Why won't my Marvell controller switch to AHCI?

[jonathan7007]

All,
I have read of many other Marvell problems since this Spring (going back through your messages...) when I built a new rig with

X58A-3udr Gigabyte mobo - still on F1 BIOS
i7 - 920 no o/c
6Gig Crucial 1066 RAM
JBOD including two Barrcuda XTs SATA-III
Crucial 300 SSD as boot on SATA-II

Please read this if you have time and tell me if I have faulty Marvell controller or just don't know how to switch the I/O and the right order of events during the OS install process.! Sorry for the wordy post but I thought the details and order were important. I have been chasing the e-mail tech support people for a week but as many of you have experienced, no matter how I ask the question, the words that come back answer a question I didn't ask! Or are unintelligible.

I made a mistake in March and loaded Win7-64 under IDE. I used the machine for a while but had always hoped to re-install.This is a production machine for my imaging work, not just a hobby, although I enjoy making everything work well together. I started on the IDE-AHCI switch and necessary re-install a while ago to be ready for my next professional project. Now the beginning of that project is 24 hours away.

When this all started I resolved to be careful. I studied their site and the supplied 136-page mobo documentation and carefully changed three settings in the BIOS to insure AHCI on all the controllers. I watched boot screens carefully to make sure I had a completely AHCI - enabled disk I/O. (I photographed the fast-paging screens to make sure I could read the lists.) However, the Marvell chip-driven SATA-III connectors (there are 2) kept displaying on the first boot page as IDE. Only if I moved the connectors to the SATA-II run by the Intel chip would they (two Barracuda XTs) display during boot as AHCI. 

So I sent a message to Gigabyte asking why, and noting all the system info. Yes, there are BIOS updates but I told them I'd do those after the re-install (I don't like changing too many pieces at once) unless they knew that an update was required for the moves I was making. The first several answers were garbled and didn't answer my questions. After some back and forth I replied finally that they were "not reading carefully enough" and the next answer was composed in much better English. (I know they are in Taipei but the tech staff handling the English-speaking world ought to be better trained.)

This better-written answer said I could not move any connectors after an install. However, the response (yet again) did not answer the lingering question about why the SATA-III connectors still look like IDE to the boot process. This makes me CRAZY.

By this time I had re-installed the OS with all the SATA connectors attached to the Intel-driven I/O, SATA-II, which was the only way I could get an all-AHCI boot. I had placed a new Crucial 300SSD in the case for the new boot drive, and the install went smoothly and very fast. I left the Marvell and Gigabyte-driven SATA connectors empty, figuring that I could switch them after all drivers were loaded. I knew I had everything as AHCI during boot.

So-Now that I had Win7 running, with Marvell driver and some other drivers (all from the web site to be up-to-date), all apps reloaded,  I moved the connectors before I saw the GB's tech response saying I could not do so. The Barracuda XTs went to the SATA-III. I added another drive to SATA-II, a WD 150gig Velicoraptor.  Nothing in the docs says I can't move cables and I have never seen a reference to connector-move-restrictions reading hundreds of posts. I guess everyone just knew this. Oooops, my bad.

I saw no operating problems with the connectors moved around as I want them. However, I immediately again saw the SATA-III HDs on the IDE page (first) in the boot screens. So I can say that I have never seen the Marvell SATA lconnect as AHCI.

 Could this be hardware related? It's more like firmware or driver related? 

The machinery all looks OK in Device Manager, but I do not know how to interpret the "Location" parameters shown for each HD in the Properties. I have re-installed the Marvell driver as a hopeful move. But the "Devices" icons in Win7 (not Device manager) have an icon for Marvell and mousing over that icon shows no driver installed. Weird.

But I sure want to avoid the time sink of going through the whole process again. CS4, Photoshop 5, Office 2010, PaperPort, OmiPage, many little utilities,  yada, yada, yada.

   1. How do I get all these drives attached through AHCI? All BIOS settings are right.
   2. Why are the Marvell-driven connectors resisting AHCI assignment?
   

Comments, anyone?

