Hi.
I am All ears.

It can´t hurt to try it, but is there are AHCI option in your BIOS?

Not only you!

I’m not a programmer at all, just like to dig in stuff (Especially when nLite was just at the beginning) and this topic came up. I made it for people who I advised a P35 motherboard with ICH9(not R) SB and could not enable AHCI under XP. At that time I didn’t know that this topic would get popular and never thought about the "other" chipsets from Intel or to enable it after installation on ICR9R or with Vista.

i don't really understand the highlighted sentence. how can i extract the F32.IMA file? i could only unzip the file to f6flpy32.exe

thanks very much~

I used WinRAR to do that.

thanks very much!!!
i think i have successfully enabled the function.

Your welcome, by the way, on what motherboard did you enable it?

I'm just curious why to use the MagicISO/WinRAR mumbo jumbo when there is much easier way to do it. I did not used floppy drive in any of my machines (PCs and laptops) for almost six years, with USB flash drives and Virtual Flopy Drive (yah VIRTUAL!) and I'm all set.
Just download it, unzip, run the file named vfdwin.exe and in the Driver you need to click on the Start button - which will install and start VFD's driver. In Drive0 tab click to Change button, change the drive letter to any available (A: is usual) and hooray - you have unformatted, virtual 1.44" floppy in virtual drive You can also open existing flopy image file (check the Open button), but for this case it's not needed.
Then you can run Intel's f6flpy32.exe, format the non-existent drive and let it do it's job. After that you can check the "A:" drive with windows explorer and all the Intel SATA drivers files are there and you can copy them anywhere you wish to.
Click to Driver tab on VFD's Control Panel, then on Uninstall button, close... all in 30 seconds, max.

Virtual Floppy Drive is an useful piece of (free!) software - you can create, open, change the content of floppy images and then save them into files, which might be useful if you want to use them for bootable CDs, for example.

It’s just an example I made, and that can be done in 1/3 the time you used .

Yah, but still got to play with Magic ISO. VFD solves that all. Writing my explanation took much longer that all of that

i'm using Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H (Intel® G33 + ICH9 Chipset)

but i'm now facing one problem. the dvd-rom has some problem after i enabled AHCI. when i push the button, it opens and then close immediately (normally i have to push the button again to close it). and it couldn't recognize the disc until i restart the computer.
i'm using LG H62N 18+/- SATA DVD RW Box.
does anyone face the same problem and know how to solve it??

oops.... it was the cable connection problem. i reconnected them and the problem was solved. it was nothing to do with the AHCI setting.

I did it guys!
It worked perfectly on P5K-VM with ICH9 southbridge. Switched AHCI in BIOS. Then had to reboot AGAIN in BIOS for HDD drive to be detected under a new AHCI section that appeared in BIOS, THEN rebooted to windows finally and finished installing the driver.


First, there is a small issue with the instructions.
Because if you replace the lines in iaahci.inf from latest intel package, you will have two entries with:
"PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2923&CC_0106.DeviceDesc" at the bottom of the INF.
You must erase the first one and keep the one that you modded and that finishes by this : = "Intel® ICH9 SATA AHCI Controller"
I think it's purely cosmetic for the name of the entry in device manager but it was worth saying.

About the new performance when comparing emulated IDE to AHCI+NCQ, I must say i am mixed.
From MY feeling, it is much faster especially when cold booting windows, maybe 10 seconds less.
But then i checked the drives performance under HDTune, and strange results, the Burst Rate is bad with AHCI!!!
What's going on??
My 2 HDDs are Samsung sata drives with NCQ support.




Apart from that, my IDE DVD-RW Drive still works the same, no problem.
I am going to try making a backup with Ghost 2003 now...
See you,

TSR

Ghost 2003 imaging worked perfect too
No problem whatsoever with Ghost2003 with AHCI enabled in BIOS.
Gotta use the additional "-FNI" command line so it forces Ghost to work with your HDD SATA.
(for those wondering, -FNI is better than -NOIDE because Ghost still sees IDE CD/DVD drives with -FNI while it doesn't with -NOIDE, allowing you to burn a selfbooting backup image directly to a DVD)

Coming back to perf, Windows XP definitely boots a LOT faster with AHCI.. only the "burst rate" report from HDTune has me troubled.
See you,

TSR

Throughput benchmarks will show nothing, you can see that in the posts I made before, but boot times, load times of programs/games and a bit more can be seen easily.

