[beebb]

beebb, on Apr 4 2008, 01:04 PM, said:

puntoMX, on Apr 4 2008, 03:42 AM, said:

beebb, on Apr 3 2008, 05:37 AM, said:

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 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.

[theshadowrunner]

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

This post has been edited by theshadowrunner: 04 April 2008 - 11:44 AM

[theshadowrunner]

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

[puntoMX]

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 .

[theshadowrunner]

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

[theshadowrunner]

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.

[puntoMX]

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.

[theshadowrunner]

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..

[boyzo123]

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 ..

[beebb]

beebb, on Apr 4 2008, 11:52 PM, said:

beebb, on Apr 4 2008, 01:04 PM, said:

puntoMX, on Apr 4 2008, 03:42 AM, said:

beebb, on Apr 3 2008, 05:37 AM, said:

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 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.

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.

[puntoMX]

beebb, on Apr 6 2008, 03:52 PM, said:

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.

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

[beebb]

puntoMX, on Apr 7 2008, 07:21 AM, said:

beebb, on Apr 6 2008, 03:52 PM, said:

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.

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.

[captainvideo]

theshadowrunner, on Apr 5 2008, 03:30 PM, said:

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..

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.
 intel.jpg (60.2K)
Number of downloads: 27

This post has been edited by captainvideo: 07 April 2008 - 04:04 PM

[theshadowrunner]

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

[Lpavel]

puntoMX, on Dec 18 2007, 07:07 PM, said:

For ASUS P5K motherboards (IF present in BIOS, please report if not present.):
Restart the computer and enter the BIOS (Mostly entered by pressing DEL). Make the settings:

	SATA Configuration   	   [Enhanced]
 	   Configure SATA as		[AHCI]

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?

[puntoMX]

Lpavel, on Apr 9 2008, 08:01 AM, said:

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).

[theshadowrunner]

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

This post has been edited by theshadowrunner: 09 April 2008 - 02:21 PM

[puntoMX]

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...

[Lpavel]

puntoMX, on Apr 9 2008, 10:28 PM, said:

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

This post has been edited by Lpavel: 11 April 2008 - 03:01 AM

[Lpavel]

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