Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R SATA and fan connections

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Dre325

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Mar 8, 2010
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Hi all,

This is my first build and I have a couple (hopefully) quick questions as I'm putting everything together:

1) I read through bilbat's full sticky at the top of this forum and am confused on which SATA connections to use. I have my single HD connected to the SATA2_0 port. I don't know where to hook up the following: SATA DVDR, front eSATA on my case, and front SATA on my case (I have the Cooler Master CM 690ii advanced with the sata drive connection on top in addition to the eSata).

Any advice? My options are to use the other SATA2_1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, use the GSATA2_8 or 9, or the GSATA3_6 or 7. Bilbat's sticky suggested using the GSATA3 for DVD and eSATA, but I only have 2 of these and have three devices to connect.

2) I'm confused by case fan connections. My motherboard has Sys_Fan1, 2, and 3 connections (with #2 being speed controlled). Do I just take apart the leads on the fans at the small three pin connector and plug them in directly to the MB? Do they get powered that way? They all have the larger 4 port plugs (molex?) to connect to the power supply so I wasn't sure if I should just remove the end and plug them into the MB.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated. Sorry for the questions, but I'm a beginner!

System:
i7-930
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R
Corsair 650W
Samsung Spinpoint 1tb
Sony Optiarc DVDR
OCZ 6GB 1600
CM 690ii Advanced
Sapphire Radeon HD 5750
 
Solution
bilbat
OK - here's a drive setup:

Leave your HDD where it is; plug your DVD into SATA2_4 or SATA2_5. When you run the ICH southbridge in 'compatibilty' mode (non-RAID, non-AHCI), it is 'split' into two physical controllers - one for ports 0-3, and the other for 4&5; any other way, it's one physical controller with six ports - which is slower if you're 'hitting 'em both at once...
Plug both your front panel connectors into GSATA2_8&9 - and we'll enable AHCI for those ports (with one setting) which will allow you to 'hot-plug', i.e., plug in an eSATA drive after you've already booted, and have it recognized 'on the fly'...

On the "Integrated Peripherals" page of the BIOS, leave all your SATA settings at default, except:

"SATA Port0-3...
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Jeezus! [:lorbat:5] I'm confused myself - you've got enough SATA connections on that little board to populate a fair-to-mid-scale server!! I'll get this sorted out in a couple minutes - will help me to know (if you're still on-line) whether you intend to run some flavor of Seven on it??
 
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OK - here's a drive setup:

Leave your HDD where it is; plug your DVD into SATA2_4 or SATA2_5. When you run the ICH southbridge in 'compatibilty' mode (non-RAID, non-AHCI), it is 'split' into two physical controllers - one for ports 0-3, and the other for 4&5; any other way, it's one physical controller with six ports - which is slower if you're 'hitting 'em both at once...
Plug both your front panel connectors into GSATA2_8&9 - and we'll enable AHCI for those ports (with one setting) which will allow you to 'hot-plug', i.e., plug in an eSATA drive after you've already booted, and have it recognized 'on the fly'...

On the "Integrated Peripherals" page of the BIOS, leave all your SATA settings at default, except:

"SATA Port0-3 Native Mode" to "Enabled"
"eSATA Ctrl Mode" to "AHCI"
"GSATA 6_7/IDE Controller " to "Disabled"
"GSATA 8_9/IDE Ctrl Mode" to "AHCI"

I'll look into the fan situation and get back to you...

 
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Solution


Front: 140mm x 25mm Cooler Master A14025-10CB-3BN-F1. Also has the following on it: DF1402512SEDN.
Top: Exactly the same as above (even though this one is black rather than clear with blue LED like the front one)
Rear: 120mm Cooler Master A12025-12CB-3BN-F1. Also shows DF1202512SELN on it.
 
