Does the Marvell 9128 lack of bandwidth can be a reason for opening an RMA?

[pumpinbass]

Hello,

i have a P55A-UD6 motherboard and one of the reasons that i purchased it was the SATA 3 6Gb/s capability.Recently i purchased an SATA 3 SSD drive but i can't get use of it's speeds (525MB/s read, 475MB/s write) since the Marvell 9128 does not offer that bandwidth and therefore i can't get actual sata 3 6Gb/s speeds  (i tried the drive in a mobo with z68 chipset ad the result was 520mb/s 440mb/s so the drive is working normally).
I'm thinking since when i bought it no one said in the specifications of the product that this is not an actual 6Gb/s motherboard but a 5Gb/s with single PCI bandwidth (so that means even less speed), this can be considered as deception since the real specifications are far away from the mentioned in the product details in GIGABYTES site.

If i'm wrong in something please correct me

[Dark Mantis]

I would have to agree technically with what you said but I don't know where you are going to go from there. If you RMA the motherboard the best you could expect is a replacement board with a similar spec which isn't going to get you any further ahead. Many people are in the same boat, myself included, but without anywhere to go.

[pumpinbass]

If i agree to have an extra charge for a replacement mobo with a p67, z68 ,h67 that support 6Gb/s!
is this possible?
because GIGABYTE make me feel like a victim with their lack of specification details (all manufacturers that use the same marvell chipset have the same specs with GIGABYTE but i can't blame them since i bought an GIGABYTE product, frankly i'm a GYGABYTE addict but now i feel decepted).
I can't understand the reason why to give faulty specs for a product, this could even cause an conflict with consumer rights!

[absic]

As Dark Mantis has said, I don't think you will get very far in trying to RMA the motherboard because of the Marvell 9128 chip.

This has been a long and ongoing problem for many users and has never been resolved. The only thing we have managed to do is to get Gigabyte to add this to the product information:

* SATA3 RAID 0 4x and SATA3 2x performance are maximum theoretical values. Actual performance may vary by system configuration.
 * SATA3 SSDs are not recommended for use in RAID 0 mode on Marvell SE9128 ports.

[Aussie Allan]

  This is the list of the PCB/Motherboard manufactures that have been affected by the "Marvell 88SE9128" to date.......

      Acer Inc.
    ACube Systems
    Advansus (industrial motherboards)
    Albatron
    AOpen
    Arima Computer Corporation (Flextronics)
    ASRock
    Asus
    BFG Technologies
    Biostar
    Chaintech (ceased manufacturing motherboards)
    Chassis Plans[8]
    DFI
    Elitegroup Computer Systems (also PCChips)
    EMAXX
    EPoX (partially defunct)
    eVGA
    First International Computer
    Foxconn
    FriendTech Computer Co., Ltd.
    Gigabyte Technology
    Gumstix
    Intel
    IWill
    J&W
    Jetway
    Kobian Pte Ltd.(Mercury hardware, ceased manufacturing motherboards)
    Lanner Inc (industrial motherboards)
    Leadtek
    Magic-Pro
    Manli
    MSI (Micro-Star International)
    Palit
    PCP
    PNY Technologies
    Powercolor
    Quanmax
    RedFox
    Sapphire Technology
    Shuttle Inc.
    Soltek (defunct)
    Soyo Group Inc (defunct)
    Supercomp
    Supermicro
    Trenton Technology
    Tyan
    Universal abit (formerly ABIT, (defunct))
    Vertex 3D
    VIA Technologies
    Vigor Gaming
    Xitrix Computer Corporation
    XFX
    Zebronics
    Zotac

  you are not alone!  

  Aussie Allan

[pumpinbass]

@absic

the specs details that you mentioned wasn't when i bought the mobo

[absic]

Nor were they present when I bought my motherboard but Gigabyte added this information after the amount of posts and complaints about false advertising when this problem first came to light.

There is a whole thread ( and lots more posts) about the Marvell 9128 chip on this forum alone here are a couple:
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2336.0.html
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,1587.0.html

A quick search for Marvell 9128 on the forum throws up 5 pages of posts about it..... !!!!

[pumpinbass]

Ok guys i don't want to bring more confusion to the forum adding more unnecessary topics!
i will try to contact with the dealer maybe they accept my mobo and resell it at they stock house (since it's fully resalable works properly) and sell me cheaper some other mobo with the specs that i need.
as i can understand from your replies this is the only way that maybe i can find a solution

Thank you for your time

[Aussie Allan]

Ok guys i don't want to bring more confusion to the forum adding more unnecessary topics!
i will try to contact with the dealer maybe they accept my mobo and resell it at they stock house (since it's fully resalable works properly) and sell me cheaper some other mobo with the specs that i need.
as i can understand from your replies this is the only way that maybe i can find a solution

Thank you for your time

.........Or............. like thousands of others that added a PCI-E raid card to there boards to effect 6Gb/s.....

  Aussie Allan

[pumpinbass]

@ Aussie Allan

do you recommend some pcie cards?

[Dark Mantis]

To be honest we did discuss this as a way for the motherboard manufacturers to make right their selling of the unworking SATA3 spec and to supply a SATA3 addon board for anybody who needed one that had one of the  motherboards in question. However it seemed to fall on deaf ears and never came about.

[Aussie Allan]

@ Aussie Allan

do you recommend some pcie cards?

  I thought you'd never ask!....... DM knows I have recommended these countless times ......I have one out of the series myself........I have the Highpoint Rocket Raid 640 in a GA-X58 board with the infamous flunky 9128...........so here is the funny thing............some of the later Giga board (67/68) that have been touted as fixed (6Gb/s) actually carry the 9128 chip still.........but reports have been coming in.......Yup!   We have Sata3 on this board......... (head scratch-head scratch)...................I said some.....not all!.............so after a fair bit of research.........I ordered a 4 port Sata3 PCI-E card from HighPoint......... reported via reviews to be the cheapest Sata3 compliant card on the market that really worked

  I was guttered when opening the box to find not one, but two 9128 controllers on the PCB.....one each handling two port each........these cards are bootable out of the box.......support 0,1,5,10 and JBOD..........if you are not going to be booting off it....you need to get into the on-board BIOS (firmware flash utility) and turn off a few thing to stop option ROM errors/BSODs.

 So connected up 4 x Samsung Spinpoints F3s (HD502HJ) Sata2 drives to it and configured for Raid 0........it gives me about 540 Mb/s read/525 Mb/s write for a snappy photo storage...........the only down side  ( for some) is it insists going through it's config window on cold boot......adding about 28 seconds to boot time....does not bother me as I boot once per day

  Come in two and four port, external or internal ported (620,622,640,644).......Have not tested this but have read a few times the 640/644 cards perform better due to two controllers being present.......most efficient Raid performance is achieved with the 4 port version with two SSDs (one on each controller...........I think there is a 500Mb/s cap on the 620 series........don't know if it's per port or the whole shabang.......but with only one controller.....I suspect it to be true

  These cards where 240US 12 months ago........SCAN have them now for 95 pounds.......hope this helps

  Aussie Allan