ICH6R+Si3114 AHCI drivers

Hello,

Im rebuilding some old PC based on Asus P5GD2 Premium motherboard (i915 with ICH6R and SI3114 controller) with Windows 7 64b.

Could you please advice me what are the best drivers to use for AHCI support (no RAID, no ssd-just std hdd).

Thank you very much!

Silicon Image Sil3114: http://www.siliconimage.com/support/
Just select “Sil3114 - PCI to 4 Port SATA150” from the drop down menu. You’ll find drivers and utilities there.

Intel ICH6R: Modded Drivers

ITE IT8212: Vista x64 drivers

Troubleshooting of a similar board: here.
I’m sorry, there are no Win7 x64 drivers available for mainboards with ITE8212 chips. But AFAIK the Vista drivers should work.

EDIT: I found much the complete driver pack for the IT8212 controller here.
It even contains a TXTSETUP file for integration in a Widnows installation disc.

@ DanKm:

Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
Since you want to run your system in AHCI mode, I recommend to connect the HDD to one of the Intel ICH6R SATA ports.
If you are not satisfied with the generic Win7 x64 MS AHCI driver, you can switch to the modded 64bit Intel MSM driver v8.9.8.1005 (see the link within mr_nuub’s post).

Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

The Sil3114 OROM in the latest BIOS is 50KB in size and the latest downloadable OROM (for system BIOS integration) from SiI is 60KB.
Main differences: JBOD (concatenation) and RAID 5 are implemented in the latest version (explains the increase in ROM size).
Would this work?

PS: ICH6R in RAID mode limits drive size to 500GB, because the MSM ROM 4.5.0.6448 can’t handle larger drives.
Would be very interesting if MSM v7 OROM would run on this chipset (MSM driver v7 is the latest that supports ICH6R)…
Maybe some small hex edits?

EDIT: There are boards out there, that utilize an ICH6R southbridge with MSM 5.0.2.1005 OROM (Dell E310).

@ mr_nuub:

Thanks for your additional tips, but the thread opener DanKm has written, that he wants to run his system drive in AHCI and not in RAID mode.
So the discussion about the best matching Intel or Silicon Image RAID ROM is obsolete.

Not if he wants to use HDDs bigger than 500GB…

So you think, that an update of the RAID ROM will help to manage >500 GB sized HDDs running in AHCI mode?
I doubt it, because the RAID ROM will only be loaded and used, if the related Controller has been set to "RAID".

Hello, thank you for your prompt answer - thats what I really like this forum - you will get highly-qualified quick answer here!:slight_smile:

I have done installation of ICH6R v8.9.8.1005 correctly.

Then I tried to install also Si3114 driver - it shows the device with yellow excl. mark in Device manager, and in Bios I set Si3114 to SATA mode. But for "SiI 3114 64-bit Windows BASE Driver for Windows 7" (v1.2.9.0), my Windows says the driver is not compatible. When trying same with "Having disk", I got same message for IA64 SI3114.inf. Only when trying with AMD64 SI3114.inf it seems to be acceptable by Windows - but is it a good driver, when having Intel mobo?

Also, it shows me in Device manager the Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM Ultra-ATA-266F controller with MS driver 6.1.7600.16385 - but not sure what it is and if I need to update that driver - any idea please?

And, for the moment Im using old 200GB HDD on ICH6R SATA1 port with no RAID planned.

Thank you for your help!

The AMD64 folder contains the correct 64bit driver, the IA64 folder is not suitable for your system.

You cannot update this driver, because it is the generic MS IDE driver. The related device is an IDE Controller.

Hello Fernando,

thank you. Clear for 82801FB.

I installed AMD64 SI3114.inf through some Windows warnings about compatibility, so now I got Si3114 in Device manager, but still with yellow excl. mark - saying it cannot be started(Code 10).

Any idea, please?

To be honest, I was surprised, that the "Silicon Image SiI 3114 SATALink Controller" is not natively supported by Windows 7 x64, verified by a yellow mark within the Device Manager.
I don’t know a solution, but I would try to uninstall the device from within the Device Manager and to wait, what happens after the next reboot.

So I did…and it is back in Unknown devices.

Can you find out the HardwareIDs of the "Unknown Device" by doing a right click onto it > "Properties" > "Details" > "Property"?

Yes, it shows:
PCI\VEN_1095&DEV_3114&SUBSYS_81361043&REV_02
PCI\VEN_1095&DEV_3114&SUBSYS_81361043
PCI\VEN_1095&DEV_3114&CC_018000
PCI\VEN_1095&DEV_3114&CC_0180

Btw. I noticed my Si3114 BIOS is v5.0.39, while that driver’s recommended is v5.5.00. Anyway hard to change it since it comes with Asus mobo Bios 1009 (latest non-beta available).

@DanKm :
An upgrade to 5.4.03 is possible, since Silicon Image provides an option ROM for BIOS integration.
Upgrading to 5.5.00 is impossible, SiI only provides an option ROM for dedicated SATA expansion cards.

Driver version 1.0.15.0, 1.5.15.0 and 1.5.20.3 contain your device ID and should be installable from device manager
and should work out of the box.

EDIT: Option ROM 5.4.03 is recommended for driver versions 1.5.15.0 and 1.5.20.3.
It seems, that your device ID is reserved for onboard controllers and therefore newer drivers with newer OROMs
aren’t supported.

EDIT 2: Here is a modified BIOS 1010.007 (latest beta BIOS) with:
- ITE IT8212 1.7.1.96
- Silicon Image Sil3114 5.4.03
- nothing else changed (like PXE, MSM, microcodes, logos,…)

If you decide to test this modded BIOS, please test BOTH IT8212 and SiI3114 controllers.
Please disconnect all drives from the IT8212 controller before flashing (see manual for correct ports),
otherwise the controller won’t detect any drives after the flash.

mod_P5GD2-prem-1010.zip (615 KB)

@ DanKm;

Why do you want to spend much time just to get rid of the yellow mark within the Device Manager?
If you don’t want to use the Silicon Image SATA Controller (the Intel ICH6R SATA Controller will be better), why don’t you just disable it from within the BIOS?

Hi both,

thanks for inputs. Sure, you are totally right that I can live with ICH6R - it is just to keep things "clean", you know…and not having someone wondering one day in far future, why those 4 additional SATA ports do not work:-) Same for ITxxxx controller.

Like you said, it is strange also to me that Win7 64b does not support Si3114 natively…I would rather expect that it works.

The generic MS AHCI driver may only support "real" SATA AHCI Controllers and not hybrid ones or disguised RAID Controllers.