Which are the "best" Intel AHCI/RAID drivers?

Important Drivers Specific: Intel AHCI/RAID Drivers
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@willie666 :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

Who said, that this wouldn’t work? Wghat do you think was the reason, why I am offering mod+signed “Universally” usable Intel RST drivers?
Nevertheless not each driver, which is installable (by forcing the installation) will work flawlessly with a device, for which it has not been designed.

The Intel SATA AHCI Controllers of 7- and 8-Series chipsets are quite different.
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

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Im reffering to this thread:http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=401529
What is your alternative for me to use the latest drivers? Your latest modded drivers didnt work on my Z77 board.

There are 3 Ways I can install latest Intel AHCI divers on my Z77 Chipset:
1. I use 13.1.0.1058 this is the latest with native Z77 support, but this uses APM which makes my hdd standby
2. I use 12.9.0.1001 this is the latest without APM
Im on Windows 10. Why should I use the old win7/8 drivers from above? So
3. I use the latest 14.8.0.1042 8-series AHCI.




EDIT by Fernando: To save space I have merged your last posts and removed unneeded parts of the quoted text and unneeded blank lines.

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There are people, who feel better, when they are running the latest drivers no matter whether these drivers do support their system at its best or not. I always compare the different driver versions and choose the driver version, which seems to be the best for my system.

Then you have done something wrong. Please repeat the procedure.
By the way: I do not create or modify any driver (= .sys file). All I do is customizing the related text file (.inf) to make the driver installable with Controllers, which are natively not supported.

If this driver is the best for you, why not? By the way: The Intel RST driver v14.8.0.1042 is not the latest from Intel.
My personal experiences with my old Z77 and Z68 systems were different (look >here<).

364

@Bit42 :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum! I am sorry about my delayed reply, but I obviously missed your contribution (despite its length).
You gave a lot of informations about your system (inclusive the Firmware version of your Optical Drive ), but forgot to mention the most important part of your system:
Which mainboard model with which chipset has your system?
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

365

Your modded driver isnt working. See the picture I attached. I treid several times, with restart and downgrading the AHCI to Microsoft standard, still not possible to install. And why should I use drivers which are engineered for Windows7/8 on a windows10 system?

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This is a very good question!

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You are the first user, who reported that.
Since I don’t see any mistake within the modded INF file, I am waiting for the feedback coming from other Z77 AHCI users, who tried to install any of my mod+signed driverpacks.

Until now there is not a single Intel RST driver available, which has been designed for Win10.
Even the INF files of the latest drivers v14.8.7.1051 WHQL just contain the NT versions NT6.1 (=Win7) and NT6.2 (Win8/8.1).
Proof:

1
2
 
[Manufacturer] 
%INTEL% = INTEL, NTx86.6.1, NTx86.6.2
 

Furthermore all the latest Intel RST driver of the v14.8 series do contain the SCSI filter driver named iaStorF.sys, although this driver is neither needed nor used with Win8/8.1 and Win10.
368

Ok. I have your driver working, now. Thank you!!!

369

Thanks for this feedback.
Do you know the reason for your previous problem?

370

I ignored the certificates Folder :wink: Your driver is working even on a H77 and a HM55 Win10 system. Thank you!!!

371

Hi Fernando,

I have a MSI GT70 with a i7-3740qm with Win7 x64. It’s in AHCI mode with Intel 7 Series Chipset and I think (from CPUZ) it’s the HM77 chipset (PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1E03&SUBSYS_10BE1462&REV_04) and driver version 11.1.0.1006. Is there a better performing driver version I can use?

372

@Dime_Baggins :
Please expand the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section of the Device Manager and check the DeviceID of your Intel SATA AHCI Controller (right click onto it > "Properties" > "Details" > "Property" > "HardwareIDs").
Interesting is just the DeviceID (=DEV_XXXX).

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PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1E03&SUBSYS_10BE1462&REV_04
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1E03&SUBSYS_10BE1462
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1E03&CC_010601
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1E03&CC_0106

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This verifies, that the related system has an Intel 7-Series Chipset and running in AHCI mode.
Since your request matches this thread the best, I have moved it into to it.
You can find the Intel RST driver version, which I recommend to use with such system, within the start post of this thread.

