RAID drivers?

[Christoph]

ok, this is more like a question on researching


the thing is, a have the Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 and been using windows vista and now windows 7 since those beta leaks in a RAID 0, and have never make windows make use of AMD raid drivers although I used the AMD drivers to get windows to recognize the array  (?)

in the Device manager, the controller for the HDDs says that is a

Microsoft  6/21/2006

driver version  6.1.7600.16385

so have never said that is a AMD driver, is this normal? or something is wrong? 

and the "problem" is that the array is kinda slow...

[absic]

When installing Windows 7 I had to add the AMD RAID Drivers using F6. Once installed Device Manager showed that the Storage Controller is AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller.

If you have time look through this build review: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,3619.0.html where I go into setting up a RAID 0 Array in detail.

[Christoph]

yeah actually I already check your post/review about it

but, the installation of windows 7 64 bits, never asked me for drivers on this MOBO, it actually recognized the raid 0 drive, so I just finish installing windows...


but, as I already said, I started using windows vista and then windows 7 on this array setup, and always used the drivers for the installation and even then, windows never said that had any AMD drivers, It always says is a Microsoft driver, the same driver and same date

no matter what I do, it always had said that is Microsoft driver.

and even under windows 7, if a try updating the driver, it says that already have the best driver for it...

[absic]

Hi again,

Do you have the RAID Array on the SATA3 Ports or the SATA2 Ports?

[Christoph]

SATA 3 as I have 4 disk

and a video card on the pci ex x8

[absic]

Hi again,

I think you might need to re-install your OS and pre-load the AMD Raid drivers to solve your problem. 
Also, are you running the latest BIOS for the motherboard as from F5 they have added  "Support new RAID ROM" feature and this is the version I initially used when setting up RAID. I'm now using F6 on my motherboard which is rev.2.1

[Christoph]

ok, here's the thing


I been using this raid array since Vista and then windows 7 since those beta leaks and I've never been able to make windows use AMD drivers

even though I used the AMD drivers for the installation of windows every time on every new beta

so, as all was working "good" I just let it be that way...


but we're in a different page I think, 'cuz I been talking where in Device manager/disk drives/AMD 4+0 stripe/properties/driver

and not the "storage controller", right here it says  AMD AHCI compatible RAID controller


but in the disk drives says Microsoft windows, and not AMD...


I am using F6 right now, and the RAID room now says 3.2.1050 or something like that, but before F6 said 3.2.1540, so I don't know about this 'cuz is suppose to be an update and not a downgrade (??)

so maybe you have an idea and can share an advice, and the real thing here is that the overall system seems to be working as always been, but when I am uploading the maps for COD4 and MW2 is way slower than when I had my AMD 940 and DDR2 and same RAID array, I'd rebuild the array for this new MOBO  even though I did move the array to this MOBO at the beginning as it was, getting it to work without a problem, and actually now that I get to think about it, when I rebuild the array was when everything seems slower than before

when I installed windows 7 on the new array (rebuild-ed), windows recognize the array without loading the drivers for it, but again, it always have said that is using microsoft drivers for the HDDs, now and before...


so the only way right now is to reinstall windows and use key F6 to load the drivers...


what do you think?

[absic]

I think that the driver you are talking about is a standard Microsoft one and I have plenty of those on my own system for the HDD's and also for other controllers, although I too have installed all the proper drivers and it is a little disconcerting when you discover these are dated 2006. If you have the necessary AMD driver showing for the RAID controller then I don't think that you need to re-install Windows although sometimes a clean install can help.

I'm a little confused by your statement that you moved the array to this board. When you did this did you actually use an existing install of windows or did you start again? If you just transferred it over and started it up then I would recommend doing a clean install.

The problem with slow transfer speeds can be due to many factors not just a bad install. I have some pretty hefty music software and for one programme there is over 60 GBs of audio files to transfer from DVD to my main drive. This seems to take forever, but it is due to the speed of my DVD writer not the system as a whole. Once I created a disk image of the DVD's and used Alcohol 120 to mount the images, then the transfer speeds improved dramatically from nearly 90 minutes to install from DVD to under 20 minutes from disk images.

[Christoph]

ok

hmm, yeah that's the one I was talking about and as I know now that can't be updated, is really a kick in the butt being using a driver from 2006, we can say we're already in 2011 so is a 5 years old driver and 2 operating system on them

I don't know about this really but maybe this is why a lot of people complaints about low rate transfers...


so I installed windows again loading the drivers from the beginning and now the windows load up is way faster with a couple of things already installed, so I'll know later when I play cod4 and see if it has improve   

[Dark Mantis]

Of course it could just be that it can't be improved upon using the current technology and so they have left well alone...a case of if it aint broken don't fix it.

[Christoph]

yeah, and yet microsoft wants every hardware company to get their drivers sing by them


so, yeah, everything seems normal now, the upload of maps in MW2 is now way faster than before...


forgot to tell that, I moved my array with data in 2 out of 3 partitions, formatting C: for the installation of windows, and here's the thing, that time I didn't loaded the drivers for the RAID as it was recognize by the installation, so I just let it go like that

and this time I loaded  the drivers at the beginning even thought windows recognized the HDD array, and that's it, this have help a lot