Epox 9NPA+ Ultra and SATAII

leaskovski

leaskovski

leaskovski

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:D Hi guys,

I have finally just got a new SATA-II disk (my first one) to plug into my Epox 9NPA+ Ultra motherboard.

One thing i don't understand though as i am a noobie at this SATA stuff... Why the device manager is only reporting transfer mode as 1.5 and not 3?

I am pretty sure the motherboard is SATA-II. The drive i am using is a seagate 7200.10 250GB disk. Oh and i didn't put any jumpers on the operation mode.

Any ideas? Thanks all!
 
So there are no jumpers on the hard drive at all (shouldn't be for 300MB/s on the Seagates), and you have the nV IDE SW drivers installed (latest ones)?
 
smids said:
So there are no jumpers on the hard drive at all (shouldn't be for 300MB/s on the Seagates), and you have the nV IDE SW drivers installed (latest ones)?
Click to expand...

Yep, no jumps on the drive. As for the drivers, i am pretty sure i am running the nv ones. When i last install the forceware stuff (6.86? or something or other) i said yes to the SW IDE drivers.

Thanks
 
Don't you have to install the SATA drivers from a floppy when you format the HD?

I'm sure that's what i was told, however, i had already installed about 6 hours o content when i found out, so never bothered.

But the last BIOS update i did seemed to have fixed the problem, i think, well its shown as SATAII and it hadn't done before.
 
dokko said:
Don't you have to install the SATA drivers from a floppy when you format the HD?

I'm sure that's what i was told, however, i had already installed about 6 hours o content when i found out, so never bothered.

But the last BIOS update i did seemed to have fixed the problem, i think, well its shown as SATAII and it hadn't done before.
Click to expand...

I think i have got the latest bios as well, as the magic bios program has told me that it is the last version. :(

I suppose i will give installing the nforce drivers ago again.
 
What is the exact model number on the HDU - ST3....

Got a screen of that Device Manager display?

What is the exact motherboard number - printed on the board PCB.

nForce 4:no SATA-II 300Mb/s or SLi
nForce 4 Ultra: SATA-II 300Mb/s, no SLi
nForce 4 SLi: SATA-II 300MB/s and SLi.

You sure you didn't get a non-ultra nF4 board?
 
Okay, the motherboard says ultra on it so it should have SATA-II and the driver version on the nVidia nForce4 serial ATA controller is 5.10.2600.666

sata1.jpg

sata2.jpg

bios.jpg


:confused:
 
Hey, iv had this board, (Epox 9NPA+ Ultra) it doesnt support SATA2, the nforce 4 chip does, but its soldered not to enable it, you can enable it by removing the chipset heatsink and joining together 2 solder points, google it, theres many guides on getting SATA2 working on the board. TBH its not worth the risk , there aint much difference between sata 1 and 2 in terms of actual speed
 
Combat squirrel said:
Hey, iv had this board, (Epox 9NPA+ Ultra) it doesnt support SATA2, the nforce 4 chip does, but its soldered not to enable it, you can enable it by removing the chipset heatsink and joining together 2 solder points, google it, theres many guides on getting SATA2 working on the board. TBH its not worth the risk , there aint much difference between sata 1 and 2 in terms of actual speed
Click to expand...

Thats completely ridiculous! They advertise the board as SATA-II! It even has that on the side of the box and in the manual! :mad:
 
leaskovski said:
Thats completely ridiculous! They advertise the board as SATA-II! It even has that on the side of the box and in the manual! :mad:
Click to expand...
Unfortunately there is no recourse there - check my sticky. SATA-II standards include a multitude of features - 300Mb/s is not the only one and doesn't represent SATA-II as a whole standard.

I know, it's a right turd burglar but that is the case.

Oh and it should be 2 Serial ATA and 1 Parallel ATA controller listed.

You could open up the chipset cover and repair the cut bridges with some conductive material - this would enable SLi and SATA-II but voids warranty and isn't guaranteed to work.
 
I got 2 x sata2 drives and 1 x sata drive, boards picks up sata2 fine.

I have 2 of these boards, both on latest (and used older) bios versions, all picked up sata2 fine for me.

So i'm boggled what you lot are talking about with no sata2 support.

Both my sata2 drives are read as sata2, bios and in windows.

dokko said:
I hate Epox, i'll never buy another MOBO off them again.

The placing of some things on my board, jesus, it looks like a 3month old designed it, and it was ok'd by his teething rattle.
Click to expand...

Shame you feel that way, Epox have been the nicest boards i've used thus far.

I've used Nforce4 drivers from the nvidia site, the disk drivers, and ones from the Epox site, all have worked how they should and with sata2. 1 of my boards is an older revision to (which i'm on now).

Placement of certain ports on the board are bad, apart from that its an awesome board.

http://noobtutorials.co.uk/index.php?name=ForumsPro&file=download&id=206
 
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