Official GIGABYTE Forum
Questions about GIGABYTE products => Motherboards with Intel processors => Topic started by: forumjoe on April 05, 2011, 01:58:34 pm
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You'll have to forgive me if I've asked this before on this forum - it's been quite some time since I posted anything - but does anyone know if there's anything unique in hard disk controllers on Gigabyte Intel-based motherboards that could account for constant and very regular accesses to the system drive, even at idle?
I have to admit I've had some issues with the Seagate SATA hard drive I used when I built my P55-US3L and, at one point, was advised by Seagate to return the drive to them for replacing, but a firmware update on their website that's become available this week has fully cured one of the problems with it. Two other niggling ones remain, though - Seagate's utility Seatools cannot detect the drive (this is in all probability due to Seatools not catering for the particular Intel 5/3400 series hard disk controller that's on the US3L's motherboard) and the constant accesses.
No audible accessing noise is associated with the accesses, at least not now. I assume that they're hard disc accessses, since they're signified by the HDD LED indicator on the PC's case (fed from the motherboard's F-panel). They're occurring at a very regular rate of about 2 per second. Not there while in the BIOS or during bootup, only there when Windows is active.
A couple of months ago, I spent several weeks, on and off, investigating various Windows background processes, to see if I could pinpoint the cause, but I turned up nothing.
This might, of course, conceivably still be a problem with the hard disc itself but the drive seems to work flawlessly otherwise. I'm just wondering whether these incessant and very regular accesses might be being sourced from the motherboard for some reason. Anyone ever met this phenomenon before? I googled for it some time ago and found a reasonable number of people with the same problem, though nobody indicated which motherboards they were using. This is strange, as I've never seen it on any previous machine of mine, using the same operating system and the same apps and utilities.
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Hi and welcome back.
Apart from your previous posts rregarding this problem I haven't seen any one else complaining of it. That, of course, doesn't mean it not happening just that nobody has noticed or written in about it.
As it happens I have just recently noticed this happening on my review build and have been investigating what is causing it. So far I might add without any luck! It can't hold out forever though and I will get to the bottom of it. I have noticed that if I make it use the controller it stops the accessing for a few seconds while it looks at the other drive.
I will post back later when I hopefully have some news. ;)
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Well, at least I'm glad that it's been noticed by someone else here.
There are two hard disk controllers in my machine - a 2-port and a 4-port, to handle all six SATA2 connections. The Gigabyte SATA ports will be in addition to this and I guess use a further controller, but in my case I use neither the Gigabyte ports nor do I use RAID.
I would have thought that, once in use, a disc controller will be active all the time?
A disc controller will presumably have a driver and, with that in mind, I've always had a gut feeling that the Intel driver for my motherboard still has a bug in it, not only because of these constant regular HDD accesses but also because, at various times, there are random accesses to the motherboard's floppy drive (which most certainly should not be happening!). I wouldn't mind betting that the two are linked. I of course reported it a long time ago to Gigabyte Support but they immediately trashed the possibility.
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Ha! I can beat that my Device Manager tells me there is a floppy drive and it is all working fine when there isn't even a port for one. Work that out. Actually it is easilly fixed with a BIOS update but it does seem stupid. ;D
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As you may know, in my case, there definitely is a FDD port on the motherboard. And there's also a FDD setting in the FH BIOS, albeit that it amounts to no more than an on/off switch. Normal access to my FDD is fine, it's just that random accesses to it take place every now and then when it's not even in use at that moment. You can hear the FDD's motor momentarily energised. I agree that the FDD problem could well be just that bit of the software in the BIOS that's wrong, but getting Gigabyte to investigate it and to acknowledge that it happens is virtually impossible.
The constant accesses to the hard drive is something else.
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Right well I have finally tracked it down and it stops if I disable the DVD drive in Device Manager. Whether this is because it is on the SATA2 port which is known to have problems on these boards I will have to see. It is just that I can't simply swap it over to the SATA3 port as ther is no spare because I am running a RAID 0 array off them. I guess I will have to break the array and reinstall Windows on a single drive instead to see if that cures it.
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Do you guys have the Gigabyte web update utility installed, if so uninstall it. If you used "Express Install" from the motherboard CD it is installed, and this also applies to my next questions. Did you guys install drivers you are not using, such as J.Micron(GSATA) drivers, again Express Install would be to blame.
If none of the above applies, the only other time I have seen users report HDD LED issue was if they have DES installed- and the HDD LED was actually the Energy Saving LED blinking instead to indicate that DES is active. Uninstall this program and reboot if you think this might be it.