Glad it worked all out well .

Indeed, doing a "Windows Update" search gives me the result page much faster. (I would say between half and 2/3 of the time it took before)
In a similar manner, opening many tabs simultaneously in IE7 seem much more responsive than before.
Happy camper here.
What did you guys experience, seems faster for you too?
Later,

TSR

Hey guys, i was wondering if there was a way to install the Intel Matrix Storage CONSOLE, to check what modes the drives are in, if NCQ is enabled or not (it seems it's an activable feature, it's not ALWAYS enabled as soon as AHCI is enabled as I've read elsewhere...)
Thanks for this info.

That would be a hack, or to say a work-around that goes deeper then forcing AHCI to install on an ICH9 under XP. I never tried it or looked for it, as the Matrix software is only good for RAID and some other small options that a normal user will never touch.

It would be a hack without any doubts.
I wonder where the app is actually stored as it's not extracted/visible when using -A command on the installer..

This WORKED after other attempts from the Net this worked.

My Gigabyte P35-DS3 SATA boot drive on the GigaByte SATA Channnel .. with the Intel main SATA channel not working as I imaged my windows with Acronis to the new drive (motherboard chipsets were OLD AMD new INTEL ).. So not possible to insert the drivers (F6) into the floppy drive as Idid not wan't to install windows from scratch.

Follow the steps edit the Inf file and it will work.

Thing you need a channel for a boot drive so you can install the drivers .. the 2nd Gigabyte SATA channel made this possible.

Dont forget to turn on SATA in the Intel channel after reboot when installing the Controller driver ..

oh my god... i found out that it IS the AHCI problem.
i re-connected the cables and the problem goes away and i thought it was solved. but eventually i found the problem just comes and goes under the AHCI mode. sometimes it appears and sometimes the drive works normally. but when i switch back to the IDE mode, it works PERFECTLY WELL.
i've searched in the internet and found out that some SATA optical drives don't work well under the AHCI mode. some even disappear under the AHCI mode.
but i'm thinking even the brand or the model number of the optical drive can't tell whether the problem would appear. i've read some posts that some people having the exact same model with me DO NOT have the problem.
i'm not sure if it is just bad luck or certain models of optical drives plus certain models of motherboard together won't work well under AHCI mode.
of course i hope to solve the problem and i'm trying to contact LG but the phone keeps ringing and no one picked up. i will try again very soon and hope to get an answer and hopefully a solution to the problem.

That’s true and a known "problem". What you can do is download the latest firmware for your drive, which could solve your problem.

but i've checked the LG official website. there's no new firmware for my model. although i could find an unofficial one in the internet, i'm afraid it would damage my drive.

You are looking for the full version of 'Intel matrix Storage manager'


intel matrix

you cant find the console files because they are not in that package. The floppy package is made to allow an f6 boot of windows. The full software is available from intel. The link above leads to a page with another link, 'get the latest driver v PV 7.8'

The english version of the software is about 5meg, the multilanguage version is about 20meg. I do not know if it will install without modification. It will obviously not allow any raid functions without the ICH9R chip, but if anyone gets it to install and if it can help in any way, let us know. Maybe it can be used to turn off a function that is stopping some people with sata dvd drives from working under ahci.

-edit
"please do not download this unless you know why you are downloading it. I just posted it because someone asked about the console. This installer will try to install the official driver, along with several utilities (tray icon, error monitoring). It will probably not install on a system with ICH9, and if it does, it may write over any modified files you already installed, and undo any of the fixes that this entire thread is trying to achieve. So only fool with it at your own risk."

-edit2
I ran the full matrix installer but did NOT install it, I looked in a folder the installer created while running called C:\Windows\temp\IIF\Application\StorageUtility . In there was a file called Shell.exe I ran this file and it brings up the console (you may need .net framework installed). The console has no real functions available, other than information. I see information about NCQ but no options to enable or disable. Other exe's in the full installer were (IAAnotif.exe, IAANTmon.exe, and migrstatus.exe). I did not try to use any of these. I will attach a screen shot of the Matrix console. If you want to get to these files you can try to start the install process then copy the files from the temp directory, then cancel the install. I dont know what will happen if you actually try to let it complete the install, it will probably re-write the driver/registry and undo the fix. Once again, don't do this if you don't understand what you are doing. The full console doesn't really do anything.
Click to view attachment

captainvideo, thanks a lot for your tutorial on getting the Console to work.
It indeed does work, yet we can't alter any settings so it's pretty useless, as you said.
At least it showed both my drives have the NCQ feature if i ever needed confirmation
It didn't even occur to me some programs were still working with C:\Windows\temp instead of the temp folder in docs&settings ^^;

