AHCI & RAID Option ROM Modules

[Fernando]

@YUQINGLIU

Yes,the screen show the AHCI ROM module version,it is 2.00h,can it explain the 2.00h ROM working?

Yes, if the AHCI Option ROM splash screen shows v2.00h, it has been indeed been loaded.
Can you post a screenshot?

[YUQINGLIU]

@Fernando

Zitat von YUQINGLIU im Beitrag #1060

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Yes,the screen show the AHCI ROM module version,it is 2.00h,can it explain the 2.00h ROM working?

Yes, if the AHCI Option ROM splash screen shows v2.00h, it has been indeed been loaded.
Can you post a screenshot?

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[Fernando]

@YUQINGLIU :
Thanks for the screenshot.
It is great, that you have tested and obviously succeeded to get this latest Intel AHCI ROM working with your Intel 5-Series Chipset system.
Did you realize any change regarding the boot time after having flashed the modded BIOS with the Intel AHCI ROM v2.00h?

[YUQINGLIU]

Hello,I couldnt feel the 2.00h faster.the first,my ssd is intel s3500 80g disk;the second,I started to test it after the computer had been running for 5 minutes and shuting off all working applications;the thrid ,there is only one partition and single volume on my ssd.The result is below:
the original AHCI ROM is
the 2.00H AHCI ROM is

[YUQINGLIU]

In raid mode,the result is below,and I feel it is better,

[Fernando]

@YUCHINGLIU :
Thanks for your additional tests and benchmark screenshots.
My comment:
Usually the Intel AHCI Option ROM version has only an impact on the initialization time of the related Controller while booting. So the user cannot expect a remarkable performance boost of the HDDs/SSDs by updating the Intel AHCI Option ROM.

@YUQINGLIU

In raid mode,the result is below,and I feel it is better,

This may be just your feeling, but the shown scores are within the normal range of measurement variations.
Anyway you should consider, that the Intel RAID ROM (instead of the AHCI ROM) will be loaded while booting after having set the SATA mode to “RAID”.
Additional question: Which is the mainboard manufacturer and model you have used for your testing?

[YUQINGLIU]

ooh,my mainboard manufacturer is ASUS and the AHCI is 8086-3B22,the Raid is 8086-2822.My operator system is windows server 2016–14393.

[Fernando]

@YUQINGLIU

my mainboard manufacturer is ASUS.

And which is the model name of your mainboard?

[YUQINGLIU]

ooh,sorry,It is P7H57D-EVO,OK?

[Fernando]

@YUQINGLIU

It is P7H57D-EVO,OK?

Yes, thanks.

[YUQINGLIU]

Hello,I have a new question,how to edit AHCI firmware module to shut off the booting flash screen?
Can you help me?
Thanks a lot.

EDIT by Fernando: Unneeded fully quoted post removed (to save space)

[Fernando]

@YUQINGLIU

how to edit AHCI firmware module to shut off the booting flash screen?

To be honest, I don’t know it how to do it with an old non-UEFI Bios.

[YUQINGLIU]

Thanks for your answer,but I think it should edit AHCI firmware .bin file,no Bios.Certainly,I couldn’t know whether my thought is correct.

[Fernando]

@YUQINGLIU :
It is just a short splash screen like with the Intel RAID ROM Utility, which comes up while booting, if you are running the Intel SATA Controller in RAID mode.

[Fernando]

@ all:
Update of the Start post
Changelog:

• new: Intel RST(e) RAID ROM v15.8.0.3109 for DEV_2822 SATA RAID Controllers

The Intel RAID ROM platfom v15 has been designed by Intel for the latest Intel Chipsets from 100-Series up. Thanks to Pacman for the source files.

Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

[b1Ack]

@Fernando

@b1Ack:
As long as you are running the on-board Intel ICH9R SATA Controller in AHCI mode, you wil not have any benefit from an update of the Intel RAID ROM module, because this module is only used while booting in RAID mode.
If you should ever plan to create an Intel RAID array, I suggest to insert either the Intel RAID ROM v10.1.0.1008 (safe) or v11.2.0.1527 (not sure, whether a >100 KB sized module can be loaded by the BIOS of your mainboard).
What I recommend to do is to update the Intel AHCI ROM module of your mainboard BIOS to v1.20E. This action may shorten the boot time.

I tried AHCI ROMs 1.20e and 2.00h and RAID ROMs 8.5.0.1030 / 10.1.0.1008 / 11.2.0.1527.
For Abit IP35 Pro board only working combination is AHCI 1.20e + RAID 8.5.0.1030 - AHCI 2.00h shows that it see all my drives but can’t connect with BIOS so can’t see devices in HDD boot selection and can’t boot. other RAID ROMs can’t load at all, maybe because of size limit. I didn’t tried 8.9.1.1002 just because it is as big as v10 and I hope 8.5 will good enough, at least I not use RAID now. About boot time - Intel ROM detect drives a bit longer than old Phoenix ROM, new JMB363 ROM instead works very fast - no delay at all now on latest version. So boot time had no visible changes.

EDIT by Fernando: The attached modded BIOS and the details regarding the modifications has been removed by me, because
a) we generally do not allow to offer SLIC modified BIOSes and
b) this is not the place to offer already modified BIOSes.

[SoniX]

@b1Ack

[*]Added Alienware SLIC 2.1

I do not advise you to advertise such messages. We did not have enough to get claims from MS.

[b1Ack]

Found no mention in 1st post about Phoenix AHCI ROMs, while latest of them have the same 2008 release year and obiously it is not a good idea update an AMD board with Intel ROMs while Phoenix have ones for AMD also.

Checked board BIOSes that I had deal with + this thread.
Found few different versions. And see that v01.03.00 from AMD AM2 board is totally different from v01.03.00 from Intel P35 board, while versions and dates are the same.
In binary found no text Intel or AMD, so can’t classify other 2 ROMs found in this thread. Just can say that Intel and unknown ones contain hex 8680(that is device ID 8086 for Intel) and AMD ones have no entries of that hex word. So most likely unknown ones are for Intel boards.

Here is all of them attached:

Phoenix AHCI ROMs.rar (70.8 KB)

[Fernando]

@b1Ack :
As you may already have realized, I have removed the attached modded BIOS from >this< post.
If you want to offer any modded BIOS for the public, you should do it within >this< much better matching Sub-Forum, but without any SLIC modification.
As SoniX already has stated, we don’t want to get any troubles with Microsoft.

[b1Ack]

@Fernando

@b1Ack:
As you may already have realized, I have removed the attached modded BIOS from >this< post.
If you want to offer any modded BIOS for the public, you should do it within >this< much better matching Sub-Forum, but without any SLIC modification.
As SoniX already has stated, we don’t want to get any troubles with Microsoft.

Your forum - your rules, no problems. I also found some more things to add there (newer intel microcodes) and when do it and test will post it somewhere where it will better fit (MDL or bios-mods).