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OK - looked up your part numbers - seem to be plain old three pin fans; my guess is, may have come with an adapter, like one of these two:
0189b.jpg
0190l.jpg

You don't need the adapters. There is a choice to be made regarding the case fans, though. You can just plug them into the SYS_FAN2/PWR_FAN connectors - in which case only one will be controlled, but both will be 'watched' for alarming purposes: on the "PC Health Status" page of your BIOS, three fan speeds appear to be 'reported', but (oddly, for a GB board) there is only one "Fan Fail" setting, which is labelled "CPU FAN Fail Warning", but has text saying "Allows the system to emit warning sound if the CPU/system/power fan is not connected or fails. Check the fan condition or fan connection when this occurs..."

The alternative is to get a fan spilitter:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200455&cm_re=fan_splitter_cable-_-12-200-455-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812706018&cm_re=fan_splitter_cable-_-12-706-018-_-Product
these are what 'popped up' from a search at NewEgg - and I can tell you that, at least the first one is 'miswired' - you would need to cut and remove one of the yellow wires - can't tell with the other, as it's sleeved - can't see the wiring... I know I've purcheased properly wired ones from NE before - but it's an easy issue to fix! In this situation, you get the opposite effect - both of your fans will be controlled, but only one can be 'reported back' for monitoring/alarming. How this works is the yellow wire - it's hooked up to a 'twice per rev' hall-effect pulse generator in the fan rotor - and the LPCIO (low pin count input/output) chip that 'runs' the fans contains a counter that 'sees' the fan speed - if two fans are hooked up to one channel's counter, the pulses are uneven, coincide, etc., and just don't work right. A properly wired 'splitter' has only one yellow wire, from a single fan, coing back to the female connector that plugs into the board...

Oh - and sorry I 'vanished' abruptly last night - I should have left a note. My 'quitting time' here is pretty much regimented - 9:30-9:45 PM, CDST... I may 'appear in the morning' anywhere between 6 and 9 or 10, depending upon how poorly I sleep, and what time our &^%$ dog starts yattering to be let out , but at night, I'm a manic depressive - and am subject to a (terribly destructive) 'loop' - naturally insomniac, and lack of sleep leads to mania, which leads to worse insomnia, causing more mania - and pretty soon I'm pacing around the ceiling with my tin-foil hat on, to keep the NSA from altering my brainwaves[:bilbat:2] [:fixitbil:9]!! So, at night I call an abrupt halt, and take a handful of hypnotics that should drop an elephant [:jaydeejohn:3] in his tracks!
 
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Boy, I sure wish there was a way to select TWO best answers! You have answered both of my questions perfectly bilbat!!!! I've already hooked up my SATA devices per your advice, and have my fans hooked up with the adapters removed. Mine look exactly like the one in your first picture with the male and female.

Seems like I could probably just splice the blacks together and the reds together on two fans to accomplish what the splitters are doing. I may try that, but I think I will fire up my machine for the first time tonight and see how loud the fans are (and how much they bother me) and decide where to go from there.

Much gratitude for the excellent help!!!!!!
 
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Always [:graywolf:9]

Seems like I could probably just splice the blacks together and the reds together on two fans to accomplish what the splitters are doing.
Click to expand...
That will work perfectly - I mostly 'buy up' both four pin and three pin splitter when my parts bin gets low, as I mostly 'roll my own', to length. Another really effective thing is to use these for intakes, and these for exhausts (they 'scavenge' air off the case inner wall better...), as you can 'daisy-chain' 'em off your CPU's PWM controller, they come with seperate yellow-wire-only plugs to feed back to an LPCIO sensor channel, and the CPU fan setup is much more responsive - when lightly loaded, your machine is quiet as a whisper - when it's 'cranked' it'll move air like a vacuum cleaner [:bilbat:5]
 
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Hello Bilbat,

I have a very similar system to Dre325. Thank you for writing this page. I have some questions about the SATA connections and the fans as well if you have time. I appreciate any input you have. I have the same case, mobo, CPU. But I have 2 HDs. A SATA 2.0 SSD for my OS and a SATA 3.0 64MB cache drive for data. See components below.

