BIOS setting on X58-UD5

[Rickinferno]

I just finished building my PC (see specs in my signature) and I just booted for the first time and trying to setup the BIOS, I entered the Integrated Peripherals options and was wondering in ICH SATA Control mode do I leave it to IDE or change it to AHCI?  I have 2 Crucial 64MB SSD's hooked up to my 6GB Sata 3 ports.

BTW this PC was build to run W7 Ultimate 64-bit on my Master SSD and the other SSD will be running FSX.  Nothing else is goig on this PC exept for those 2 things. 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.
Well after studying your post for some while now I have noticed that you have included some text also
The first thing that(well maybe second) I noticed was that you are connecting both the SSDs to the Marvell 9128 SATA3 ports. Although this would seem like a good idea you might well find it will cause you a lot of problems. The Marvell controller doesn't work as well as it should (not just on Gigabyte boards) and has an issue with fast throughput of data. It just cant seem to hack it.
You would probably be better off connecting them to your Southbridge ports controlled by the Intel ICH10R chip. Even though it is only SATA2 rated it is actually faster in our tests.
We have found that IDE mode is in general more stable than AHCI. You do lose a little speed but it is not great and unless you require the hot swap capabilities then it might be the best way to go.

[Rickinferno]

Thanks for the welcome Dark Mantis!

I ll try tonight installing the SSD's on my ICH10R chip and will leave my bios setting to IDE.  Again thanks for your help and will let you kknow how it goes.

[Dark Mantis]

You are welcome Rick. You can try AHCI if you want to an see if you can run stably with it but we had quite a few problems. To be fair we were using magnetic drives and maybe on the SSDs you would find it better. Let us know how you get on please.

[Rickinferno]

OK just finished installing W7 64-bit, all works great with both my SSD's setup are in IDE mode but plugged in my SATA 3 ports, I have installed all the chipsets that came with the MB. 

Now my problem is this; I only see one of my SSD's in my computer, the other one is not showing at all, but when I look in Device Manager I do see both SSD's and both do show the famous " This device is working properly".

Any thoughts on to what could make my second SSD not appear in my Computer?

Thanks

[Dark Mantis]

It looks like we are winning. Have you formatted the second drive in the same format as the first? Have you checked in Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management to see if the drive shows up there and it's status?

[Rickinferno]

It looks like we are winning. Have you formatted the second drive in the same format as the first? Have you checked in Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management to see if the drive shows up there and it's status?

I did not think of that!  Did that this morning and everything is working great now  

Now is it possible to check TRIM on my 2 SSD's since I use them in IDE mode and if so how?  Today I ll be tweaking W7 to work better and faster, then I ll run multiple tests to make sure it is stable before I start OCing to 4Ghz.  Once everything is working in perfect harmony then I ll install FSX and I ll be done with this build

[Dark Mantis]

It's good that it's all alright now then.
As far as I am aware Windows 7 supports TRIM anyway. As long as your drive and controller support it then it should be fine.

[Rickinferno]

Well after playing around with my settings in W7, I did not notice that much of a gain in speed with my SSD's plugged in the Marvell SATA3 #6 and 7, so now I going to try using the Gigabyte controlled SATA3 #8 and 9 and see if I can notice a diffrence, if not I ll ggo and plug them o the SATA2 connectors, controlled by ICH10R #0 and 1.

I ll post results once I find the maximum setup!

[Dark Mantis]

I just realised I forgot to mention earlier that the Marvell controller doesn't pass on the TRIM commands so it is just as well that you are not using that any more. The GSATA ports are the slowest on the board overall speed wise and that is why I recommended using the Intel ICH10R(southbridge) controlled ports.

[Rickinferno]

One thing to say!!!One should always listend to the WISE....I just finished installing my SSD's on my SATA2 using ICH10R ports and my system is flying .

Thanks Dark Mantis for your help.  Now all I need to do is tweak W7 and I should start OCing my i7-950 to get up to 4GHz I dont want to OC it too much.  I ll read over this forum to see the base settings for OC this CPU.

Will post results once all is done.

[Dark Mantis]

I'm glad to have been able to help and that your machine is running well now. You shouldn't have too much trouble OCing up to about 4Ghz. Over that and it gets a bit dodgy and hot.