128Gb M4 with ICH9R - Problems

ShadowMan

ShadowMan

ShadowMan

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having some difficulty with my windows install. A few hardware errors being dealt with in general hardware but more trouble with new SSD.

have a 128Gb Crucial m4 on a GigaByte GA-P35-DS3R on the Intel ICH9R controller. SATA mode is set to AHCI and drive detected. Did the windows install (very slow) and all seemed ok. During install a reboot is required and after reboot AHCI bios fails to load. It lists that there are 6 ports and 1 device but will not display drive info and finish POST. If I remove the SSD and connect a mechanical drive it goes through fine.

This has now happened on 2 of the same motherboards ( 1 x R edition and 1 x P edition). Can this board just not support the SSD? Am I missing something obvious?

would love to get the SSD working but if it won't with what I have I either need a new motherboard (recommendations for a S775 board?) or will sell the SSD.

all help appreciated!
 
make sure your using the latest bios for your mb,you might need it modding with the latest intel raid rom for ahci,ill speak to someone who has close contact with gigabyte beta bios writers to see if they can help,or head to here and speak to stasio

http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/
 
thanks. Put on the F13 BIOS from 2009 which was latest on website.

there is a 13d linked on there so will have a read! If you hear anything let me know but I'll prob try and get in touch with them myself.
 
beta bios's are safe to use from there,ive used many over the years,i think its a bios issue as its not detecting/booting from it
 
Well managed to put new BIOS on and still wouldnt pick up the M4 on the Intel chipset.

Moved it to the Gigabyte chipset and it seemed to work fine. Finished the Windows install and got it performance measured at 7.4 on primary disk.

Rebooted without a problem.

Shut it down and installed my secondary hard disk for data storage and pressed the on button. Started to post and then told me my boot manager was missing. Tried to boot from CD to reinstalled but again boot manager missing :confused:.

Went to BIOS to change primary boot order to ensure M4 was boot disk and then it wont clear POST. Reset the CMOS and still having trouble. Flashed back to BIOS 13 and now it gets stuck on the screen after AHCI where it would verify the DMI pool etc. It stops at the DRAM 0 1 4 5 section and I get nothing below. No IRQ listings, no information whatsoever.

Tried flashing 3 different BIOS's onto it. No luck. Tried Gigabyte Recovery Express 2.0 but cannot load it as it cannot get far enough.

Unless anyone has a great idea I think the board is now dead. Will have to start seeing if I can get a replacement 775 board cheap as dont have money at the moment for i5 :(

Any help greatly appreciated. Only have work laptop and a HP tablet left in the house so the Mrs aint happy as she cannot do any of her NVQ work when I am out.

Thanks
 
I use an m4 on the same motherboard. I'm on bios 13 too.

Plug the m4 into the first sata intel port. Unplug all other drives besides your dvd.

Install windows.

Reconnect other drives once it's up and running.
 
tried that and it would get to the install screens but after 1st reboot it would fail to see th drive.

flashed the bios to a beta one and it did butter but still failed. Flashed it up and Dow between 3 different bios's a d now it wo t post.

put in a p35-ds3p and its up and running. M4 is on gigabyte port though and not Intel. Worried to move it incase I kill the windows install and I don't want to reinstall again!

the Mrs has authorised an i5 upgrade now though next month so will just run as is for a while.

thanks for letting me know it should have worked. Guessed the board was dying.
 
Well performance seems really poor on the Gigabyte port on the DS3P. I have installed all the bits guides say to do. I have done the tweaks and it is running on AHCI.

Max read on AS SSD is about 120Mb/s and Max read is 115Mb/s which seems awful for an SSD.

Can I move the drive to an Intel port and try to boot without too much trouble or is it likely to give me a lot of errors and need yet another install? I think I tried the Intel ports before and had an error on install but not 100% sure as I tried so many combinations in 4 days I kind of got lost.

So far I am fairly happy with an SSD but ran the SSD benchmark on a standard 640Gb mechanical drive and it scored about the same.
 
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