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Lsdmeasap,
I've carefully read your piece and can report that absolutely none of those apply, in my case. The few drivers needed for my setup were installed separately and individually by me, them having been downloaded.
As regards any utility that claimed to save energy by altering the duty cycle of a tiny little LED, the idea is just laughable, as a typical LED consumes about 30 milliwatts of power. That's a grain of sand on a beach, compared to the total power consumed by an average desktop PC at idle.
Afterthought: perhaps you just meant that, with that utility, the LED is flashed merely to indicate that power-saving on the PC is in operation? Regardless, though, I don't use DES or any utilities remotely of that kind.
What I did determine some months ago was that these presumed regular accesses to the hard drive were happening even with nothing but SP3 for WinXP and the basic motherboard drivers installed; I was able to temporarily restore my setup to that condition. So, as far as I can see, the evidence points strongly to one of the motherboard drivers - either the Intel INF driver 9.1.2.1007 or the PCIe LAN driver 5.778.1208.2010 - as being at fault. Clearly, the most likely of those two to be the culprit is the INF driver. Gigabyte Support don't want to know, though. Their view is that the driver is perfection personified and that therefore it doesn't need looking at.
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Lsdmeasap,
As regards any utility that claimed to save energy by altering the duty cycle of a tiny little LED, the idea is just laughable, as a typical LED consumes about 30 milliwatts of power. That's a grain of sand on a beach, compared to the total power consumed by an average desktop PC at idle.
No I think you misunderstood Lsdmeasap when he was talking about the power saving. The LED is only displaying that the powers saving is active not that it is saving power on the LED usage.
Lsdmeasap
Good point and I must admit I hadn't thought of it but mainly because it doesn't apply in my situation as I always only load the necessary drivers and never any of the bundled utilities at all.
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Sorry, you two. Our postings crossed. See my afterthought above.
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It's cool! ya, I just meant the LED is an indicator of the DES program being active is all.
If you think the INF drivers might be to blame you can try the latest ones always from here (Second link)
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=816
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Hmm, that's an interesting few webpages, but I don't actually see an INF driver there for my chipset, even when I search separately and click on "Intel 5 series chipset". Instead, what I see there is a utiliity to then enable you to install the chipset drivers after you've installed the operating system. But the chipset drivers on offer are not the standard ones, they're ones for where you need to use RAID. Do correct me if I'm wrong.
Nevertheless, if I were to accept that these are appropriate utilities and drivers to install, then Intel's versions are considerably higher-numbered than Gigabyte's. For example, on that webpage, for the 5 series chipset, there's the file 9.2.0.1025. Gigabyte's latest INF file is 9.1.2.1007. If there's supposed to be a sensible correlation between Gigabyte's files and those directly from Intel, isn't it high time that Gigabyte got its own up to date?
Have you yourself used any of these original Intel files for your board, rather than the files offered by Gigabyte?
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forumjoe
I can assure you that if Lsdmeasap recommends them they are correct and he will have used them at some time I'm sure. ;)
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Hmm, that's an interesting few webpages, but I don't actually see an INF driver there for my chipset, even when I search separately and click on "Intel 5 series chipset". Instead, what I see there is a utiliity to then enable you to install the chipset drivers after you've installed the operating system. But the chipset drivers on offer are not the standard ones, they're ones for where you need to use RAID. Do correct me if I'm wrong.
Nevertheless, if I were to accept that these are appropriate utilities and drivers to install, then Intel's versions are considerably higher-numbered than Gigabyte's. For example, on that webpage, for the 5 series chipset, there's the file 9.2.0.1025. Gigabyte's latest INF file is 9.1.2.1007. If there's supposed to be a sensible correlation between Gigabyte's files and those directly from Intel, isn't it high time that Gigabyte got its own up to date?
Have you yourself used any of these original Intel files for your board, rather than the files offered by Gigabyte?
The second link (Exe) is the latest chipset drivers you want to install, they are the exact same as what Gigabyte host only Gigabyte's are outdated. They often do not keep every single file up to date, same applies with RAID/AHCI and LAN Drivers.
The drivers hosted at Gigabyte's site are the exact same you would download from Intel, Realtek, ect, only repackaged and hosted at their site for end users convenience.
Yes, I ALWAYS download my drivers direct from the source, no matter which source that is Intel, Marvell, Realtek, Ect.
As I mentioned before, if you want the latest chipset drivers for your board I linked you to the exact page and noted which exact link you need. It's the second link here, trust me, first is zip which is not what you want.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=816
Latest AHCI/RAID drivers
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%C2%AE+Rapid+Storage+Technology+(Intel%C2%AE+RST)
Latest RealTek Audio (LAN is here as well, if you want the link and can't find it let me know and I'll link ya up)
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsCheck.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false
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This all looks very hopeful. I need some help from you, though.
