MA78LMT-S2 v3.4 SATA3 HDD detected as SATA1

[silekonn]

Hello,

I just built my system with a gigabyte board and ST3160316AS hard disk drive.  The board is set to A. H. C. I. and the POST screen shows it is detecting the drive as "1.5G".  The latest B. I. O. S. (F13) is installed and has been reconfigured without success.  Can this be corrected?

Thank you,

Ryan

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

I am not quite sure what your problem is with this drive. The BIOS seems to be reporting it correctly and I presume it is working ok.

What program did you use to update the BIOS ?

What makes you think the update failed ?

[silekonn]

Dark Mantis,

Please re-read the subject.  The drive is running at half of the board's capability.

Thank you,

Ryan

[Dark Mantis]

Apart from the BIOS what other programs have you tried to see what speed it is reported at ?

[absic]

Hi there,

are you saying that you believe your Hard disk is a SATA 3 GB/s drive but the SATA controller is only running at SATA 1.5GB/s? If this is the case then first double check that your hard drive is a SATA2 drive not a SATA1 drive.

It would help if you could post back with your FULL system specs as something that you might not believe to be relevant might give some insight to those of us wishing to help. Check here for more details about the kind of information to post: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2195.0.html

[silekonn]

Hello,

The post contains everything believed necessary.  However, the C. P. U. is a retail Sempron 140.  The R. A. M. is Kingston KVR1066D3/1GR and the optical drive is disconnected.  The power supply is old but holding up for the system stress testing and etc.  There are a pair of cards, a 56K P. C. I. modem and a  P. C. I. 5-port U. S. B. 2 expansion.  The problem is part of the initialization and occurs before the O. S. is installed.

YES THE HARD DISK DRIVE IS SATA3(600) AND THE BOARD IS IDENTIFYING IT AS "1.5G" WHEN SET TO A. H. C. I.  I did not actually flash to F13 because it was installed as shipped.

Please elaborate on any other information you need.  Any assistance is appreciated.

Ryan

[absic]

Hi Ryan,

first thing to check is the Hard drive itself. It is possible to limit the speed of some drives by the use of a jumper on the back edge of the drive, near where the power and SATA cables connect. Make sure that this isn't what has happened here.

If the drive is OK and there are no obvious problems then try replacing the SATA lead with a different one as sometimes a faulty cable can cause this.
You could also try changing the SATA port you are connected to on the motherboard, try a different one and see if the drive is still being reported as only 1.5GB/s.

If the drive is still showing as 1.5GB/s try removing the PCI cards and see if that changes things. The PCI slots and SATA ports share the Southbridge and there might be an issue there.

[Ripshod]

the POST screen shows it is detecting the drive as "1.5G".

With absic on this one.Are there any jumpers on the back of the drive? If there is remove them and retest.

Reason:

[silekonn]

absic & Ripshod,

There is no jumper in place.  I started on the Seagate forum to ask if there is a SATA2 limit jumper in addition to the SATA1 position and they explained that 3->2 backwards compatibility is part of the specification (and the SATA1 limit jumper is for SATA3 drives).  I have suspicions about the cable and I will pursue this.

Thank you for the recommendations.

Ryan

[blackie]

I had a similar problem with a Hitachi drive. The drive had NO jumpers. It could only be switched from its default 1.6 Gbs state thru a special Hitachi program.

Once I located the software - it easily switched to 3 Gbs. But it was ONLY software that could change the state.

[F5BJR]

*
How do you know that it does not have a correct speed ?

Have you tested with by exemple HDTune or a similar program ?

Pierre

* With my Sata3 cards ( Marvell ) bios report always 1.5gb/s speed for all my harddisks and speed tested is normal as with others ports ( Intel , JMicron , Silicon Image , HighPoint , Adaptec ... )

 

[Dark Mantis]

Pierre has a very good point there. Are you sure that the drive is in fact performing at that rate or just being reported as that.

[silekonn]

Hello,

The cable was swapped with a SATA3 part.  The same message appears.  It is now a customer system and there is little opportunity to test the performance, but it would be nice if Gigabyte could iron out what appears to be a bug with SATA3-capable drives and the A. H. C. I. B. I. O. S.'s display.  I will update this post again if I am ever able to test the performance.

Ryan