should.

My comment before regarding the Marvell was in regards to using them in a raid 0 config. Sorry about that. If you intend to use raid then don't use Marvell for that, use intel ports!!

So there you have it guys, working fine here.

[Dark Mantis]

After reading through the thread the only important point that I have noticed is that it is a SATA3 6GBs drive that is playing up whereas a SATA2 3GBs drive seems to work ok. If this is correct then maybe it is the same old problem as before on the X58 boards with the Marvell 9128 controller not being capable with fast drives.  

[christillis]

Thanks Fatman, I'll try just installing the Marvell SATA controller (Not the storage utility) and set to AHCI and see what happens.

Dark Mantis, I'm not sure if it is a SATA2/SATA3 issue because the optical drive I plugged in, acting very weirdly indeed!