First, how do I confirm, from my hardware, the particular chipset that my board uses? The motherboard user manual makes no mention of the Intel chipset series. The only reason I mentioned 5 Series before was because that's what comes up when I analyse the IDE Controller driver in Device Manager. But, of course, that'll only be there from my having installed Gigabyte's driver. Although my board is ostensibly a P55, that's a bit of a misnomer as it actually uses only an H55 chip. There's no onboard graphics chip.
Now to the driver, etc at that URL. Just to confirm: is it the second one down in the list that I need? The one called "INF Update Utility - Primarily for Intel 6,5,4,3, 900 Series chipsets, v.9.2.0.1025, dated 3/3/2011"? Further, is that the actual file, or is it just a downloader/installer (the webpage makes a distinction between "Software Archives" and "Utilities, Tools and Examples"? The description "utility" is confusing me. For the INF driver and its installation, do I need anything else? I don't use RAID/AHCI, I'm just using the SATA hard drive in IDE mode.
Are the INF and Realtek LAN files designed to be installed over the top of the existing ones, or should the existing ones be uninstalled first (especially since what I already have, in the case of the INF file, is the Gigabyte version)?
Gigabyte's offerings, as regards drivers, are bewildering, as currently their INF driver seems to be well out of date and yet their PCIe LAN driver is, apparently, completely up to date (v.5.782). Actually, during the installation of Gigabyte's INF driver, you're told that it's only a beta version!
I may have a window of opportunity shortly for installing the board's drivers completely from scratch, cleanly, as I may be buying a new hard drive and installing everything from ground zero again. I need a reserve SATA hard drive, anyway. I do have means to backup and restore complete partitions but there's odd rubbish on the existing drive that I want to completely eradicate anyway. Clearly, if I invest in a further drive and install everything from the bottom up, I'd want to be fairly assured that using the recommended chipset drivers will eliminate the remaining 'accessing problems' I've described.
Another afterthought: I've returned to that Intel webpage several times now, to read all its assocoated notes. I don't think that installing this particular INF file is going to make any difference at all to the strange hard disk and floppy disc drive problems I've been experiencing. I'd previously assumed that this was an INF file that also contained an IDE driver, but from what I read there, this is literally the INF and nothing else. It merely inserts the appropriate device name into Device Manager, nothing more. On reflection, I think this probably accounts for why Gigabyte's version of the file is so old, namely that the naming of a few devices is actually not going to change much as time moves on.
It would appear that the board doesn't require any IDE or graphics drivers at all. Either that, or they're being somehow automatically obtained from Windows.
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I would not lead you down the wrong path, trust me! I am an administrator and head up support at the official US GIGABYTE support site here:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/
The INF Chipset driver installer I linked you to is for all chipsets, from old to new. It is the actual installer, and it will scan and update any and all drivers that need updated. Yes, it is the second link, named what you quoted (Here's the direct link)
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=816&DwnldID=19596&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+Chipset+Software+Installation+Utility&lang=eng
You just download, install, then reboot and you are done. Yes, they all installer over the old ones, and the installers will skip any files that are already up to date.
I only suggested you grab the latest one linked above because you guys had mentioned it, I am not sure if it will correct your issue, but it is the latest driver set. It probably will not, as this is a strange issue and I've never seen it before other than what I mentioned above, and I've been helping users with GIGABYTE boards for years, and building my own systems for much longer than that. I don't suggest this will solve your issue, I'm only discussing it because you asked about the latest drivers is all. Hopefully it will help, but I kinda think the issue is due to some other problem?
Your chipset is series 5 as you mentioned, that includes all P55/H55/H57/Q57/P55/X58. And you should be using your SATA Drive in AHCI mode, this could possibly be giving you HD LED issues? I am not sure, but I would be using AHCI anyway as it is better for performance with your SATA Drive.
If you are using windows 7 or Vista this is how you change to AHCI. Make the following registry changes in windows, then reboot and enter the BIOS and at the top of the Integrated Peripherals section of the BIOS set AHCI then save and apply. If you do not feel comfortable editing your registry then see this page, Microsoft has a "Fit It For Me" that will make the changes for you, after you run that reboot to BIOS and set AHCI as mentioned above.