Oh another question for you guys: is there any software that can read the S.M.A.R.T. capabilities when the drive is in AHCI mode?
HDTune can't anymore since switching from IDE Emulation.
See you,

TSR

Hi!
I have this ASUS P5K mb, the latest bios version, but the only option I can see in "Configure SATA as" is IDE. It means that NCQ is not available. So with ICH9 (no "R") NCQ does not work? That was the answer from ASUS. Or I can try to find somewhere an old version of bios firmware, flash it and enjoy?

Indeed, that would work, but it could be hard to find a BIOS with AHCI fucntion for ASUS (with ICH9).

hmm maybe it depends for which ASUS motherboard. On my P5K-VM, the AHCI option has always shown up, from factory BIOS 0401 to the latest BIOS 0704 released on 2008/02/15.
It doesn't make sense to remove this option from the BIOS because AHCI on ICH9 is working perfectly fine and without needed tricks on Windows Vista with built-in AHCI driver.
The BIOS 704 makes it clear and specifies that AHCI mode should only be enabled when using Vista.
Only XP users need to do the trick we do in this thread..
So imagine someone installing Vista with AHCI enabled, then if he ever updates the BIOS to one that doesn't have the feature, he would be royally screwed?
See you,

TSR

ASUS thought to be smart en just delete it out of some BIOS updates for some models. But they didn’t realize, or they didn’t want to see, the problem they were creating on the other side, let alone slowing the whole system down and that even with Vista...

Hi!
Thanks for the reply. I've managed to download the old bios version 3.02 via ftp Asus Taiwan, but strange as it is they don't let anonymous users log in any more...
You may download it from here:
http://depositfiles.com/files/4668893

Unfortunately I didn't succeed in downgrading BIOS: afudos has detected that firmware 3.02 was older than my mb and refused to do that

To downgrade the BIOS, you need to use version 2.11 of AFUDOS. In addition, the BIOS for the P5KR board (which has the ICH9R chipset) can be used. The latest BIOS for the P5KR supports all the latest CPUs. See this thread for more information.

I succeeded to install AHCI for my Asus P5KR Motherboard following this method, with two small modifications:

1) as this motherboard uses ICH9R, I didn't need to make the changes in the IAAHCI.INF file described in step 2.
2) for the same reason, in step 3, when creating the registry file, I've replaced 2923 by 2922.
2922 identifies the ICH9R chipset.

In the BIOS, I've set SATA mode to AHCI and "Intel Robinson Technology" as enabled.

Except for that, it works exactly like described in the first post of this thread.

Thanks Punto for your brilliant idea !!



PS: I'm running Windows XP 32 bits

http://www.station-drivers.com/telechargem...rivers.com).exe
RAID Controllers:
- Intel® ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® ESB2 SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® ICH7MDH SATA RAID Controller
- Intel® ICH7R/DH SATA RAID Controller

AHCI Controllers:
- Intel® ICH10R SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® EP80579 SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® ICH9R/DO/DH SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® ICH8M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® ICH8R/DH/DO SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® ESB2 SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® ICH7M/MDH SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel® ICH7R/DH SATA AHCI Controller

These are not official yet, but the good news is that the AHCI issue is apparently fixed.

intel_msm_8.8.0.39

Station driver links always break when you just paste them..

Hi JakeLD.
let's make a testpack with those, and get it out soon, eh?

Already working one my friend, should eb ready tonight, I will also update the VIA drivers 5.17a is out.

Looks like there is a typo in the Registry File:



Should be:

I concur. At the time I tried it, using the original instructions, I had three control sets. After looking things over, I entered the info in by hand using the Current Control Set, and it worked after that. My goal was to be able to run OS X on a Hackint0sh; I now have OS X working, and can definitely assert that the AHCI fix does indeed work.

Just a question. Has anyone noticed ANY increase in performance after switching to AHCI mode? Cause I tried some months ago and all I got were some annoying bios screens (of course, after enabling all the stuff) and waiting times before Windoze started booting

Nerfed.

