AHCI and windows 7

Hi. I went to the intel website to download ahci drivers for win7, I was about to download the file to put the ahci drivers in on installation by floppy, I then read at the top of the intel download page that the F6 option for installing the ahci drivers is not required in windows 7 . Is this correct, and if so do I need to install the matrix storage manager once install is complete. Thanks.

 

You only really need drivers if you're running some kind of weird SATA controller or if it's some kind of RAID setup.

Otherwise it should generally install fine.

 

Yes that is correct.

Not sure what that is..

 

Vista and W7 don't need anything to run AHCI.
Just enable AHCI on the mobo, insert dvd and install
matrix storage manager it's only if you enable RAID mode on the mobo and use it.
If you don't , you don't need it.

 

It's the RAID / hdd soft from Intel, to manage raids and hdds from windows, if you use intel ICH9R/ICH10R southbridge.

 

Although some SATA controllers can be tricky when installing the OS with AHCI enabled in the BIOS, in that case you need to enable IDE mode then switch to AHCI once the OS is installed....

 

Oh right...like the nForce RAID software...? I never had any luck with that app..

 

I actually thought you couldn't change between modes after the OS was installed. Otherwise you would have to reinstall the OS.

And yea, the Matrix stuff is like a hard drive management software, generally just for RAID's.

 

there is a tech note from Mocrosoft, on how to change from ide to ahci on vista.......
Not like average read and do stuff, but it works

Convert IDE to AHCI for Vista
I have a server with the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R. When I installed Vista on it I didn't realize that by default, the Gigabyte DS3R BIOS sets the SATA ports to IDE mode. A few weeks later I realized this, and, wanting to use the faster native SATA mode for my SATA drives (which includes my boot drive), switched the disk mode setting to ACHI from IDE in the BIOS. What I got was a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)- an inaccessible boot device error 0x0000007B, so I had to switch back to IDE mode. After doing some research online I found that you would have to re-install Vista in while the BIOS as the SATA ports set to ACHI mode in order to get it to work, so I said "Nah forget it." I was not going to spend the time reinstalling Windows Vista and all the apps.

Apparently now there is a new, quick and easy way to fix this. Basically you use REGEDIT, go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci, modify the key that says "Start" and change the value from "4" to "0". Reboot, then before Windows Vista starts up go to the BIOS and switch to ACHI, and Voila! I had to reboot one more time after time but it worked great afterwards.

The details are located here in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

 

Thanks for the quick reply guys. I am just preparing all the drivers I need for when my windows 7 arrives, just one last thing. The only chipset driver I could find for win7 for x58 chipset was version 9.1.1.1015. I presume this works with all x58 chipsets. I found this driver at station drivers, but it is also avalible at other download locations

 

Yes, it's ok with that one

 

Good to know.

 

You can as long as the AHCI drivers are installed before you reboot.

I think there may be some regedit involved as well, I can't remember tbh...


nm - I see it's been explained already...

 

On my ASUS P6T motherboard with AHCI enabled and running Windows 7 RTM, if I don't install Intel Matrix Storage Manager, the hidden icon on the right side of the task bar near the clock will allow you to remove internal HDDs.

 

I actualy did that and wasent realy satisfied with the end result. PC seemed to boot slower, games /levels loaded slower and the hdd itself seemed to make more noise. This could all be well subjective as I havent ran any tests, but I reverted back to ide mode.

 

Yup it's best to have it enabled in the BIOS right from the start.

 

I haven't been impressed with it either tbh.





My buffer/host transfer rate was faster in IDE mode on my old nF4 than with AHCI enabled on my current board.
Using NCQ has been known to slow things down, so I may disable it and see if that makes a difference.

Could also be a crappy SATA controller I guess..

 

Any idea why Windows 7 RTM can't see my RAID0 (working in AHCI mode) correctly ?

 

Did you install the Intel Matrix Storage software? If so, what does it say?

 

No I didn't because the array isn't seen correctly before the install (on the screen were you choose to the disk where to install the OS).

I tried using 9.1.1.1015 driver but still, the array isn't seen correctly.

More infos here about my problem : http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=815804&st=0&gopid=591564714&#entry591564714