Resurrecting a super old thread here, I have the DFI LP JR P45 T2RS board, I am using 5 SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration. Totally willing to be a guinea pig for some modded BIOSs to try and get a newer version of the intel raid/ahci storage drivers if someone wants to help talk me through it.
@ j9ac9k:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
As first step we need a link to the latest BIOS for your mainboard and some additional informations:
1. Which Intel RAID ROM version is within your currently in use BIOS?
2. Which OS and which Intel RAID driver version are you running?
3. Which sort of SSDs (vendor and type) are you using?
Regards
Fernando
Hi Fernando,
First thing first, should I start a new thread?
To answer your questions:
1) Currently my BIOS has RAID ROM version: 8.5.0.1030. I was able to flash the modded 8.5.0.1030 ROM that you have linked in the ROM page without problem. I also flashed the 1.20E AHCI ROM without issue.
2) I am running Windows 8.1 - Using the latest Intel Rapid Storage Drivers (13.2.4.1000)
3) I have 5x Crucial M4 256GB SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration
After making this post, I followed your (fantastic) guide and created a variety of modded BIOS files based on the DFI J245D914 BIOS file located here with a number of different RAID ROMs. With all (but one) attempts, I received the following error:
1
Internal error - PnP and PCI compliant BIOS not present
The modded 8.5.0.1030 worked fine, and although I'm not sure it made any difference (probably not?) I placed the AHCI 1.20E AHCI ROM on the custom bios, and that flashed without issue either.
After doing some googling, it seems like there are some motherboards out there that just plain don't like RAID ROMs larger than 64kB.
I did stumble across an EVGA forum post detailing a similar issue and someone troubleshooting it:
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Q...=25956#pid25956
Any input would be greatly appreciated!
@ j9ac9:
Thanks for your additional informations.
I have done it already for you. If you want another thread title, you can change it by editing your start post.
It was not a good idea to run the latest Intel RST(e) RAID drivers of the v13 series in combination with an absolutely outdated Intel MSM RAID ROM of the v8 series. If I were you, I would prefer the Intel RST RAID driver v11.2.0.1006 (regardless the Intel RAID ROM version you may get working).
ZitatYou obviously got this message while trying to flash the modded BIOS.
After making this post, I followed your (fantastic) guide and created a variety of modded BIOS files based on the DFI J245D914 BIOS file located here with a number of different RAID ROMs. With all (but one) attempts, I received the following error:
1
Internal error - PnP and PCI compliant BIOS not present
Which Intel RAID ROM versions did you try to insert into the BIOS and which BIOS flash method did you choose?
I have done it already for you. If you want another thread title, you can change it by editing your start post.
It was not a good idea to run the latest Intel RST(e) RAID drivers of the v13 series in combination with an absolutely outdated Intel MSM RAID ROM of the v8 series. If I were you, I would prefer the Intel RST RAID driver v11.2.0.1006 (regardless the Intel RAID ROM version you may get working).
I will uninstall the latest Intel RST(r) drivers and install version 11.2.0.1006.
Zitat von Fernando im Beitrag #4
@ j9ac9:
ZitatYou obviously got this message while trying to flash the modded BIOS.
After making this post, I followed your (fantastic) guide and created a variety of modded BIOS files based on the DFI J245D914 BIOS file located here with a number of different RAID ROMs. With all (but one) attempts, I received the following error:
1
Internal error - PnP and PCI compliant BIOS not present
Which Intel RAID ROM versions did you try to insert into the BIOS and which BIOS flash method did you choose?
I used CBROM.exe through following your guide here to insert into the bios. In terms of flashing I booted off a USB drive and used AWDFLASH.EXE.
I tried a number of ROMs posted on the AHCI & RAID ROM Modules Thread. Specifically I tried:
9.5.0.1037, 8.8.0.1009, 8.9.0.1023, 8.9.1.1002, ... and a number of newer ones (I didn't keep as good of notes as I should have). The only ones that worked was 8.5.0.1030 "Universally TRIM modified", which is what my PC is running now.
So I installed the older RST drivers …wow, what a difference.
Version 13.2.4.1000
Version 11.2.0.1006
Ok, I am pretty sure, that you will get better results with this latest "conventional" Intel RST driver named iaStor.sys.
That was the best way to flash a modded BIOS.
So your system obviously doesn’t accept any Intel RAID ROM module, which is bigger than 64 KB (uncompressed size).
The only way to get a bigger sized Intel RAID ROM working with your RAID0 system is a completely new structure of the BIOS, which probably only can be done by the mainboard manufacturer DFI. Unfortunately it doesn’t exist anymore.
So you obviously have to stick with the Intel RAID ROM v8.5.0.1030, but you have the big advantage to have TRIM in RAID0 support, because you were able to replace the original ROM module by the TRIM modded one.
Yes, the benchmark results would have been even better, if you would be able to get the Intel RAID ROM v11.2.0.1527 working, but I don’t see any chance for that.
