Gigabyte EX58-UD5 - need some basic setup advice please!

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

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Hi everyone

I've got Windows 7 on an SSD, and loads of standard HDDs that I'm putting into a new build, but I've got a couple of HDD related questions...

Anytime I've done a build in the past (last was over a year ago, I'm a bit rusty!) the HDDs were always set as IDE in the BIOS.

This time I'm looking at AHCI (typically I've already installed Windows so I would need to reinstall)...can you tell me:

The settings I need to change in the BIOS to enable AHCI seems to be two places, should I change them both to it?

Also, I have 9 HDDs plugged into the machine, the drives on the first six SATA ports (in blue) are detected fine, but the last four (G 0-3) with white connecters are ignored even in the BIOS so the drives don't show up.

Can someone tell me how to enable those last four ports? I can't see how to from the BIOS or the manual! :(:confused:


Many thanks :D
 
Well that's a good question, and the reason I never bothered with it before, the drives worked so I was happy.

This computer is going to be used for video editing and as an HTPC (as well as the general everyday things a home machine does), so the hot swap capability of the drives may be useful.

Does it not make any other real world difference then?

I wondered if it could have anything to do with the last four SATA ports that I can't get to work, that's more important to me at the moment...I've got 4TB of data I can't look at. :(
 
There's two controllers on this board. An Intel and a JMicron.

In the BIOS IIRC it's the Integrated Peripherals tab. Change the top entry from IDE to AHCI (this is the Intel controller).

Near the bottom of the same page you'll see an entry for the JMicron controller (it's not labeled JMicron maybe as the Gigabyte or somesuch I can't recall and not on that box now) - though I don't know if that supports AHCI. I only ever use it for eSATA in IDE mode for flashing stuff.
 
Many thanks for the post, I think I've got a bigger problem actually...

I can't get any drive to be recognised on the secondary SATA connectors (the white connectors)...I'm thinking it could be a hardware fault on the board as nothing is showing in the BIOS when I plug them in. :(

Is there any setting I could be missing which has turned off the JMicron controller?


Thanks.
 
Just dug out the manual, link here : http://europe.giga-byte.com/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-ex58-ud5(p)_e.pdf

BTW the JMicron controller does support AHCI.

I'm assuming you changed the settings as per page 59? Onboard SATA/IDE Device set to enabled and CTRL mode set to IDE or AHCI? Don't set it up for Smart Backup. But it might be worth a check to see if it is already configured, and unconfigure it if it has - not sure how, but this option is creating a RAID so you'll have to delete it if it is set up that way!

If so, take a look at page 55, on that screen there are all the IDE channels are these set to "auto" when you go into the individual drives? One time mine defaulted to "none" after enabling the JMicron controller so it wasn't detecting the drive on that page.

The JMicron ports should be 4 and 5, so go into each master/slave entry and check that it isn't set to none, if it is change it to Auto.

You'll need to reboot before it detects the drive :)

HTH
 
*reply from Mrs Cheese*

Thanks for the hints ChileanLlama... was very pleased when Cheese passed me the print out of your tips... I thought *aha* this must be the issue...it wasn't

I have spend time this afternoon pluging and unpluging drives one by one... and I have some interesting, and seriously frustrating results:

My new F3's reformatted on this rig *shrugs* are now working in both blue and grey/white SATA ports.
My new but formatted on previous rig 1.5TB green western digitals are working in both ports.
However my F1s (which have all my media files... photos, vids etc...from my previous rig) will only work in the blues and not the greys

What the dickens is going on...?
 
Good morning Mr and Mrs B Cheese :D

Have you had the F1s set in RAID on your old machine or as Dynamic Disks from within Windows? I can't think of any other reason why they won't work, and even if they'd been in RAID or Dynamic they should still show up :confused:
 
Morning ChileanLlama, Mr Cheese here lol (the missus is still in bed :eek:)

Well...you've busted me...we've had a combination of human error and a weird motherboard config I think, the good news is it all works now! *cheers and gets the flags out*

The bad news is I messed it up and shouldn't be showing my face on this forum for such a mistake :rolleyes:

Our setup is:
x1 SSD - boot
x2 F3 1TB - data and games
x2 WD 1.5TB - backup
x4 F1 1TB - HTPC etc.

To save time before we built the machines I formatted the F3 drives on XP Pro to check they were OK...and yes, used a dynamic disk setting, which is why the BIOS saw them and the windows installation didn't. No worries though, we got an SSD instead (thinking at the time it was a hardware conflict) :D

All our drives are now loaded as basic, but for some unfathomable reason the motherboard can't see the F1 drives when they are plugged into G0-3 (the JMicron SATA ports). So we have the F3s and WDs in those and the F1s in the first six ports and it seems to work fine now!

The weird thing is that the BIOS shows that channel 5 - master and slave is empty, but they show up in Windows :confused::eek:

Very odd, but it all works now so we are happy.

Many thanks for your help from both of us, it was much appreciated!!!
 
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