Here is my system:

i7-930
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus - CPU cooler/fan
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R
Seasonic X-750
OS Drive - Intel X25-M 80GB
Data Drive - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
Samsung SH-S223
G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model # F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ
Cooler Master CM 690 II Advance ATX Mid-Tower Case (RC-692-KKN2)
Powercolor Radeon HD 5770

SATA plugged in as follows:

SATA2_0 - Intel SSD - OS drive
SATA2_4 - Samsung SH-S223 - DVD drive
GSATA3_6 - 1TB SATA 3.0 - data drive
SATA2_8 & SATA2_9 - the drive tray and front SATA port

Is this how you would recommend that I connect my drives?
What BIOS settings should I use?

I installed an additional 140mm fan for a total of 4 fans (not counting the CPU fan and video card). I am not sure where I should plug them into the mobo. I have the fans plugged into the positions noted below. Is this the best way to do it?

I'll start with the 3 fans that came with the case.

PWR_FAN - Top panel of case, rear position
SYS_FAN3 - Front of case in front of the HD cage
SYS_FAN2 - Rear panel of case near the top

SYS_FAN1 - Right now I have a second fan on the top panel, front position. I might put it on the left side of the case over the video card if there is enough clearance. Which position do you think is better? Or do I even need this additional fan?

 
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It appears that it will take me a while to come up with something solid - I'm trying to find some 'hard number' reviews/comparisons with a SATA3 drive (preferably that WD!) on a Marvell controller vs the 'old standby' ICH10R; my assumption is that the ICH will be faster, but I hate to give advice based on assumptions - it usually comes back to bite me in the @$$!

Few things so far; you definitely want the SSD where you have it; you can't 'benefit from' the channel 0/4 'split' I often recommend, as you also want the ICH in AHCI mode to 'pass through' the OS' SSD 'TRIM' commands, which are invaluable to its 'health and well-being'... I'm just uncertain about the benefit(s) of running an actual SATA3 drive on the Marvell controller; overall, the ICH is faster, which I attribute to years and years of driver development for a fairly consistent 'familt' of parts, starting with the ICH7; physically, there just isn't any such thing as a hard drive that can produce a data stream even near the limits of SATA2, much less SATA3 - but that WD has a large cache, which should be able to use the SATA3 'burst speed' - so my question is, does enabling faster caching operations outweight the superiority of the ICH in raw IOPs in 'real world' useage? And, right now my net connect is somewhat overwhelmed - I'm down and up loading a half-gig of files for someone else at the moment [:bilbat]

As for the case, once my cable modem has a little more spare bandwidth, I'll pull the docs and look at the fan arrangements...
 
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Here you go, bilbat:

"Marvell vs ICH10 Conclusion

Consumers don't like to trouble themselves with the technical minutiae that interests enthusiasts. But it's the little things that make all of the difference; most especially in regard to this Marvell SATA 6G SSD Performance vs Intel ICH10 article. For example, most consumers don't realize that the SATA controller they connect their storage device to actually rely on a portion of system memory to create a virtual RAM-drive buffer. In many cases, the Intel driver for the ICH9/10 Southbridge reserves a memory space for cache transactions. These memory allocations appear in the form of Cache Line Size and Prefetchable Memory Base, and enable faster transaction throughput. But Intel is not alone.

Marvell's SE91XX driver
actually follows along the same principals, but with a lack of refinement the differences are quite clear. Benchmark Reviews has exposed a terrible flaw in the design, and only time will tell if SSD performance on the Marvell SATA 6Gb/s controller chips will improve to meet the level Intel's ICH10 Southbridge can deliver. Until then it appears that the marketing hype is simply that, and hopefully Benchmark
Reviews has helped you avoid a costly mistake. "

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=413&Itemid=38

Looks like ICH10 (SATA 2) easily beats Marvell SATA 3 hype. No way for Marvell to achieve, unless they have their own southbridge. Intel will never let anyone have better memory access.
 
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Ahh, jeezz! Quote that, & provide a pointer to it in the 'sticky', totally forgot there was a SATA3 HD in there, as well as the SSDs - yeahm=, the tests pretty much say it all! Still need to d/l the case manual - three of four files are uploaded, should get to it fairly soon...
 
