Need help with IDE/ATAPI controller drivers for Asus B360M-K

Important Drivers Specific: Intel AHCI/RAID Drivers
1

I found this site a few days ago and got a lot of help reading through this forum.
@Fernando : wow! Fantastic job!

Please bear with me as i am still a novice into this.

Background: I bought a preinstalled, build-you-own type of PC, that ran extremely well. I played a bit too much with it, which resulted in having to re-install windows 10. No problems, or so i thought.
My PC runs noticeable slower now, compared to when i got it from the store, despite fresh/clean install of windows.
The pc is based on an Asus Prime B360M-K motherboard, Win 10 on Intel M.2, secondary WD SATA HDD for storage. I have downloaded and installed all recent drivers from Asus but it still runs slow.
Maybe i am not installing drivers correctly? And yes, newest drivers are not allways the best.
After reading in this forum i think that i know what to do. Mostly.

Before i reinstalled windows i checked through device manager and noticed that the drivers for IDE/ATAPI controllers were the same as for one of the storage controller devices (NVMe):

IDE/ATAPI Controllers
Intel(R) 300 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller, Intel corp.: 16.5.0.1027 (Date 23-05-2018)

Storage Controllers
Intel(R) NVMe Controller Intel corp.: 16.5.0.1027 (Date 23-05-2018)
Microsoft storage controller: MS 10.0.18762.449 (Date 21-06-2006)

A assume that the driver for IDE/ATAPI and NVMe storage controller is the RST driver, is this correct?

Unfortunately i cannot find this driver anymore, so i downloaded the latest drivers from Asus (RST: 17.5.0.1017).
However, i did find that the "best" suggested driver here on the forums would be 17.5.3.1026.

My questions:

a) If i only install the RST driver will that automatically install the driver for IDE/ATAPI controller AND the NVMe Storage controller?
(Here on the forum i read that the RST driver v16. and 17 contain a generic driver for NVMe)

b) How do i do a proper install of the driver?
My understanding is that i should go to IDE/ATAPI controllers and do a "force install" using "I have disk" function through device manager and choose iaStorAC.
Is this correct? What about iAHCIC ?Will this method automatically install both IDE/ATAPI and Storage controller drivers?
(Regarding Asus driver: I know they have a "AsusSetup" exe in their folder for easy install, but in case that i should try the "best driver" from this forum)

c) If i want a more recent NVMe driver i could go to Intel (my M.2 drive is Intel) and download: Setup_NVME and this would then install the latest NVMe drivers which would then be visible under "Storage Controllers",
right?

Once again, thanks for a great forum.

2

@Damun :
Welcome to the Win-RAID Forum!

If I were you, I would install
a) the Intel RST driver v17.8.1.1066 WHQL (get it from >here<) for your on-board Intel SATA AHCI Controller and
b) the Intel NVMe driver v4.4.0.1003 WHQL (get it from >here<) for the Intel NVMe Controller of your Intel NVMe SSD.
According to my knowledge this would be the best choice for your Intel 300-Series chipset system and your Intel NVMe SSD.
After having done it, I recommend to have a look into the start post of >this< thread. If you follow the related tips, you will get the best possible performance for your system.
Here are my answers to your questions:

No, only the driver of the related Controller will be updated. That means, that you have to update the driver for the listed "Standard SATA AHCI Controller" (listed within the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section and for the "Standard NVM Express Controller" (listed within the "Storage Controllers" section) separately.

This is the normal procedure, when you are going to install an up-to-date WHQL certified driver:

  • Right-click onto the related Controller and choose the options "Update driver" > "Browse my computer…", click the "Search" button, navigate to the folder, which contains the desired driver, and click into the "OK" button. The MS Device Management will install the best matching driver for the specific Controller.
Only if you should get the OS message, that the "best" driver is already running, but you are sure, that this is not true, you should force the installation by using the "Let me pick…" option and hitting the "Have Disk" button.

Yes.

Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)

3

Thanks for your help @Fernando and thank you for your suggestions.
This is much appreciated!

One more question regarding RST drivers:

As i mentioned in my post, originally this appeared to be the same driver. Was that just a coincidence? Or can the RST driver be used to update BOTH IDE/ATAPI controller AND the Storage Controller?

Once again, thank you.

4

@Damun :
The newest Intel RST drivers do support the modern Intel SATA AHCI Controllers and additionally all Intel NVMe Controllers, but were primarily been designed by Intel for Intel NVMe RAID systems.
If you want, you can install the same Intel RST driver version for the Intel AHCI and for the Intel NVMe Controller, but according to my own benchmark comparison tests (look >here<) the specific Intel NVMe drivers (latest: v4.4.0.1003) are the better choice, if the NVMe SSD is running in single mode and not as member of an Intel RAID array.

5

Thank you once more for you help and clarification.

I am not using RAID, OS is on NVMe and SATA drives used for storage, backups etc.

Just one more question (please bear with me):

Once im in device manager and > IDE/ATAPI controllers > Update drivers > etc… if I am prompted by "the "best driver is already running" and then i could/should use the "forced method".
In the RST driver folder form Asus (they call it "SATA Driver") the system finds two drivers:

iaAHCIC
iaStorAC

In your reccomended best RST drivers (17.8.1.1066 WHQL) there are four drivers

iaAHCIC
iaStorAC
iaStorSw
iaStorSwExt

As only one can be chosen, which one should i use?

Maybe I am confusing some topics but i think that i read in one of your excellent guides to use iaStorAC? Maybe this was only for NVMe?

Thank you very much.

6

As the name already indicates, you should hit onto the iaAHCIC.inf file, which is the only one, which supports the AHCI mode.

7

I can’t thank you enough for you help @Fernando

I think that this may be all the information i need to try to do a clean install again. Maybe i will return with more questions in the future.
Thanks,
Best regards, Daniel

8

@Damun :
If you are going to do a clean Win10 install again, I recommend to use the already available ISO with the newest v2004 (Build 19041.xxx).
This way you can avoid the upcoming OS upgrade from v1909 to v2004 in May 2020.

9

Cool, i didn’t know that.
Will take alook at it. It would surely be much easier to have it “built in” from the start.

Thanks

10

I though i had everything covered @Fernando , sorry

I do have one more question:

I downloaded the 17.8.1.1066 WHQL you reccomended, and noticed that inside it has a DPInst64.exe (i did not notice this in the v. 16 drivers i downloaded ). I assume that this is a driver installer, would you reccomend to use it?

11

@Damun :
Yes, you can get the related driver automatically installed by executing the DPInst file, which had been added by me for the easy usage.
To be honest, I have never installed a storage driver by using the DPInst tool, because I want to know exactly which steps are required, what happens and which error messages are given by the OS. Much more useful is the DPInst method, when it comes to the installation of USB drivers, because more than 1 driver has to be installed step by step and between these actions the user may have no access to the related USB connected input devices.

12

Thanks for the clarification.

Once again, thank you for everything