Enable switching between all IDE/AHCI/RAID modes by changing "Start" Values in these keys to 0 (Win 7 / Vista ONLY)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci\Start
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide\Start
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStorV\Start
Microsoft Fix it in case you do not feel comfortable registry editing
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976
Once you are in AHCI mode, install this Intel program, it will update your AHCI driver to the better Intel version (Instead of 2006 Microsoft AHCI)
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=2101&DwnldID=19607&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+Rapid+Storage+Technology&lang=eng
You mentioned Floppy disk issues, what did you mean by that?
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I don't doubt your sincerity, Lsdmeasap, or your expertise, but I don't think that anything you've suggested is likely to improve the situation I have. That's because if you read the details given by Intel about the INF file installed by infinst_autol.exe, you find that the INF file is a text file, and that only. Well, after all, that's primarily what an INF file's meant to be! Indeed, Intel seem to go out of their way to point out that it's only a text file. Therefore, installing a more up-to-date INF file, in this case, is, I think, very unlikely to make any functional difference to the chipset. Just to confuse things, though, my motherboard user manual has a page toward the back where it describes how to install the motherboard drivers from the CD that comes with the board- incidentally, something I'd never dream of doing, as the drivers would inevitably all be out-of-date - and, in that, you can clearly see that the INF driver is not just a text file but also includes USB drivers and a PCIe driver.
I don't know why you're suggesting I switch to AHCI. It's of no use to me, as I use just a single drive and in IDE mode. I've no intention of running two drives at once or doing any hot-swapping or anything like that. I'm not using Vista (perish the thought) or 7, anyway. I appreciate all you've posted about setting up AHCI but, really, I've no intention of using it.
As for the FDD issues, if you care to read my opening submission for this topic, all will be explained. From time to time, I get completely random accesses to the FDD happening. The FDD motor whirrs momentarily. (And no, I'm not clicking on the FDD at the time!). On average, about six per hour. Long ago, I swapped both the FDD and its cable for others but it still occurred. There's nothing in the FDD at the time. The FDD otherwise works fine; have used it for making various bootdisks. I strongly suspect that the random FDD accesses and the constant and very regular accesses to the hard drive are all part of the same bug. Never experienced it on any previous PC I've built, even one with the same operating system, apps and utilities. It's either a hardware problem of some sort, or (more likely) a badly-written BIOS or a faulty chipset driver. On the board, accesses to and from the floppy are controlled by the IT8720 chip. The COM port hanging off that chip works fine, as does the PS2 keyboard but I've noticed that the FDD random accesses often coincide with clicking of the USB-connected mouse, so I suspect that something's amiss with the operation of the IT8720, or the LPC bus.
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Thanks! I wasn't sure if you were doubting me or my knowledge of the subject, or what. So just wanted to be sure you knew I wasn't just some un-knowledgeable guy trying to help.
Yes, the INF is mainly descriptive txt file, but the system needs it so it knows what devices are installed and if their drivers are installed and working. It also does install several drivers, SMBus, IDE/SATA, USB, several IO drivers, ect.
AHCI would be best for your drive as I mentioned, no matter if you need hot-swap or any of that, because it will allow your drive to function in a faster mode and will also allow the NCQ function on your drive to be active. It's just much faster all around, trust me, but you can leave it in IDE mode if you want.
And yes, you are correct, the INF update probably wont help this issue, but it might so I would go ahead and update it just to be sure.
Thanks for the floppy info, sorry I missed that in your first post! That is very odd, see if the INF update helps with this. If it does not the next step to try and solve what is causing this would be to boot into safe mode for a while and see if it still happens there. If it does not then start by uninstalling your Anti-virus program for a little bit to see if that is maybe trying to scan the drive. If not then reinstall the antivius and move on to the next step.
Next is kinda a prolong method, but it will get you to the bottom of this. Open MSCONFIG via Run, then in the general tab choose diagnostic startup and apply and reboot. Then test for a while, if the FDD is not accessed then the issue is caused by a startup service. Go back to Msconfig and select Normal startup and apply and reboot. Then once in windows again open Msconfig and go into startup tab and disable all those, then apply and reboot and test. If it's still happening then enable all the startup items again, and then this time go into services tab and disable all and save/apply/reboot. If the services all disabled on reboot corrects the issue that is where the process gets long and drawn out, you will need to enable the one at a time and test until you find the culprit, then you can go from there.
Update the INF driver before you start the above troubleshooting. And I would also install this (It will go into control panel), when you get to startup disable in msconfig, verify with this program that there are no other additional startup programs. If there is you can disable with either Msconfig or disable them all with this tool instead, then test.
http://www.mlin.net/files/StartupCPL.zip
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As far as the txt function of the INF driver supplied by Gigabyte's concerned, all seems tickity-boo on my machine at present, as nothing in Device Manager or elsewhere seems misnamed. But since you seem convinced that the INF file does include some other important drivers, it might indeed be worth me installing the pukka, newer Intel INF file when I'm ready to do so. As you say, there could be a minor difference between the two that could maybe make all the difference.