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Yeah I bought the SATA 3 drive because it has the 64MB cache. The SATA 2 version of the Black only has a 32MB cache. I didn't find any reviews comparing them but saw a review talking about how fast the 2TB Black is with its 64MB cache. What BIOS settings should I use for SATA? Thank you again for all the help. :)
 
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Ok - pulled the case manual - sweet wheezing jeezus[:lorbat:5]! I thought my CoolerMaster Cosmos had a bunch of cooling - that thing looks like a piece of Swiss cheese for all the fan holes in it! What you have done sounds good with one exception - I'd take the currently 'kinda spare' that you have in the second top hole, and move it to the front bottom intake - my policy is to try to 'balance' the intake and exhaust flows roughly... In theory, if you 'lean toward' the exhaust side, with more exhaust fans than intakes, it should just 'suck in' air through whatever holes it can, but testing, wind-tunnel style, with little 'film tails' showed me better flow results from having the same CFM capacity on both sides... I'll have to remember this little honey next time somebody wants me to build 'em something 'high-performance' (way too seldom - most everyone seems to specify "cheap" :??: ) - I can see easily sticking a twin water radiator in the top! One thing I can't determine from the drawings on page 12 - do the fan cutouts allow for installation of 120mm fans? I'm not a big fan [:jaydeejohn:4] of 140mm fans - cuts down on the selection too much. If you look at NewEgg, there are twenty-three 140mm fans (and only three of 'em are PWM!), and there are a hundred and seventy 120mm... Oh - and make sure your WD is behind that front intake fan :sol:, and be sure to clean your filters often - the thing only works right if the filters are clean! (...maybe our house is just a pig-sty [:fixitbil:2], shouldn't be though, have a pair of busy little Roombas running around here - but I need to pull filters every two-three weeks to keep everything in tip-top shape...) I'm not sure it matters where you plug the fans in - my experience has been that only CPU_FAN has decent speed control...

Oops - gotta leave for an hour or two - my Dad's agitating, 'cause the strawberry patch is open this AM, a day ahead of schedule - can't tkae long, as it's overcast & rain is predicted, but I gotta humor him [:fixitbil:9]

I'll get back re the drive setup in a bit...
 
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My case already has a 140mm fan in the front bottom and there isn't enough space for another one there. I have it pointed right at my WD drive. The fan in the upper back wall of the case is a 120mm. There are holes for either a 140mm or 120mm fan on the left side of the case. Should I put the 140mm fan on the left side of the case pointed at the video card, leave it in the top, front or just take it out? I examined the left side cover. If I put the fan in that spot, there will be about a 1 or 1 1/4 in. clearance above the video card. I am not sure if that is too close. The drawings in the manual aren't the best. Page 2 of the manual has the rundown of the fan locations in the specs. There is one mistake or maybe a difference of opinion. Reverse the right and left side fans. What I would call the left side of the case, the open side above the mobo, has space for 2 140mm or 120mm fans. My CPU cooler is too tall to place a fan above it. We have tile floors. I think that cuts down on a lot of the dust. Hopefully I won't need to clean the filters as often.
 
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I apologize for 'vanishing off the face of the earth' yesterday, when I had promised help, but my 'couple hour' project turned into an all day train wreck!
Picked (and then had to clean, slice, and can) 65 pounds of berries!
berries2.jpg

berries1.jpg


Regarding the fan, I didn't mean the bottom of the front panel, I meant the front of the bottom panel itself - the area circled in red if the fan will fit, the orange if it's the only way:
0253l.jpg

What you'll wind up with is a sort of 'diagonal' airflow through the whole case (pardon the crappy drawing, but I'm too worn out by 'berry fiddling' to get into AutoCAD to do something better than 'quick and dirty'!):
0254.jpg

The air within an inch of your floor is the coolest air in the house! In warm weather, there is often a 10-12°F differential between the floor and ceiling - and your case is the same way - my fan controller board has a number of temp sensors on long leads, and I've found an even higher differential between the base and top of the case!
...more to follow - still soaking up coffee, and a pain pill [:isamuelson:6]
 
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Now, on to the drives!

