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Not sure how to setup AHCI on new MB.

Soupy

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Not sure how to setup AHCI on new MB.
« on: November 18, 2010, 10:14:42 pm »
I just got  GA-890GPA-UD3H. I want to install windows 7 pro with AHCI support so I can have my eSata drives hot swappable. Im a little confused on which driver to use or if im supposed to use them all? Not totally sure on how to install them using a flash drive?

Thanks,
Ken

absic

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Re: Not sure how to setup AHCI on new MB.
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2010, 08:30:20 am »
Hi there,

Set your SATA controller to AHCI then just let Windows 7 do it's thing, you won't need to use F6 to load any drivers.

Once you have loaded windows you don't want to worry about loading AMD's AHCI drivers as I have found they are actually worse than the Microsoft ones.
Remember, when all else fails a cup of tea and a good swear will often help! It won't solve the problem but it will make you feel better.

aliali

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Re: Not sure how to setup AHCI on new MB.
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2010, 12:32:48 am »
Hi there,

Set your SATA controller to AHCI then just let Windows 7 do it's thing, you won't need to use F6 to load any drivers.

Once you have loaded windows you don't want to worry about loading AMD's AHCI drivers as I have found they are actually worse than the Microsoft ones.
Problem with this board (and probably others?) is the hot swap is only available on the GSATA ports. No matter the settings any drive hooked up to the 6 main SATA ports will not show up as removable. This is causing me a bit of grief as I use hot swap bays on my Zalman case for some internal drives as well as using the E-SATA ports for some external drives.
This page http://forums.ocworkbench.com/showthread.php?t=101499&page=2 suggests a Bios limitation with the Asrock boards, so perhaps it is the same with the Gigabyte ones?
Now I can understand the reason for this, it is so people can't inadvertently remove their OS drive ( :P) but would be nice to have the option of turning this on or off so those that need it can have more than 2 hot swap capable ports.
As on Onchip Sata Port 4/5 seem to be separately configurable from the other 4 SATA ports perhaps hot swap capability could be added to those 2 ports?
 

Christoph

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Re: Not sure how to setup AHCI on new MB.
« Reply #3 on: December 17, 2010, 07:36:23 am »
well yeah

I had my 4/5 ports set for AHCI and they did work, don't know really about the 4 main 6 Gb/s cuz since I have a raid array on those

aliali

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Re: Not sure how to setup AHCI on new MB.
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2010, 12:01:01 pm »
well yeah

I had my 4/5 ports set for AHCI and they did work, don't know really about the 4 main 6 Gb/s cuz since I have a raid array on those

Ha teach me to look through things properly.
Just discovered a setting in the BIOS to set "onChip Sata port as ESP".
With this setting you can enable or disable hot swap on any of the 6 onchip sata ports.
So I can have my OS drive hidden from the "safely remove hardware" option in windows but enable it for any of the other ports on an individual basis.
Super neat, pity there seems to be no mention of it in the manual.

Dark Mantis

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Re: Not sure how to setup AHCI on new MB.
« Reply #5 on: December 17, 2010, 12:54:01 pm »
A lot of the information in the manuals is a little basic and could do with more detail.
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
i7 920
Dominators 1600 x6 12GB
6970 2GB
HX850
256GB SSD, Sam 1TB, WDB320GB
Blu-Ray
HAF 932

Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
i7 3770K
Vengeance 1600 16GB
6950 2GB
HCP1200W
Revo Drive x2, 1.5TB WDB RAID0
16x DLRW
StrikeX S7
Full water cooling
3 x 27" Iiy

Re: Not sure how to setup AHCI on new MB.
« Reply #6 on: December 17, 2010, 11:41:09 pm »
A lot of the information in the manuals is a little basic and could do with more detail.

The only bios manuals I ever read that were worth a dam were for Abit boards. They told you exactly what each setting did and the default settings were 99% of the time exactly where they should be. If Abit still made boards today the bios book would be the size of a collage dictionary with the number of bios settings in today's boards.

Bill
Main Box*i7 930@3.5 Ghz*CM V6 GT*GA X58A-UD3R v2 FB bios*3x4 gig Patriot DDR3 1600 EL*EVGA GTX 460 1 gig*OCZ Vertex 3 MI 120 gig*WD  Blue 500 gig*ASUS DRW-24B3LT*Samsung SH-S223L*Teac Floppy*Corsair AX750*Rosewill R6AR6-BK case*Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit SP1

Dark Mantis

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Re: Not sure how to setup AHCI on new MB.
« Reply #7 on: December 18, 2010, 09:28:18 am »
Agreed Bill. I had forgotten how well documented those Abit boards were. Shame other manufacturers didn't follow the same path...with the manual that is not the going out of business. ;D
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
i7 920
Dominators 1600 x6 12GB
6970 2GB
HX850
256GB SSD, Sam 1TB, WDB320GB
Blu-Ray
HAF 932

Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
i7 3770K
Vengeance 1600 16GB
6950 2GB
HCP1200W
Revo Drive x2, 1.5TB WDB RAID0
16x DLRW
StrikeX S7
Full water cooling
3 x 27" Iiy