I had another scary moment with the new machine this evening, when I went to use Windows Media Player to stream some radio, as I do quite regularly these days. All I got was intermittent, highly-distorted sound. After finishing the new build some months ago, I had terrible problems with the PCI soundcard on this new machine, the card having performed flawlessly on the previous non-Gigabyte machine. Playing anything through the soundcard on the new machine was knife-edge touch-and-go; sometimes it'd work 100%, sometimes all I got was distorted unintelligible audio. A chance re-sitting of the soundcard in the PCI slot, though, cured it seemingly for good - until tonight, when curiously it 'died' once more. Fortunately, a reboot of Windows did the trick, though.
Due to manufacturing tolerances between the US3L motherboard and the PC case, the positioning of cards in their bus slots is certainly 'strained' (with it only just possible to get the card's restraining screw in) and, as a result, I think maybe the soundcard's edge pins are only just mating properly with the corresponding ones in the slot. Looks like I'll have to try repositioning the card by a hair's breadth again.
But this kind of thing's been symptomatic of the way some features of this motherboard have worked. One or two things appear 'edgy', ie. only just working.
Re your advice on MSCONFIG, I went through that caper months ago. It turned up nothing. And incidentally, you can't stop all Windows background processses, only certain ones; Windows won't let you stop some that are critical to operation, and rightly so.
I disagree with you completely about AHCI. From all my research, AHCI slows down operation, not speeds it up, though you'll find different camps on this issue. Further, it adds complication to the installing of the operating system. Believe me, there's no advantage to using it if you're using a single drive in IDE mode like I'm doing. So, please accept that I'm quite happy to be non-AHCI. Occasionally, there are things in computing that are contentious or are a matter of just personal preference, and this is one of them. No offence intended, old bean. Otherwise, am very much appreciating your feedback.
It'll be a few weeks before I'll have reinstalled the OS, chipset drivers and other software on a new hard drive and it won't be until at least some of that's done that I'll be able to tell whether using the Intel INF will have made any difference. Watch this spot. I'll let you know in due course.
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Well, alrighty, this will be my last attempt at changing your old ways ;D
4K threaded Read performance (Random 4K read in multiple requests) is double and sometimes triple when using AHCI Vs. IDE, and that is where disk performance is actually at - and where you "Feel" it most. I made a comparison for you, it's not as easy to see on mechanical drives, because they are so slow to begin with, but you can indeed see the AHCI 4K Threaded reads are 2-3x what IDE mode offers. *Note, I did not use AS SSD on the spinning hard drive, because it takes about an hour or so to complete a test, compared to the 2 minutes an SSD takes.
So click here... or not :D
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/3811/ahcivside.png
On your FDD and HDD LED issue, so did you ever try safe mode with networking (Or without) for a while to see if the issue remained while in that state?
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I just wanted to add my two penneth to what Lsdmeasap has been saying to you regarding the speed increase with using AHCI. If implimented properly AHCI can certainly improve performance of hard disks whether they are SSDs or magnetic disks. Apart from the Hot swap capabilities it enables Native Command Queueing etc all of which can speed up the data transfer to and from your drive. It is the way forward but of course you don't have to follow it. ;)
Lsdmeasap
I have already tried all the usual things like that but apart from physically disconnecting the optical drive from the SATA2 port(GA-P67A-UD5) so far no joy.
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Lsdmeasap,
Does the Intel INF driver to which you pointed me (installer is infinst_autol.exe) contain the Gigabyte SATA2 Driver? I'm wondering whether, if I want to make use of the Gigabyte SATA2 ports on the board at some later time, I'll need to download here and now a separate Intel driver for that. You may be aware that, when Gigabyte provides the INF driver and so forth, they provide the drivers separately. So, Gigabyte offer an INF driver and, separately, a Gigabyte SATA2 driver. (This may, in part, account for Gigabyte's driver version nos. being wildly different to Intel's).
You indicated that the Intel INF installer scans my machine and decides which drivers I need and which I don't. Do I then get to select from the ones that are identified? Note that I specifically want to avoid installing any sort of UAA audio driver, as that's definitely not required when using a separate PCI soundcard, such as in my case. I also want to avoid the backdoor installing of any utilities. I've been going to great pains to achieve as lean and as clean a machine as possible.