Oh well, figured I would volunteer to be a guinea pig should another go be made for more drastic bios altercations/modifications. I suppose nothing to do but keep a lookout on newer ROMs in case one happens to be 64kB?
It is useless to wait for a new 64bit sized Intel RAID ROM unless you believe in miracles.
Be happy, that you got TRIM in RAID0 support with your old P45 system!
It is useless to wait for a new 64bit sized Intel RAID ROM unless you believe in miracles.
Be happy, that you got TRIM in RAID0 support with your old P45 system!
Between the quad core processor, the SSDs, and relatively modern graphics cards, this system has lasted incredibly well for its age (I assembled the PC in 2007, it’s underwent numerous upgrades with SSDs, graphics cards, a power supply replacement, etc). I suppose I need to put my expectations in check
Thanks for your help Fernando!
@j9ac9k
There could be something to get bigger OROMs loaded. But why risk your board for it?
1. The first option is to set the Intel controller to RAID, disable any Lan Boot/Lan PXE option, remove the AHCI OROM with “cbrom biosname /isa release” and update the Intel RAID with 11.2.0.1527 TRIM modded. Your BIOS has no other OROMs than AHCI and RAID, so by removing AHCI you can squeeze the RAID OROM in the 128KB default space for all OROMs. The get past this limitation the BIOS has to allocate space for each PCI ROM in the extended memory block, which some older BIOS might not be able to handle bigger sized OROMs.
The problem with this method is that I don’t know how your board will react when there is no AHCI or RAID working. Your only method of reverting the BIOS would be to use a bootable USB containing the flasher and stock BIOS file. But again, don’t know if it would be that easy.
2. The second method is to inject PMM calls into OROM, by requesting the needed space without normal BIOS allocation. This is quite dangerous because you must do appropriate memory mapping. I’m just reading about this stuff and I’m not fluent about assembly. This guide describes how to and an implementation can be found in iPXE source code.
Well, I hate to speculate but I can boot in IDE mode which should ignore the lack of AHCI… (make sure I can boot to USB while in IDE mode, etc etc).
Method #2 seems beyond my scope of skill, if I had another bios chip I could pop in should things go wrong, I would consider attempting it…
I suppose to really have a good idea if this is worthwhile, I should try and get an idea for what kind of performance benefits I would be looking at when upgrading to 11.2.0.1527 TRIM modded ROM.
The benefit of an update to the Intel RST RAID ROM v11.2.0.1527 would be, that both RAID components (driver and ROM) belong to the exact same development branch. This will give you the best possible RAID0 performance and stability.
Please consider, that your currently working Intel RAID ROM belongs to another Intel RAID technology (MSM) than the RAID driver (RST) you are running now.
[quote="Fernando, post:13, topic:30685"]
Zitat von j9ac9k im Beitrag #12
I suppose to really have a good idea if this is worthwhile, I should try and get an idea for what kind of performance benefits I would be looking at when upgrading to 11.2.0.1527 TRIM modded ROM. [/quote] The benefit of an update to the Intel RST RAID ROM v11.2.0.1527 would be, that both RAID components (driver and ROM) belong to the exact same development branch. This will give you the best possible RAID0 performance and stability.
Please consider, that your currently working Intel RAID ROM belongs to another Intel RAID technology (MSM) than the RAID driver (RST) you are running now.
I'll make the attempt to install that RAID ROM later tonight (in 10 hours?) ...silly things get in the way of PC work ...such as regular work :)
Thanks again for your input.
P.S. should v11.2.0.1527 work, would there be a benefit to going to an even newer version of a RAID ROM?
No, the Intel RST RAID driver/OROM combination v11.2.x.xxxx is the best you can get for your P45 RAID0 array.
No, the Intel RST RAID driver/OROM combination v11.2.x.xxxx is the best you can get for your P45 RAID0 array.
So the last few days I have tried every combination of the modified RAID ROMs (8.5, 10.1, 10.5, 11.2) with the AHCI ROM that was embedded with the BIOS, without the AHCI ROM at all, and with AHCI ROM 1.20E that you have posted.
In the end, the "best" I could do with the modified 8.5 RAID ROM with the 1.20E AHCI ROM, everything else resulted in the PnP/PCI non compatible bios error during boot.
Using the modified 8.5 RAID ROM with Intel RST 11.2.0.1006 I’ve found to be the best combination, perhaps it’s worth updating the motherboard results database?
Thanks again for your help!
Your results are already put into the BIOS modding success/failure table.
Thanks for having done all the tests and for your final report! This will help other users with a similar hardware configuration.
I’m updating this thread in case anyone comes across this through google. I did find another place to further improve my SSD performance, and that was through upgrading the firmware on my SSDs themselves. Not sure how I overlooked that step before, but in my case, I found a Crucial USB Image that I flashed, booted to my USB, hit go, and it went one by one through all my drives updating the firmware.
My result is now as follows:
For reference, the previous benchmark scores were:
Thanks for your contribution.
Due to your post I have just added the advice to flash an available newer/better SSD Firmware to the start post of >this< thread.