My objective is to update firmware and drivers on this board. Everything is getting long in the tooth. Firmware is a primary objective. At some point I am going to have to install Win 10 and I want things as current as I can. Currently there is something eriously screw up in my machine. I have no idea what I did to cause it. I have spent more than a week trying to fix it. I was working on the drivers and firmware when things fell apart. I have been careful to do a Windows restore point before every change. And I backed up the image of my C drive daily with Macrium Reflect. I tried to go to a restore point. It fails no matter which restore point I choose. Says I may have a problem with antivirus programs. Stopped everything related to protection; no change. So I went to restore the backup image from yesterday. One of my drives (my backup storage) is an eSATA connected RAID array. It is a standalone device asn is supposed to simply look like an attached SATA drive. Some of the functions of Macrium see my backup drive. I can pick what image I want to restore. But the actual restore process can not see the drive.
I am really not very good at playing with these things. So much of my knowledge is obsolete and unused for a long time. I have been reading threads here (one with 56 pages) but I remain confused and uncertain. One thing that has driven me to this exercise is that ASMedia eSATA port that is seen by some software but not others.
The board has the following: Asus P8Z77V Deluxe, Marvell 9128 SATA, Intel 92579V LAN, ASMedia 106x SATA AHCI&RAID, ASMedia_USB3x, Realtek 8111F LAN, Realtek ACL898 Audio, Intel RST, Intel Graphics.
I have been trying to update the ASMedia chips with no success. I have created a DOS boot USB stick but when I try to execute the ASMedia firmware update for ACHI - errors out. I think I managed to update the Intel chipset firmware, but I am not positive. I have downloaded drivers and firmware updates from Station Drivers. But I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to even be sure I have downloaded the appropriate files.
I am not using RAID. Everything is ACHI. I have two Samsung SSDs installed. No overt problem I am aware of except the ASMedia. I am experiencing very slow responses to opening anything on the internet. My first thought was Comcast or the associated DNS server. But my wife’s machine does not see to have the problem. If I did not need the machine to work I would go somewhere with a bottle of single malt and ignore it.
So that is probably more information than necessary. I have several questions.
Does updating everything make sense?
Can someone help me, using as little jargon as possible, at least get the ASMedia SATA updated? That may allow me to get the machine running properly.
@ alternety:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
This is what I recommend to do:
1. Connect your SSDs to the Intel SATA3 ports, which are running in AHCI mode.
2. If you shoulf have an optical drive, connect it to the ASMedia SATA3 port running in IDE mode.
3. Don’t update the Firmware of the ASMedia SATA and USB Controllers, unless you know exactly, which Firmware version you have to take and how to do the update. Don’t expect a performance boost after having successfully done it.
Happy New Year!
Dieter (alias Fernando)