Marvell 91xx Config ATA device not found on my old Rampage Extreme iii??

plasma · 14 Apr 2017 at 11:00

Hi all,

My first post here. I have an Asus Rampage III Extreme motherboard (yes, all the way back from 2010!) and recently my old SSD Corsair F60 SSD died on me. I was running on Windows 7 x64 and was using my SATA III 6gb/s port (Marvell Controller) and it worked fine I believe. I have not upgraded to Windows 8.1 and also replaced my SSD with a Corsair Green 120GB one and now during boot up it says "Marvell 91xx Config ATA device not found...". On DeviceManager my Marvell 91xx device is not recognised. Windows cannot find a driver for this.

I have gone on my BIOS and its set to AHCI but only see's my new SSD as IDE. I cannot find the Marvell driver to install for Windows 8.1.
I have gone on the Asus website: https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/RAMPAGE_III_EXTREME/HelpDesk_Download/
and because my motherboard is so old they only have the Marvell drivers for Windows 7.

What can I do now? I really want my SSD to run on SATA III 6gb/s. As my mobo is so old, is my only choice to go back on Windows 7??

mickyflinn · 14 Apr 2017 at 11:43

There will be little real world diffrence between sata 2 and sata 3, Does the intel sata 2 ports work with windows 8 ?

plasma · 14 Apr 2017 at 12:16

mickyflinn said:
There will be little real world diffrence between sata 2 and sata 3, Does the intel sata 2 ports work with windows 8 ?

I thought with SSDs the difference between SATA II and III is quite noticeable? SATA II can onyl read/write up to 300/250mb/s whereas SATA III can do 1.5 times that.
I am currently using SATA II IDE mode on Windows 8.1 yes. I guess you're saying it isn't really worth the hassle?

ED209 · 14 Apr 2017 at 13:16

On the x58 boards the Sata 3 cannot do full sata speeds. I have a x58 board and have the marvel controller disabled and use sata 2 (the intel controller).

When using sata 3 ports my speeds where around the 400mb and I had a never end of issues which I never had with the intel ports so I stick with them. When changing between them I couldn't tell the difference in speed, sata 2 I'm getting 270mb read and write and much more reliable.
If you google it you will find lots of reports of the marvel controller not being very good.

On the marvel controller you will need to manually download the drivers for them to install correctly. I had to do this under windows 7, maybe the same in 10 but cannot remember

On windows 10 I had to use the latest drivers which was 7 or 8 but they worked on 10 too

plasma · 14 Apr 2017 at 13:25

Okay thanks, so I guess I should change my mobo BIOS to IDE setting and use my SATA II port for my new SSD? Disable my Marvell controller on the device manager?

ED209 · 14 Apr 2017 at 13:40

I disabled mine in the bios and changed my sata ports to achi as well.

I toyed with raiding 2 x ssds but couldn't tell the difference in boot times or loading etc and you couldn't update the bios so left them as separate drives.

ED209 · 14 Apr 2017 at 13:44

Looking at your mobo, the marvel drivers are under windows 7 64 bit but not listed under windows 8

plasma · 14 Apr 2017 at 14:08

ED209 said:
Looking at your mobo, the marvel drivers are under windows 7 64 bit but not listed under windows 8

Yeah but as you said it isn't worth using the Marvel ports as they don't give any real gains in performance and seem to be riddles with issues?
I could not find any drivers for these marvel controllers for windows 8/10, only for windows 7 which is on the Asus websites.
Right so I'll set my BIOS to ACHI, disable my SATA III ports, and set my SSD as IDE SATA II? I'll disable the marvel controller on device manager too. Is this the recommended course of action ?

ED209 · 14 Apr 2017 at 14:19

Once disabled in the bios windows will not see it, if you can set your sata 2 ports you achi as I had the option to change from ide to achi on both controllers.

What I have done is disable marvel controller in bios, connect ssd to sata 2 ports and set the sata 2 to achi. I have used windows 7 and 10 on my system and they seem fine.

plasma · 14 Apr 2017 at 14:23

ED209 said:
Once disabled in the bios windows will not see it, if you can set your sata 2 ports you achi as I had the option to change from ide to achi on both controllers.

What I have done is disable marvel controller in bios, connect ssd to sata 2 ports and set the sata 2 to achi. I have used windows 7 and 10 on my system and they seem fine.

Great thanks a lot mate. Was slightly gutted I couldn't use my two SATA III ports but ah well, my mobo is quite old now. Glad to know the Marvell controls on the X58 aren't that reliable anyway

ED209 · 14 Apr 2017 at 19:00

You maybe able too but with my x58 mobo it was causing more issues than it was worth and the slower speeds where not noticeable so stuck with what worked.

What os are you currently using? I'm on 7 still but this was down to troubleshooting some issues I was having with the pc and never went back to 10

plasma · 15 Apr 2017 at 21:34

ED209 said:
You maybe able too but with my x58 mobo it was causing more issues than it was worth and the slower speeds where not noticeable so stuck with what worked.

What os are you currently using? I'm on 7 still but this was down to troubleshooting some issues I was having with the pc and never went back to 10

I'm using Windows 8.1 Pro as it gives better performance than Windows 10.

ubersonic · 18 Apr 2017 at 09:42

plasma said:
I have gone on my BIOS and its set to AHCI but only see's my new SSD as IDE. I cannot find the Marvell driver to install for Windows 8.1.
I have gone on the Asus website: https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/RAMPAGE_III_EXTREME/HelpDesk_Download/
and because my motherboard is so old they only have the Marvell drivers for Windows 7.

I know you've decided to use the other ports, but for reference it's the same driver. Windows 7/8/10 are essentially improved revisions of Windows Vista (NT6 O/S's) just like XP was a revision of 2000 (NT5 O/S's), as a result drivers are inter-compatible.