Question PCIe SATA III card causes computer to go into boot up loop

[CoolB]

Hello, a while ago I tried to install a SATA expansion card to add some additional hard drives but ran into some issues, and after stepping away from it for a bit I thought I'd take another go at it. I installed the card in an open PCI slot and connected a hard drive and booted up and the system kept cycling through the boot up process, but never made it to windows. I was able to get into the BIOS, and the hard drive connected to the expansion card did show up, so that was being seen. I also made sure the boot priority was correct, and the system was set to boot from the drive with Windows on it.

I then tried booting without any hard drive connected to the card, and it still wouldn't boot into Windows. I also looked at the BIOS again and tried doing a Boot Override to force it to boot from the Windows hard drive, but still just kept getting into a boot up loop. After that I took the card out completely, and the system started working again.

The card in question is a PCIe SATA iii Card, RIITOP 6 Port SATA 3.0 PCI-e Expansion Card Adapter Converter ASM1166 Chipset Support SATA 6G RAID0 RAID1 AHCI SPAN and the motherboard is a
ASUS M5A97 EVO AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS.

I am noticing the reviews for the SATA card that have been added since I purchased it aren't the best, so that doesn't bode well, but if anyone has any ideas or suggestions I'd appreciate it. Even if the idea or suggestion is that I bought a bad card and need to just buy something better. And if that is the case, recommendations on a different card would be appreciated.

 

[rocktalkrock]

I do not think the problem is with the RIITOP adapter card itself, but rather the combination of that card, the now 10 year old AMD 970/SB950 chipset and Windows 10. Getting all 3 to work properly together may be difficult. I use a Syba SI-PEX40057 Controller Card with a Marvell 88SE9230 RAID Chipset myself and it works well in my X370 motherboard. When i first installed the card i did have problems getting it working. It turned out the problem was that my boot drive was partitioned using MNT rather than GPT. Once i converted my boot drive to GPT the Sata3 controller card worked perfectly.

 

[CoolB]

I do not think the problem is with the RIITOP adapter card itself, but rather the combination of that card, the now 10 year old AMD 970/SB950 chipset and Windows 10. Getting all 3 to work properly together may be difficult. I use a Syba SI-PEX40057 Controller Card with a Marvell 88SE9230 RAID Chipset myself and it works well in my X370 motherboard. When i first installed the card i did have problems getting it working. It turned out the problem was that my boot drive was partitioned using MNT rather than GPT. Once i converted my boot drive to GPT the Sata3 controller card worked perfectly.

Thank you. Do you think it would be worth trying a different SATA controller card, or due to the motherboard will I probably have similar issues regardless of the card? Also, I have the boot drive connected to SATA port directly on motherboard. Is that correct, or should the boot drive be connected to the controller card?

 

[rocktalkrock]

Thank you. Do you think it would be worth trying a different SATA controller card, or due to the motherboard will I probably have similar issues regardless of the card? Also, I have the boot drive connected to SATA port directly on motherboard. Is that correct, or should the boot drive be connected to the controller card?

In you BIOS Boot options do you have the "Interrupt 19 Capture" set to Enabled? I believe you need this option enabled to boot from your add-on controller card.

https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/75014-bootable-sata-controller-card.html

 

[CoolB]

In you BIOS Boot options do you have the "Interrupt 19 Capture" set to Enabled? I believe you need this option enabled to boot from your add-on controller card.

Sorry for confusion, was trying to boot from motherboard, not controller card. Just wasn't sure if that was right, or if I had to boot from controller card. I did check though, and my BIOS setting for "Interrupt 19 Capture" is currently set to "Disabled". Even if I'm not booting from the controller card, should that still be set to enabled?

 

[rocktalkrock]

Sorry for confusion, was trying to boot from motherboard, not controller card. Just wasn't sure if that was right, or if I had to boot from controller card. I did check though, and my BIOS setting for "Interrupt 19 Capture" is currently set to "Disabled". Even if I'm not booting from the controller card, should that still be set to enabled?

The default setting is Disabled so you would otherwise leave it on the default setting.

 

[CoolB]

The default setting is Disabled so you would otherwise leave it on the default setting.

Ok, cool, at least I had that right. Thank you for your patience with all of my questions by the way. Would it be worth trying a different controller card? Or am I probably going to have to upgrade the motherboard if I want any card to work?

 

[rocktalkrock]

Ok, cool, at least I had that right. Thank you for your patience with all of my questions by the way. Would it be worth trying a different controller card? Or am I probably going to have to upgrade the motherboard if I want any card to work?

If simply plugging the expansion card into the 2nd x16 slot causes the computer to go into boot loop, i don't see why using any other expansion card would produce a different result. Perhaps a SATA controller card that plugs into a PCI slot rather than a PCIe slot would work for you. But that is just a guess.

 

[did2]

If simply plugging the expansion card into the 2nd x16 slot causes the computer to go into boot loop, i don't see why using any other expansion card would produce a different result. Perhaps a SATA controller card that plugs into a PCI slot rather than a PCIe slot would work for you. But that is just a guess.

I had the same problems with an ASMEDIA 106X SATA Controller ( Marvell 88.. inside ).

I found the only way to get the system to boot without loop in UEFI mode was to set CSM to Enabled and Storage to Legacy only in ASUS BIOS.

Only with this setting the controller is initialized and booting processes. In all other settings I got the boot loop when the controller card was installed.

I assume for pure UEFI mode without CSM the Bios on the controller card has to support UEFI.