I am slightly confused by:
SATA2_8 & SATA2_9 - the drive tray and front SATA port
Click to expand...
If you meant the 'hard drive dock' listed at the bottom of page 11, do you actually plan to make use of this? You have two eSATA ports on the back of your system, as well as one on the front panel. If you don't have an actual use for the 'dockable' bay, I'd leave it disconnected, in the interest of disabling one controller, and 'recovering' its resources (PCIe lanes, shared memory and interrupts)... If you do have an actual use in mind, post back, and I'll revise!

What I would do:
(...actually, what I would do is hook things up two ways, do two windoze installs, and test for a week or two! Which reminds me to add to my things-to-do-list - gotta write a utility/benchmanrk program that will test throughput to all drives available on a sytem simultaneously - nothing I know of does this, and it's needed information!) Your SSD is in the right place. Remove the DVD fron GSATA2_4. Move the WD Black to one of the other remaining SATA2_1-5 ports, doesn't matter which one for this useage - I usually use SATA2_4, as it's where the 'controller split' occurs, but I don't think it matters at all once you have AHCI activated... Remove whichever one of SATA2_8 & SATA2_9 is 'the drive tray', leaving it disconnected, and replace it with the connector to the DVD.

So, to sum up, we should have:
GSATA2_0 - SSD
GSATA2_4 - WD Black
GSATA2_8 - DVD or FP eSATA
GSATA2_8 - DVD or FP eSATA

I would do a reinstall of windoze, just on general priciples, but this may work 'out of the box' first time, as seven has 'native' AHCI drivers - but I don't know which ones - I'm sure the ICH is 'covered', but not so sure about the jMicron controller (GSATA2_8&9)... In any case, you don't want the 'native' drivers for the ICH anyway, as the latest AHCI set is required to enable SSD TRIM command 'pass-through' in any case, and TRIM is very important to the 'health and well-being', long-term, of your SSD!

In the BIOS, on the "Integrated Peripherals" page:

"eXtreme Hard Drive" to "Disabled";
"ICH SATA Control Mode" to "AHCI";
"SATA Port0-3 Native Mode" to "Enabled";
"eSATA Controller" (rear panel eSATAs) to "Enabled", if you plan to actually use them - "Disabled" if you don't;
"eSATA Ctrl Mode" to "AHCI" if enabled directly above;
"GSATA 6_7/IDE Controller" to "Disabled"
"GSATA 6_7/IDE Ctrl Mode" (doesn't care - it's disabled...);
"GSATA RAID Confguration" - ignore;
"GSATA 8_9/IDE Controller" to "Enabled"
"GSATA 8_9/IDE Ctrl Mode" to "AHCI"

Next, you will need some drivers and software - for me to point you at the 'right stuff', it would help me if you'd be so kind as to post your intended operating system...
[:bilbat:8]



 
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Hello again,

I can't thank you enough for all of your help. You didn't disappear. 😱 I kinda figured you were busy. Were you guys making jam with all of those wonderful strawberries?

Fans

Unfortunately, the extra fan I already have is a 140mm. 🙁 The bottom of the case accomodates 120mm fans. Your drawing is perfect and it looks like a great idea. The cables from my modular PSU are coming out where a bottom, rear fan (orange circle in photo) would sit. There is room for a bottom, front fan (red circle) if I remove the bottom drive cage. It is unused right now. So, if you think it is necessary, I can buy a 120mm fan and put it in the front (red circle) slot. Otherwise, I can take the extra fan out if I would be better off without it. The only places that a 120mm fan fits is the top front section and the left side over the video card. I am not sure if I need a fan in either of those places.

SATA

I am slightly confused by:
Quote :

SATA2_8 & SATA2_9 - the drive tray and front SATA port
Click to expand...

I do plan to use the drive tray on occasion. Sometimes it will be easier just to set a drive in there rather than getting out and assembling my enclosure. I won't need the back SATA ports if that will help with performance. I will be running Window 7 Ultimate and I have not installed Windows yet. Do I need to load the drivers while installing Windows or should I install them afterwards? How do I enable TRIM? Or is that taken care of by turning on AHCI?

