Optimal GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R SATA port connection and BIOS setup

[tkblingx2]

Hi,
I just put together my first machine with a GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R motherboard and was hoping someone could give me the optimal setup for my SATA connections.
The following are the parts that I have that I am trying to connect via SATA:

Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

HDDs
2x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
(Would like a RAID1 setup with Win7 OS Primary drive with these)
2x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1501FASS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
(For media/storage/etc, no RAID)

Optical Drives
Pioneer Black Blu-ray Disc/DVD/CD Writer SATA BDR-205BKS - OEM
(will use this one primary)
LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Black SATA Model iHAS424-98 LightScribe Support

Front Panel
1x eSATA port
Memory Card Reader (will purchase in future, probably only need USB headers but incase I need a SATA port for it)

With the above setup I would like to know which drive I should plug into which SATA ports on the mobo. Also the proper BIOS setup for the SATA ports would be greatly appreciated as well.

I have read that the front panel eSATA should go into the GSATA2_8 or GSATA2_9 port so I can 'hot swap' drives without worry about the system not reading them etc so that is what I am currently planning on.
The rest though is a mystery to me.
Ive read that even though the mobo has SATA3 (GSATA3_6/7) ports the SATA2 (SATA2_0/1/2/3/4/5) ports controller by the ICH10R chip performs better (even for my SATA 3 1TB HDDs), if so I'm guessing all 4 of my HDDs should go into the SATA2 ports is some order? And the optical drives I have no clue sooo any help would be deeply appreciated!

This is my first post here so if I am missing any info thats need please let me know and I will update it ASAP.

Thanks for looking through this and hope I can get someone to help!

 

[tkblingx2]

Room temps at 79F according to my keyboard

EDIT:
Also opening the case to test out airflow had almost no affect on the temps. Maaaybe a 1 degree drop. At least i know my case is doing well

 

[bilbat]

With a medium-high ambient, those temps look OK...

 

[jaquith]

Still a little high +3~+4C {Highs were 63 61 60 58} w/full fan, but okay. The paste takes 7-10 days to set.

@bilbat is correct for asking ambient.

If your room is hot or 77F - 80F+ then your numbers are about right..

WOW - WHAT A GUESS - I was typing before seeing the updated post..I left the tab open from last night ; I was on page 1.

 

[tkblingx2]

Haha right on target!
Ya my rooms usually pretty warm thanks to all the electronics.
I'll hold off on OCing for a couple more days just to make sure my temps dont fluctuate and get too high.

 

[jaquith]

Short of cooling off your room, another possibility {sub ambient} is Thermal Electric coolers.

 

[bilbat]

Kind of amusing to me - I wound up 'under water, just because of that! Didn'r really need the cooling - machine was designed as one hell of a 'heat mover'; never thought of the fact that it was gonna move that heat into my poor 10 x 10 bedroom! Even in winter, with the heat vent closed, still was getting over eighty in the room - didn't wanna find out what it would be in summer! Came up with this:

Radiator, and pump/fan power supply are in the basement ceiling beneath the comp, wall plate has a pair of quick-disconnect water lines, and a molex to monitor fans and pump, as well as the signal for the relay that turns 'em on, little DPMs on the front read the temp drop across the radiator. Beside the fact that I can no longer truss up a turkey, and roast it on my bed, system is whisper quiet...

 

[jaquith]

@bilbat - I thought I was nuts. In my office I added a seperate A/C for the server rack, and I keep the office, burr, @70F.

Get a cheapo window unit or a Mitsubishi A/C unit.

 

[tkblingx2]

Wow now thats impressive!
And I was able to sucessfully "overclock" my memory to the normal speeds of the RAM.

Also for the motherboard LEDs one green LED is lit for the lights to the right of the DIMM ports and also one to the top right of the CPU.

 

[jaquith]

Better than mine w/red + yellow...w/bclk 160 + multiplier 10 {1600 w/all proper timings}

 

[tkblingx2]

Best answer selected by tkblingx2.

 

[tkblingx2]

Well everything WAS running fine until last night/this morning when I tried to turn on my PC and it failed to load win7 (hung at the windows screen but the logo never appeared). So I rebooted the machine then got prompted with an error saying my OC failed and reset it to optimal settings, so I'm currently running with my previously saved CMOS setting of optimal defaults.
Not sure if there is a way to "un-solve" this thread, if not I will just make a new one and hope for your guys intelligence again.

Thanks as always!

(ill edit this post in a bit with the settings I believe I used for the DIMM OCing)

 

[bilbat]

[:lorbat:6]

First thin I discvered when I went back to check the parameter set I gave you is that I, once again, 'bolixed up' the formatting tags - which may have made part of it unclear [:lectrocrew:7] - think it's fixed, now...

Couple things: may need to 'bump' the Vdimm ("DRAM Voltage") a couple of hundreths, to, say, 1.70V; might also try raising the "QPI/Vtt Voltage" to "1.325V"; if it works, run thermals right away - wanna make sure we're not getting warm!