You know the boot screen where there is that spinning circle? So up until few days ago, after about 2 spins of that circle, I was already in my desktop.
Suddenly, now I have to wait like 7-8 spins till I get to my desktop. I have noticed that unplugging my external dual-bay HDD eSATA enclosure, will result in the same speedy boot I used to have.
What bothers me is the fact that I have this enclosure for a couple of weeks with no issues. This is something that happened recently (like in that last 3-4 days).
The eSATA enclosure has N: & G: drives that I use for backups. The G: drive is also being used for Win8.1 File History & Windows Image. In addition, I use AOMEI backup to image my C: drive. The N: drive backs up my G: drive for redundancy.
I have the ASmedia firmwares of 0954 & 0951 and 3.70 - I have no idea how to use them to upgrade the firmware. Please help! Tried bootable USB and ran the .BAT and .EXE files but I keep getting SPI not found, or something similar. my motherboard is Asus P8-Z77-V-Deluxe
Appreciate any help I could get to find out why I got boot time worse.
What you call "Firmware" v0941 or v0951, are just ASMedia 106x Option ROM modules, which usually are within the CSMCORE file of the mainboard BIOS. You can easily update the ASMedia 106x AHCI ROM module by using the UBU tool. By the way: I doubt, that an update of the ASMedia AHCI ROM module will solve your problem. Please look into the mainboard manual regarding the usage of external eSATA devices.
I didn’t find anything meaningful in the motherboard documents regarding esata.
I see that during windows login spinner, the WD Red is being accessed because the led is blinking fast and only when the led stop blinking, then windows will finish loading. It wasn’t like this before… so I wonder why now.
On-board Controllers are using an Option ROM module, which is within the mainboard BIOS, whereas an inserted PCI/PCIe cards with such Controller need a Firmware, which has to be flashed into the related Controller chip. Option ROM modules and Firmware images have a similar function, but have to be flashed/updated a different way. Since I suspect, that your mainboard has an on-board ASMedia AHCI Controller, you will find the ASMedia 195x AHCI Controller within the BIOS and be able to update it by using the UBU tool.
According to the motherboard PDF, it’s Asmedia 1061 sata controller. I followed the UBU post but I couldn’t understand why it’s not working. I point to the .bin file but it gives me an error
Lastly, would you be able to tell why my BIOS doesn’t “see” my 2TB HDD connected to the Marvell 9128 PCIe SATA controller but when I log to windows, I’m able to use the drive? Should I try and update the firmware of marvell? http://www.station-drivers.com/index.php…1-2-0-1040-beta
If you want to update the "Firmware" (it’s an Option ROM) of your on-board ASMedia 106x AHCI Controller, I recommed a) to download and unzip the latest BIOS for your mainboard, b) to open the BIOS by running ubu.bat as Admin, c) to let the UBU tool update the ASMedia AHCI ROM module, d) let the UBU tool rename the BIOS file according to the ASUS USB Flashback rules and e) to flash the modded BIOS by using the USB Flashback method (look into your mainboard manual).
As long as your 2 TB sized HDD is detected by the OS and everything works fine, I do not recommend to touch the Marvell OROM/Firmware.
gil, I have a ASmedia controller I and I found out that associated driver makes a huge difference. I tested several versions and I kept an older one - all the newer ones didn’t have TRIM enabled anymore. Who knows what else got broken, try another driver, they are posted here on the forum: Recommended AHCI and RAID Drivers
The ROM modules are not used anymore after Windows loads the drivers, they are just for boot-time initialization.