"GSATA 6_7/IDE Controller" to "Disabled"
"GSATA 6_7/IDE Ctrl Mode" (doesn't care - it's disabled...);
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure you meant GSATA3_6 and 3_7 here?

Thanks again,
Jason
 
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:pt1cable: My dad eats strawberries and waffles (with a dollop of CoolWhip) every single morning, all year long! My mom and I trimmed up and sliced the 65 pounds of berries in two sittings, total of about 9½ hours, he mixed & boxed, adding eleven pounds of sugar, wound up with 32 quart containers frozen - about a third of what he will need for the year [:fixitbil:9]

I hate to see the entire drive cage go... I replaced all the CM fans in my case anyway - don't know how yours are, but the ones they shipped me were pretty cheap, bushing-type fans with too high a top speed; I'd see if you can fit an 80 or (preferably) a 92 in between the rails. The whole thing about lots of fans is that then, you can run 'em 'whisper quiet', while still getting plenty of airflow! Oh, and, BTW, I have my case sitting on a couple squares of ceramic tile, to improve airflow, and this is about two weeks worth:
0256y.jpg

Maybe I need to fire the Roomba? [:bilbat:9] Maybe he belongs to some damned 'robot union', and is holding back on me?

I later thought of the obvious solution for the drive tray - just plug it into the ICH, on GSATA2_2 0r 3! We're gonna put the ICH into AHCI anyway - and for my money you get two things from that: TRIM 'pass-through', and 'hot-plug', so you can 'stick in' an eSATA or hot-pluggable, and 'recognoze it' on-the-fly, without a reboot! Remember though - when you hot-plug anything, you need to remember to 'eject' it when you intend to unplug it - 'flushes' the disk cache to drive before 'dumping' the drive... I'd leave GSATA_1 and 5 open, in case you want to add drives later for RAID - if you add another SSD, and RAID0 it, you'll be awed by the performance; and another WD in RAID1 will give you perfect (well, almost) data security...

I am pretty sure you meant GSATA3_6 and 3_7 here?
Click to expand...
[:lorbat:6] You've got it! Never fails to amaze me that I can typo, and read it over and over, and just 'see what I intended', not what I've written. That's why I usually put 'stickies' up for review for a while - nearly always, another set of eyes will see my dipstick 'misteaks'[:jaydeejohn:4]

You will need the Intel 'pre-load' (floppy) driver:

32-bit here;
64-bit here;

and the Rapid Storage Manager (32 & 64...)

While you're at Intel, I'd also grab the Solid State Drive Toolbox, and its user guide... It's bound to come in handy!

You will also need the jMIcron (eSATAs & GSATA2_8&9) pre-loads:

32-bit here;
64-bit here;

Now, lessee - the Intels are zip files, just extract them somewhere; the jMicrons are self-extractors - just double-click on 'em to extract; format a USB stick (assuming you don't have a floppy :non: - if you do, post back, it's much easier!) in FAT-32, put all your extracted files on it; make sure that "USB Storage Function" and "USB Keyboard Function" are enabled on the "Integrated Peripherals" page of the BIOS - and - you're ready to install!

When you get to this screen, that's where you put in the drivers:
install7.jpg

...click on the red item (or <F6>), navigate to your USB stick, and you'll se items for both controllers - do one, then return & do the other - and you should be ready to proceed!

Raining today - so if any problems - I won't be out in some damn strawberry patch!
 