I have a ga-p35-ds3l that I just turned on the ahci and **** it caused major issues for me. CPU usage was whacked. Firefox using 50% to 90% cpu usage, explorer 40% to 60%, everything was causing major cpu usage. Wouldnt drop below 21% to 23% even with all programs shut off. The hard drive benchmark I have on this computer is Hard Drive Tach. I wish I had taken a screen shot of the results but I didnt. On the Seagate sata2 500gig ST3500630AS the cache burst was 140ish and is normally 210ish. The read speed was 55 high to 35ish low and is normally 70ish+ to 40.

Rather disappointing really.

I guess I also don't understand that if ahci isnt supposed to work on the non ICH9R chipsets then why is it an option ?

P.S. Woo hoo, member for over 2.5 years and I just made my first post. I rock..

SoulSeeker, the ga-p35-ds3l is the same board puntoMX used and reported success with. Are you sre you did everything 100% correctly?

is there any difference, other than digital signature, between driver in windows and the other one from intel?
when xp finds new hardware I can choose one of these:

After a month and a half using AHCI, I went back to IDE.
Some of you might be interested in the reasons:
1. Burst rate is significantly worse with AHCI.
HDTune reports 120MB/s with AHCI versus 140MB/s with IDE
HD Tach reports 200MB/s with AHCI versus 225MB/s with IDE.
(why Tune & Tach don't give the same values is a mystery, but in all cases IDE > AHCI)
2. CPU consumption is definitely higher when using AHCI compared to IDE for seemingly no speed increase whatsoever.
3. AHCI introduces a HDD sleep bug !
I have 2 HDDs. In XP (SP3) power management, I set to switch off the HDDs after 2 hours of inactivity.
When I'm using AHCI, the 2nd HDD never goes to sleep, EVER, if the first one isn't already asleep.
With the same power management settings under IDE, no problem, 2nd HDD goes to sleep after desired time alright even if first HDD keeps being active.
4. Resume from standby is a bit slower.
So for now i'll forget about AHCI for my current config.
Btw, going back to IDE is easy as hell, just swith back to IDE in BIOS, reboot and all is fine.
If you're sure you won't be ever going back to AHCI you can remove the intel matrix storage manager driver (iaStor)
Later,

TSR

Good one, I didn´t think about that and I will edit it directly, credits to you, thank you.

I've had the same experiences with vista as well as xp 64. However, once i installed proper drivers, the hdd sleep bug went away. I think its more work to have it installed as starting other things from cd/dvd that does have its own ahci drivers on media will not recognize drives. Its more hazzle then its worth for performance, and there is very neglible gain at _best_.

Hi Everyone!

I have a Gigabyte P35-DS3 Rev1.0 (ICH9) motherboard with a SATAII HDD and I use Vista 32-bit. But I CANNOT activate the AHCI features, such as NCQ.
I know that Vista supports AHCI out of the box.
When I tried to install Vista in AHCI mode:
- Vista saw my HDD and started install itself
- after about 5 minutes the intallation stopped (no BSOD, no error message, just stopped)
So I could install it in IDE-emulate mode. After the installation I switched to AHCI and then BSOD under startup.
So I did these instructions: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976
Now I can use Vista in AHCI mode but I DON'T use the AHCI features (NCQ, hot-plugging) and the speed is a bit slower than before...

Can someone give me any suggestion?

Thx in advance!

It works very well on a Gigabyte GA-P35-S3G !
Thank you.
Rackman
France (Toulouse)

Interesting... Has anyone ever tried implanting Msahci.sys onto XP? I would take a look at it, but don't have enough knowledge... (and Vista, too).

GL

This is interesting. I thought running the drive in native mode would benefit at least a LITTLE bit...

XP pro SP2

I am currently running the modified driver.
For the last two days, I have been fooling with making bootable cd's and bootable USB. These devices do not have the drivers for the harddrive in ahci so they either crash or just do not see the hard drive. (I had enough trouble just getting the usb image to work at all, so I have not tried to add in the hacked driver).

So I decided to revert back to IDE mode, but when I set the bios back, all I got was the BSOD/stop screen, at about the point where it should be loading the desktop. (this is booting from the normally working harddrive not usb or cd) I didnt try anything else yet, like removing the HD or controller devices from the device manager, or seeing if i can roll back a driver. I dont want to get myself into a situation that I cannot boot the drive at all. I set it back to ahci and it boots fine, but for now I am stuck in ahci.

I thought I did get it to revert back on the first day, but it is not working for me now.
So for me at least, going back was not 'easy as hell'. GA-P35-S3G. maybe I will try it another day.