GA-X58A-UD5 And 32-bit Windows XP Pro SATA Boot Drive (Marvell 9128 chip?)

[marccunn]

Hello All:

This is a general question about whether a GA-X58A-UD5 can be used to support an SATA boot disk in a 32-bit Windows XP Pro environment, and if yes, which of the onboard chips would be best to use for the boot disk.

I am a new owner of a GA-X58A-UD5 motherboard, so this is my first post on any of your forums.

I will probably post this on at least one other of your forums, since I am not yet familiar with which of your forums would be most appropriate.

I just got the GA-X58A-UD5 motherboard, to replace one of my fabulous but aging ASUS P5WD2 Premium motherboards which had lost all USB functionality.

My current setup has a 500Gb Hitachi IDE as my boot disk (with my copy of 32-bit Windows XP Pro on a 100Gb partition) and I have nine (9) Samsung 2Tb SATA 3Gb/s as my storage drives.

Page 10 of the GA-X58A-UD5 Manual indicates which chips control which ports:

   South Bridge:

      6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2_0, SATA2_1, SATA2_2, SATA2_3, SATA2_4, SATA2_5), up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices

      Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10

   Marvell 9128 chip:

      2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3_6, GSATA3_7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices

      Support for SATA RAID 0, and RAID 1

   GIGABYTE SATA2 chip:

      1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices

      2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (GSATA2_8, GSATA2_9) supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices

      Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD

The Marvell 9128 chip is particularly worrisome to me because prior to getting this GA-X58A-UD5, I had purchased an EVGA X58 FTW3.

I had hooked up all my drives to the EVGA X58 FTW3 prior to booting for the first time.

I could not get it to complete POST.

So, I started to unplug the drives one by one.

The first one I unplugged was from one of the red SATA connectors, which were controlled by the Marvell 9128 chip on the EVGA X58 FTW3.

The computer would not complete POST.

So I unplugged the drive connected to the second red connector.

This time the computer booted perfectly.

After I got into Windows, I installed all the proprietary EVGA drivers, including the drivers provided for the Marvell 9128.

I plugged both drives back into the red connectors and re-started.

Again the computer would not complete POST.

I unplugged both drives from the red connectors and re-started.

The computer booted perfectly.

Long story short, after spending about 8 hours troubleshooting and going back and forth with EVGA tech support (which was a useless exercise), I sent the EVGA X58 FTW3 back for a refund and purchased this GA-X58A-UD5.

Now I have everything hooked up (including drives plugged into the GSATA3_6 and GSATA3_7 connectors controlled by the Marvell 9128 chip) and I am ready to boot for the first time.

However, before I did so, I thought I would pause, take a deep breath, and ask you all these questions....

Rather than continue using my old 500Gb Hitachi IDE as the boot drive, I thought I might like to try using an SATA drive as my boot drive.

Since I have replaced the motherboard on that computer, Windows XP Pro will require me to re-activate my copy again, so I don't mind doing a new clean install (I haven't done a clean install of that copy of Windows XP Pro for several years, so I think it is about time that it got refreshed anyway).

To take advantage of the Marvell 9128 6Gb/s speed, I could get a really fast
(a) HITACHI Ultrastar 7K3000 HUA723020ALA640 (0F12455) 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache, or
(b) Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache or
(c) Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache.

However, in light of my horrible experience with trying to get the EVGA X58 FTW3 to boot even for the first time with any drive plugged into the SATA ports controlled by the Marvell 9128 chip, using either of the Marvell 9128-controlled SATA ports on my new GA-X58A-UD5 for an SATA boot drive seems suicidal.

In the alternative, I could just get another Samsung 3Gb/s SATA drive for the boot drive, and plug it into either the GSATA2_8 or GSATA2_9 ports, which are controlled by the GIGABYTE SATA2 chip.

Since that same GIGABYTE SATA2 chip also controls the IDE port on the GA-X58A-UD7 (See page 10 of the Manual quoted above), I think it may be the safest port to use for a boot drive, since it will probably be recognized on first boot (or any other succeeding boot) even if the proprietary GIGABYTE drivers have not yet been installed.

So everyone, to recap, here are my three (3) questions:

1. Can 32-bit Windows XP Pro use an SATA drive as the boot disk (as long as that drive is under the 2.1Tb limititation for the 32-bit operating system); and,

2. If yes, then which port on the GA-X58A-UD5 would be the safest to use (in terms of getting through POST even if the proprietary GIGABYTE drivers have not yet been installed), one of the Marvell 9128-controlled ports (GSATA3_6 or GSATA3_7) which would allow me up to blazing 6Gb/s speed, or one of the GIGABYTE SATA2 chip-controlled ports (GSATA2_8 or GSATA2_9), which would allow me only up to 3Gb/s speed (which is of course more than acceptable speed); and,

3. If either of the Marvell 9128-controlled ports can be use for the boot disk, then have any of you had any problems getting through the first POST (or any succeeding POST) when any drives are plugged into either (or both) GSATA3_6 or GSATA3_7 ?

I have seen that there have been a few threads about the Marvell 9128 chip, but I did not find any that specifically related to POST problems.

Thank you all in advance for your insight and consideration.

Marc

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

Firstly a little background info.

This has to be one of the most answered questions on this forum. The Marvell 9128 SATA3 chip just didn't live up to it's advertised spec and as such won't work as SATA3. It will however work quite happily as a controller for SATA2 drives so it is usable. As long as you don't overload the controller it works fine. This was a Marvell problem not a Gigabyte one and all manufacturers that utilised the 9128 chip for SATA3 had the same problem.


Therefore the best ports for a boot drive is SATA2_0. even though this is only rate dat SATA2 speed it is actually the fatest port on the motheboard. If your other HDDs are compatible then use the other SATA2 ports. You should set these ports up as AHCI for the best perfomance. The optical drive you can take your choice of the GATA2 ports and the Marvell GSATA3 ports. The speed will be almost identical. It is best to setup these ports in IDE mode.

[marccunn]

Super inf, Dark Mantis, thanks.

Aussie Allan pointed me to some of the posts about the Marvell 9128, so I am going to start researching this topic seriously on these forums.

I assume that since no one responded to me about my posting issues involving the 9128 on the EVGA FTW3, that the 9128 does not interfere with booting on the GA-X58A-UD5.

So where did you get that detailed info about which ports are good for what drives and uses?

Is that here on these forums also, and if so, where?

I will also check out these forums to see if anyone has posted links to the latest firmware and dirves for the 9128 and the other chips on the GA-X58A-UD5.

Thanks again.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

Glad it was helpful. Most of the info I gleaned myself from testing as well as a little along the way. When I bought my GA-X58A-UD7 it was new out and everyone still believed the hype that this woderchip was going to give us these superfast speeds. WRONG! After purchasing a couple of Western Digital Black SATA3  6 Gb/s  hard drives to run as RAID0 soon found that I wasn't getting getting anything like the projected throughput. That's when I started digging.

Absic was caught out in the same way but on the AMD board. To be fair it was affecting every manufacturer who  embedded the chips into their boards.

[Zool]

@ Dark Mantis.

Hi ...
i will torn around the question. Does this mean if i want to buy an Vertex 3 for eample thi scontroller isnt fast enough ? (500 what ever Mbyte/s)
At the moment my vertex 2 is running on the intel ... but i want to buy an Version 3 in the next month ..

Do i understand right what you said ? and how fast can i go on my X58A-UD7 rev. 2.0 ?

regards
.Zool.