Ga-EP45-UD3l AHCI problems

[c0rrupts3ct0r]

I have a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L rev. 1.0 with the l;atest f9 bios.. i have an issue
in AHCI mode the board sometime freezes trying to detect certain hard drives.
it all started with a 500 Gig seagate SATA 2 drive.
Then i had the same issue with a WD6400AAKS drive
now i have 2 identical seagates 1 for os 1 for storage. it wont detect the storage drive. both 7200.11 1.5TB hard drives. the OS detects just fine but the storage it freezes and i have to reboot only for it to happen again. I have tried different cables and different SATA ports to no avail.
in IDE mode it detects all HDD's just fine. Is it a BIOS issue, or is my SATA controller on my board going bad?
I might have to send it in to Gigabyte for RMA, maybe they fixed these issues on the 1.1 rev?
Can anyone help me plz.

Thx

[Dark Mantis]

Well I would say that it's a BIOS issue but if there is no updated one to run that doesn't help. It's always possible that it's a hardware problem when the board was built, dry joint, broken track etc, so I would recommend that you contact Gigabyte Technical Support and see what they say(although expect to wait about a week for an answer). If necessary RMA the board and make sure that you get a Rev.1.1 in return.
Let us know how you get on please.

[c0rrupts3ct0r]

i have contacted gigabyte they think its a problem with my chipset. They are going to call me back tomorrow.. I guess if i have to send the board in i have to send it in. Hope they do advanced rma..

[Dark Mantis]

Yeah, right

[sk4tec]

Hi guys I've got what appears to be the same problem! Must have had the mobo for 2+ years or so and rock solid.

Then I was doing a re-install of Windows x64 7 to try and fix 'graphics driver stopped responding' problem from fitting a new graphics card. I came back to see the PC hung on the AHCI BIOS screen.

It only has trouble with my Samsung Spinpoint F3, the Western Digital Caviar is fine. If I unplug the disks and boot and set the BIOS to IDE its fine although it's not using NCQ 

For the moment I don't care I just want to get my PC running! The Windows install from DVD rom (also using Sata) is flaky - seems to hang as if the DVD ROM is having trouble talking to the MOBO.

The spinpoint's firmware and mobo firmware is up to date.

What can I do??

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

Well obviously it could be a problem with the nmedia that your drive is trying to read. Is it a genuine Windows7 disk or a copy ?

You also mention that it is having trouble with the Samsung hard drive so it could be reading the disk correctly but having problems then copying the data to the hard drive.

You could check whether your motherboard is still under warranty by looking at the serial number. The motherboard should be covered for three years from the date of manufacture. This is readable on the serial number sticker. It will be in the format of year/week so if the serial number was 0926123456 it would be the June of 2009 (the 26th week).

[sk4tec]

Hi, thank you for the quick response. Yes the software is genuine - I bought it myself, its a DVD and is rarely out of its case and is in pristine condition.

Thank you for the warranty information. If... its a warranty problem would Giga replace like for like? Or would I get a new mobo? Its not really worth the effort of a new mobo as I want to build a new Ivy bridge sytem when its out this year

Yes perhaps the Samsung is not happy connected to this mobo. But the problem is that the WB drive is my data drive so I want to leave that disconnected (to protect my data) until get a stable Windows system up running on the Spinpoint.

I'm going to buy a PCI Express SATA port card. I hope this will fix the issue, I presume this will bypass the on board SATA and give me a stable system back. The fact this post exists means that there is something up the with Sata port on my type of giga board (disappointing for all its 'ultra reliable' tag)

This is what I'm looking at:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/controllercards/sataraidcontrollers/m275.html

[Rolo42]

now i have 2 identical seagates 1 for os 1 for storage. it wont detect the storage drive. both 7200.11 1.5TB hard drives. the OS detects just fine but the storage it freezes and i have to reboot only for it to happen again. I have tried different cables and different SATA ports to no avail.
in IDE mode it detects all HDD's just fine.

The 7200.11s had firmware issues; you may want to eliminate that possibility.  Are both drives the same firmware?  Is the storage drive detected with AHCI when its the only drive plugged in?

[sk4tec]

Update - SATA ports are not dead. I've installed Windows 7, fine. The remaining problem is like the original poster that my mobo will not detect the Spinpoint in AHCI mode (it did detect it fine before).

Does NCQ make that much difference? The options are ACHI or IDE - I presume that IDE will still connect at 3 Gb/s?

[Rolo42]

It depends how often you throw multiple commands at your HDD.

I'd be concerned about complete component failure since it worked before, then quit working.  What has changed from the time it did to the time it didn't?

[Aussie Allan]

  Most hard drive (plattered) manufactures will have diagnostic downloads you can pull off there sites .... they do recommend you backup before using them though....near on all will work through a bootdisc (ISO image) or USB key....  by-passing the OS .... depending on the manufacturer some have pretty handy abilities ..... I had a problem some time back with a 6 disc raid set in a customs editing machine...... the array would partially fail and rebuild every two or three weeks and had poorish write speeds ......(Samsung F3s)...... turned out to be in the acoustic management of the drives themselves ...... 4 of the drive were running flat out  while 2 were throttled back to a silent run setting ..... once sorted......picked up an extra 145Mb/s write and never failed again

  Maybe not the the answer.....but worth checking if your running out of ideas .... and one more thing to rule out! ....

  Aussie Allan