Why won't my Marvell controller switch to AHCI?

[absic]

Well, just installed onto a SATA2 drive in AHCI and I won't bother to post the full results but Seq. Read was 90 Mb/s and Seq Write was around 80MB/s.

But it seems that the problem of running the Marvell in AHCI, that I have had, is due to the SATA3 WD drive. The Samsung I have just installed onto seems to be running OK. Admittedly I haven't installed all of my usual programmes but I have never been able to get that far before. Install was painless and no pre-install drivers were asked for. Once I installed the OS I installed the Mobo drivers from the motherboard disk, not something I would usually do and it loaded the Marvell IDE/AHCI Driver but, once again, device manager seemed to think that no driver was installed but that everything was fine. Go figure that one!

I will need to do some further tests but, on initial showing the SATA2 drive in AHCI is actually slower than the SATA3 drive in IDE Mode.

Even if I sold all of my HDD's I still couldn't afford a decent SSD. 

[Lsdmeasap]

Well, just installed onto a SATA2 drive in AHCI and I won't bother to post the full results but Seq. Read was 90 Mb/s and Seq Write was around 80MB/s.

But it seems that the problem of running the Marvell in AHCI, that I have had, is due to the SATA3 WD drive. The Samsung I have just installed onto seems to be running OK. Admittedly I haven't installed all of my usual programmes but I have never been able to get that far before. Install was painless and no pre-install drivers were asked for. Once I installed the OS I installed the Mobo drivers from the motherboard disk, not something I would usually do and it loaded the Marvell IDE/AHCI Driver but, once again, device manager seemed to think that no driver was installed but that everything was fine. Go figure that one!

I will need to do some further tests but, on initial showing the SATA2 drive in AHCI is actually slower than the SATA3 drive in IDE Mode.

Even if I sold all of my HDD's I still couldn't afford a decent SSD.  

Next time don't use the motherboard disk, for several reasons     The drivers are old, if you use express install it can install drivers you don't need and mess things up terribly (Like GSATA RAID Drivers), and lastly you could leave out the Marvell driver altogether.

All you need is Intel Chipset, USB 3 if you use, LAN, Auio and that's about it.   I think that maybe could be why you had such issues with AHCI and your SATA 6Gb/s disk, not sure but possibly especially if you load the Marvell driver.   I can't even do one benchmark hardly with the Marvell drivers installed, but with MSAHCI I can do 4-5 different ones in a row without a single hiccup.

I would think the SATAII drive would be slower, I mean it should be if your SATA 6GB/s drive is at least half way decent.   I'd say when you get bored, try a new install on the Marvell controller the way I mention above with NO Marvell driver on your SATA 6Gb/s disk, and don't forget to put your motherboard driver install CD back in the box as you shouldn't ever need it  

What do you mean you can't afford a SSD?   You should be able to buy one just selling one of those drives.   I have seen Sandforce drives for $110-130ish all this month.

[absic]

I never normally use the motherboard disk but thought I would try as other forum users would usually do so and I like to have a full picture of what happens so I can answer their questions if they arise.

You seem to have forgotten that I am on an AMD Platform so Intel chipset is not a requirement for me.

The actual speed difference between the SATA3 and SATA2 mechanical HDD's is actually very little, about 20 MB/s from the numerous tests I have run on the Marvell controller. Best speed so far was with 2 x SATA2 drives in RAID0 but I don't think there was much improvement over running the same configuration on the AMD 750 SATA2 controller.

[Dark Mantis]

Well I did find the figures and what Lsdmeasap was saying about the install and not to touch the Marvell drivers interesting and useful. Maybe that's where I went wrong before. When I get the time I will certainly try a  clean install on my SSD in AHCI mode as those figures were impressive compared to the IDE. I would agree with absic though on the magnetic drives. I thought they were going to be so much faster especially considering they had a 64Mb cache.
Anyway thanks for the data.

[absic]

I'd say when you get bored, try a new install on the Marvell controller the way I mention above with NO Marvell driver on your SATA 6Gb/s disk

OK Lsdmeasap, tried your method this morning with the result being a complete failure. The Western Digital SATA3 6GB/s and the Marvell 9128 SATA3 controller on the GA-790XTA-UD4 when set to AHCI do not play happily.

I installed Windows 7 64 Bit without an issue. I didn't install any other drivers at this point. I then installed CrystalDisk to run a speed test, the system crashed.
Rebooted the PC loaded the AMD Northbridge driver, tried to run CrystalDisk, again and the system crashed.
Rebooted, check Device Manager and there was an exclamation mark on the Marvell 91XX installed Marvell Driver, rebooted tried running CrystalDisk system crashed.
Rebooted, tried to open web browser, system crashed.
Spent 4 hours trying various re-install/driver combinations with AHCI enabled and system would either hang or crash as the mood would take it and would not run for longer than 5 minutes without doing so.

CONCLUSION: Western Digital Caviar Black 640Gb SATA3 6GB/s Mechanical Hard drive and Marvell 9128 SATA3 do not work in AHCI mode.

[Lsdmeasap]

It may just not be compatible is all, or there could be an issue with your BIOS on that board?

Either way from your testing I think you are right, it does not work on your board/BIOS as of now for sure!