Bios Link:
http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00224415M/1/HEIDEN_2.6.6.exe
This motherboard uses Q96x chipset, so it should natively support AHCI. Possibly the BIOS was too small to include it (In which case something unecessary like PXE can be removed). Does anyone have any experience in modifying Dell BIOS’? SLIC 2.1 would also be appreciated.
Thanks
@ mockingbird:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
Intel ICH8 (without an R) chipsets may or may not fully support AHCI, but need a modded driver to use it.
Doesn’t the BIOS contain any Intel AHCI ROM module?
This Forum doesn’t offer and doesn’t even support SLIC modding. You should better look >here< for help.
Regards
Fernando
Hello,
The BIOS only has an option to enable either Native SATA or Legacy SATA and absolutely no AHCI option.
You mention that ICH8 might support AHCI. Did you ever encounter ICH8 that didn’t support AHCI?
Thanks for your good work by the way, your modded drivers have helped me quite a bit in the past. When you say that ICH8 needed a modded driver, Are you sure you’re not refering to the mod you performed for ICH8m in order to be able to use a later driver version for it? Pretty sure intel openly provides an AHCI driver for ICH8.
These BIOS settings are managed by System BIOS modules and not by an eventually added Intel AHCI ROM.
The appropriate BIOS setting to test, if AHCI is working, will be "Native SATA".
Yes, I have read about Intel ICH8/ICH9/ICH10 SATA Controllers, which didn’t support AHCI even after the installation of a suitable modded Intel AHCI driver.
Yes, I am sure about that. The Intel ICH8 SATA AHCI Controllers’ DeviceID is different from the Intel ICH8M SATA AHCI Controller.
Intel has never provided an AHCI driver, which natively is usable with Intel ICH8/ICH9/ICH10 SATA Controllers, because all these Controllers officially do not support AHCI at all.
"Native SATA" gives only ATA/IDE mode controllers, confirmed by checking device manager (HDD shows up as UDMA mode 5 which is ATA100). Legacy mode is some sort of compatibility mode, probably limiting the controller to PIO only mode or to ATA33/UDMA2.
I don’t mean to insult you, but I am certain that Intel still provides F6 TXT Mode disk packages for XP Installs, and that the INF Update Util (Or is it called Chipset Installation Utility these days) will indeed install an AHCI driver for ICH8/9/10 in Vista and on.
So the question is, is it possible to add the AHCI orom to the Dell BIOS and to edit the BIOS to show an AHCI mode… I read that the Optiplex 755, which uses G33 (That must be ICH9, correct)BIOS allows AHCI tobe selected. I’m pretty sure the BIOS formats are very similar. Maybe you can have a look at that and see how it might be implemented?
If you don’t have the option to set the SATA Controller to "AHCI", you will not be able to run any Intel SATA port connected drive in AHCI mode.
Let me explain:
As I already have written, the Intel ICH8, ICH9 and ICH10 SATA Controllers have not been designed by Intel to support AHCI. That is why Intel has never offered Intel AHCI drivers, where the HardwareIDs of these low budget Intel SATA Controllers running in AHCI mode have added to the related INF files. Nevertheless some mainboard manufacturers have implemented the AHCI support for these ICH8/9/10 Controllers by adding the "AHCI" option into the BIOS.
- I have never seen an F6 AHCI driver provided by Intel, which does support an Intel ICH8 SATA AHCI Controller (DEV_2824) or any other of the "castrated" Intel SATA AHCI Controllers (for ICH9/10 systems).
2. None of the Intel Chipset "drivers" (they aren’t real drivers) is able to detect and to manage an Intel SATA AHCI Controller. The "Intel Chipset Device Software" ("INF Update Utility") contains just text files, which do nothing else than to rename the Intel SATA Controllers. You can easily verify it by integrating such INF file instead of a real AHCI driver into a Windows XP CD. The XP Setup will not detect any drive, whch is running in AHCI mode.
By the way: This is valid for all Intel AHCI systems.
As long as the BIOS doesn’t offer the option to set the Intel SATA Controller to "AHCI", you can put as many Intel AHCI ROM modules into the BIOS file as you want. What is still missing are the BIOS system components for this additional feature.
Note: The BIOSes of all recently built Intel chipset mainboards (from 5-Series up) do not contain an Intel AHCI ROM module. Nevertheless the on-board Intel SATA Controllers are working fine in AHCI mode.
Thanks for the clarifications Fernando. I also want to thank you for your posts ever since you were active on nforcershq and your famous MSDN post which have helped many people including myself for many years.
Regarding Intel AHCI drivers merely renaming the Microsoft AHCI drivers on Vista and on, I have heard this before but I have a question… Wouldn’t the IaStor file stay the same if this was the case? Also, I have a laptop with G45, and I’m running the filter driver version with the ICH9M, driver file details show IaStorA and IaStorF both from Intel. I believe this is your modded driver (Which reminds me, I have to check for a later version. Is 11.7.0.1013 the latest?)
Also, when you mention “castrated” AHCI, are you refering to the fact that they don’t officially support TRIM without the modded oroms? They’re still better than ATA because at least they support NCQ and TCQ.
The Intel chipset device INF files do not rename the drivers, but the related SATA Controllers, which are shown by the Device Manager within the section "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers". Furthermore the INF file is shown by mistake as the "driver".
No, it is not the latest, but I generally do not recommend to use the latest Intel AHCI/RAID drivers for older Intel chipsets leike ICH9M.
No, I name the Intel ICH8, ICH9 and ICH10 chipsets without an "R" (RAID capable) or "M" (Mobile) behind the digits "castrated", because they do not fully support AHCI (unless the mainboard manufacturer has implemented the Intel SATA Controller setting "AHCI" into the BIOS and the user takes a modded driver, where the missing HardwareIDs have been added).
Ah, I see… So when it does work, it works properly you’re saying…
What about ICH7R which also supports AHCI I think?
The old Intel SATA AHCI Controllers do support AHCI, but without the latest Intel AHCI ROM version 1.20E it will take a long time while booting to initialize them by the OS.