Jonathan7007

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the forum Johnathan.
What I don't understand is why you want to use AHCI anyway. The stability isn't as good as IDE mode and the performance hit is negligable. The only benefit is if you want the "hot swap" capabilities. The Marvell SATA3 ports are no good for RAID only for standalone drives.
I think we all understand your frustration at the answers received from GGTS in Taiwan. It is only when you complain that it is passed to a proper English speaker.

[absic]

Hi there,

I'm on an AMD board that uses the Marvell 9128 controller and recently I have been doing a lot of testing, trying to fathom out the best configuration with this chip to no avail.

I have been able to get RAID0 running but only with SATA2 HDD's, in IDE mode and the performance is only as good as the standard SATA2 controller on my board. AHCI has never worked properly on the Marvell chip and I am at a loss to give an explanation. I have tried with HDD's from Western Digital, Hitachi, Seagate and Samsung so I don't believe it is a drive related issue.

In IDE it works OK but again, there is no real gain over the SATA2 connectors with standard HDD's. Even mechanical SATA3 drives do not gain by being connected to the Marvell ports.

In IDE mode there are no drivers installed for the Marvell 9128 Controller, if I check in Windows Device Manager and if I run Driver Update to find drivers it reports that I am running the best available.

I do not have an SSD so I'm not sure of the gains that would been shown by using one of these drives, however I think even with an SSD the AHCI mode would not work properly.

As I said before, this is on an AMD board, the GA-790XTA-UD4 and I don't know how relevant this info is with regard to the mobo that you are running but I think that all info helps and it shows that the problems aren't limited to the Intel platform.

[Lsdmeasap]

Marvell runs just fine in AHCI mode, and the Marvell or MSAHCI drivers are loaded and used which you can see once in the OS.

I think what you are seeing may be something to do with how Gigabyte names/does things, like how the SATA Drives are called IDE in Standard CMOS and other places.

It does work in AHCI mode, no problem, if you need some images of this in action let me know

[Dark Mantis]

Marvell runs just fine in AHCI mode, and the Marvell or MSAHCI drivers are loaded and used which you can see once in the OS.

I think what you are seeing may be something to do with how Gigabyte names/does things, like how the SATA Drives are called IDE in Standard CMOS and other places.

Hi Lsdmeasap. This was something absic and I discussed and on looking for the driver I couldn't find one anywhere in Windows in fact there was no mention of any Marvell controller in  Device Manager that I could see at all. I do know what you mean about Gigabyte's weird conventions on naming though.

[Lsdmeasap]

Here is some images from my Controller comparison, the Marvell controller is in Device manager as you can see I have the controller dialog pulled up in these images to show what controller is in use.  You can either install a driver to it or not.  And if you do, that is not necessarily the driver that controls the disk itself either (That's decided upon OS Install)

Click to Enlarge

MSAHCI Driver used, AHCI Mode



mv91xx Driver used, AHCI Mode

[Dark Mantis]

Thanks for the pics. Interesting though because I don't get any Marvell device showing up at all even though it's working fine. Maybe it's because I'm using IDE mode in the BIOS settings.

[absic]

It seems as if there is a driver but that it is being reported incorrectly in Windows 7 64 bit.



Like DM I am running in IDE mode but on the AMD platform

[Dark Mantis]

No you see I don't even get that.

[absic]

Not the only thing you're lacking then DM. 

[Dark Mantis]

I know. It's a hard life

[Lsdmeasap]

You guys are too funny!

Why are both of you running 9128 on IDE anyway? 

[absic]

cos AHCI won't work on my system!

[Dark Mantis]

And from my viewpoint there was no real reason to enable AHCI as I found the speed increrase was nearly non existant and the stability seemed better in IDE mode. Also I had  no use for Hot Swapping at the moment.

[Lsdmeasap]

cos AHCI won't work on my system!

Did you update the firmware on the 9128 chip via the BIOS setting?   If not try that, I've never seen anyone but you guys even use IDE on these controllers, let alone say you can't use AHCI....

What happens when you set AHCI?   It fails to load windows or what?   Be sure you do the AHCI Registry mod first if you installed in IDE Mode.

DM, AHCI is much faster, if you want I can make a comparison later today maybe if I get some free time.