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Wow! He eats a lot of strawberries! I certainly believed you about the dust. I wouldn't fire the Roomba. I grew up having carpet in every house or apartment I've lived in. I have allergies to dust. Nothing too bad...I get a runny/stuffy nose. My doctor told me some years ago that if I moved into a house with wood or tile floors my problems would almost go away. Carpet seems to just attract the dust. Vacuuming it only seems to help a little bit. Anyway, when I bought my house a few years back, we got a house with Pergo and tile floors. It really helped reduce my allergies a lot. I wish my case had pull out filters like yours. Mine aren't too bad but they aren't pull out like yours. What case is that? I think that I am going to end up shutting my PC down and just wiping the filter off. They aren't as easy to remove. They kinda clip onto the inside of the front and top panel and onto the underside of the bottom of the case. The front is easy. I just pull the front bezel off and it is right there. To access the top, I have to open the side panel and pull some clips to pull the top of the case off. The bottom is accessible if I turn the case upside down or tilt it over. In the reviews I read, the case is supposed to be quiet. Here is a link to the extra fan I bought.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00314J422/ref=oss_product

It is the same as the 2 140mm fans that came with my case. Hopefully their fans have improved. There is space for a 120mm fan right on the back side of the drive cage. It that where you meant? That lines up right behind the front bezel case fan right in front of the drive cage.

Now on to the drives. So it looks like AHCI drivers load like the old SCSI drivers. It sounds like TRIM comes with enabling AHCI. Is that correct? Listed below are your SATA recommendations as I understand them. What do I do with the Rapid Storage Manager?

GSATA2_0 - SSD
GSATA2_1 - Open for future RAID
GSATA2_2 - Drive tray
GSATA2_3 - Unused
GSATA2_4 - WD Black
GSATA2_5 - Open for future RAID
GSATA3_6 - Unused
GSATA3_7 - Unused
GSATA2_8 - DVD
GSATA2_8 - FP eSATA

And I assume these settings remain the same?

In the BIOS, on the "Integrated Peripherals" page:

"eXtreme Hard Drive" to "Disabled";
"ICH SATA Control Mode" to "AHCI";
"SATA Port0-3 Native Mode" to "Enabled";
"eSATA Controller" (rear panel eSATAs) to "Enabled", if you plan to actually use them - "Disabled" if you don't;
"eSATA Ctrl Mode" to "AHCI" if enabled directly above;
"GSATA 6_7/IDE Controller" to "Disabled"
"GSATA 6_7/IDE Ctrl Mode" (doesn't care - it's disabled...);
"GSATA RAID Confguration" - ignore;
"GSATA 8_9/IDE Controller" to "Enabled"
"GSATA 8_9/IDE Ctrl Mode" to "AHCI"

Hello Bilbat,

Update to this question. I hope everything is going well for you. I cannot thank you enough for all of your assistance. :bounce: About that, is there some way I can give you points or something like that on this board? I am new here and have not found a way to do that. I went ahead and installed Windows 7 with the settings above and everything seems to be working awesome so far. I figure that I can change it or reinstall Windows, if necessary. I am going to install all of the mobo drivers tonight and continue setting up the PC. It is unbelievably quiet! When it is turned on, I cannot hear it at all. When the DVD drive was spinning during the Windows install, it was louder than anything else! I imagine that if I do something that pushes the processor and video card, I will hear something coming out of the case, but it is completely silent while doing normal activities. After I get it setup, I'll run Prime 95 to test it out, overclock it and rerun Prime.
Thank you again,
Jason (waimea95)
 
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Hello Devt33,

I was reading through this thread and realized I forgot to thank you for very important input. Again, a very belated thank you! :bounce:
 
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You're welcome.

I have Marvell 9128 Sata III controller on my board too. This was kind of unpleasant to read, but, I expected it, deep inside. Salesman have to sell.

I am just going to use it as regular Sata II controller, that's all. The board still worth it, since it has all together 10 Sata ports inside and 2 outside. So what if it is not really Sata III, no one has them anyway.

I figure, by the time real devices capable of breaking sata II bandwidth and intruding into sata III territory become affordable and reliable, this board is going to be in a dusty cardbox in the closet anyway, due to obsolete CPU socket.
 
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Hello Bilbat:

Could all of above recommendations be implemented AFTER RAID been set up in ICH SATA Control Mode and Window 7 already loaded??????????? Or it can ONLY be done BEFORE the ist run of the computer and BEFORE Window 7 installation??



 
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