GA-G41M-COMBO - Ubuntu and SATA Issues

[WiseHacker]

I seem to be having trouble with my motherboard and hopefully someone here can point out what I am doing wrong.

I recently added a 1TB hard disk to my Core 2 Due which has a GA-G41M-Combo motherboard.  Until then it had been using a 80GB IDE drive.

The system works, but I have noticed that the speed of my SATA drive is rather slow.  I looked at the Disk Manager and it says "PATA Host Controller" instead of SATA.

From what I can tell, one had to change a BIOS setting to ensure SATA drives are treated as such.

However, my changing the BIOS setting from "Combined" to "Enhanced" had not changed the situation and I even tried booting the system with no IDE device attached and with a Live Linux CD.  Still the SATA controller is not showing up - only a SATA IDE controller.

Could someone clarify what chipset is in this board so I can properly configure it please?  It's the 1.3 revision if that helps.

In fact, can someone even let me know if this board even has a proper SATA controller or if it always shows all devices via PATA.

My thanks in advance.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

Firstly I don't know what BIOS version you are running but it would be wise to update it to the latest if it is not F3. Make sure that you do this via QFlash not @BIOS.

http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3505&dl=1#bios

The newest BIOS versions are at the top of the page.

Click on your region under the "Download Here" section heading. A dialogue box will then pop up asking what you want to do with this file.

Click on "save" and note where you are saving it to.

Take a USB pendrive and make sure it is formatted with a FAT32 file system. If the file ends with .exe run it, or if it is a zip file Unzip it, and save the files (usually contains 3 files) that you just expanded to the Boot sector or a folder of your choice on this drive and insert the pendrive into a USB port.

Re-boot.

Press the"End" key as the computer is POSTing and you will be taken into the BIOS flashing utility "Q-Flash".

At the QFlash homescreen disable the Keep DMI Data option before proceeding.

From there just follow the prompts to find your file and DO NOT TURN OFF THE POWER under any circumstances. It will look for the pendrive with the file on it and use that to update the BIOS.

One thing to note is that the pendrive may show up as a floppy or hard disk instead of a USB drive. Once it has completed you can reboot.

We have since found out that the problem with getting some motherboards to "see" the USB drive is a case of using as small a drive as possible, well at least under 2Gb, and even then some will be seen and some won't. Just a matter of luck.

From the Standard CMOS Features page you should just set all the ports to Auto and they will automatically decide the proper setting for the drives.

[WiseHacker]

Thankyou Dark Mantis.  Unfortunately, that was the first thing I checked with the board - it is using the F3 BIOS so it is up to date.

I have heard that sometimes the board has to be set to AHCI when using its SATA devices to be properly detected by some distributions of Linux.

Does this board have such an option?

First, I am a bit skeptical as AHCI is primarily meant for RAID configurations.  And second, some sources are even hinting that the 'Enhanced' setting for the SATA devices is effectively a AHCI setting.

[Dark Mantis]

After just thoroughly checking it would appear that the AHCI option isn't avilable on the is motherboard/BIOS configuration.