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Thanks Fernando. I used ">64bit Intel RST(e) AHCI/RAID Drivers v13.1.0.1058 WHQL< ". Oringinaly I didn’t see the table at the bottom of the original post. When manually installing, I had to force it to use that driver, it gave some message about it might not be the right driver and might not function or something, I disregarded it and installed anyways and so far so good. I didn’t install anything but the driver though (no software). Does it seem like I did the right thing to you?

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Absolutely.

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You can easily verify, whether your speculation is reality or not by comparing the results you get after having installed a modded driver, where the related Intel SATA AHCI Controller model is detected and shown correctly by the Device Manager.
By the way: I doubt, that a user can get originally not available features by simulating to have a newer hardware while installing a driver.

You should better ask Intel.
Each new driver development branch introduces new features (and new bugs).


Thanks! I just thought the officially supported 13.1.X drivers were made before Windows 10 was released and the newer drives have better support for it. One way or another, forcing the newer drivers works perfectly. I ran AS SSD Benchmark 3x times with 13.1.X, 3x with 14.8.9.X, and 14.10.X drivers. With 13.1.X drivers I selected the officially supported C216 Intel 7-Series, for 14.8.9 I selected (forced) C220 Intel 8-Series, and for 14.10.X I selected (forced) Z170. 13.1.X has always won (very slightly) over both 14.X.X sets, but 14.10.X was the slowest set by 5-6pts below 13.1.X set, while 14.8.9.X set was getting maybe 1-2pts below 13.1.X set final benchmark results.

However, with 13.1.X drivers games load times were the slowest (1-3 seconds longer than with 14.8.9.X drivers). I re-created loading conditions for each driver set test and 14.8.9.X undeniably load games 1-3 seconds faster than 13.1.X drivers, which contradicts the fact that AS SSD Benchmark results were the highest with 13.1.X drivers, but AS SSD Benchmark is a synthetic benchmark and we all know synthetic benchmarks are not very representative of real-world applications performances.

378

@MonarchX :
As I have already mentioned before, your last posts have nothing to do with the topic “Intel Chipset INF files”, where you had inserted them. That is why I have moved our recent discussion into the correct thread.

Intel has optimized the Intel RST/RST(e) drivers for the natively supported specific Intel SATA Controllers and not for a specific Operation System. Until now there are no Intel RST drivers available, which have been specificly designed for being used with Windows 10.

Forcing the installation of a driver onto a natively not supported system by simulating the presence of a not existing special device may work, but is not recommended by me. Reason: The Device Manager will show wrong (not existing) HardwareIDs. That is why I am offering the mod+signed drivers, which will show the correct HardwareIDs of the on-board Intel SATA Controller.
By the way: It is an error to believe, that the user of an older chipset system may get this way some features of the newest chipset generation. The specific HardwareIDs related features of a driver are layed down within the *.SYS file and not within the text file with the extension *.INF.

I don’t doubt your results and I have never written, that the Intel RST/RST(e) drivers, which I recommend to use, are the “best for everyone”.
Each user should investigate himself, which specific driver version is the “best” for him resp. for his/her specific hardware configuration and preferences (doing Office or Video Encoding tasks, playing games etc.).

379

Hello Dieter / Fernando. Thank you for this wonderful forum.

I have a Dell Inspiron 7720 17R SE laptop with 3630QM CPU, two SATA-III HDD bays, 1 Sata II mSata bay and 1 Sata II Optical Drive bay.

I picked it up used with the 32 GB mSata bricked and a new copy of Win 7 (down graded from 8) on the 500 GB HDD.

I ran various versions of Intel RST in ROM and in windows software (had to downgrade versions due to problems) but don’t remember them. I ran Linux version of Facebook’s HDD to SDD caching software on 12 GB of the mSata and Intel RST for windows on 19 GB of the mSata. After a year I bricked the HDD.

So I scooped up a new 128GB mSata to limp along with Linux only for a month and now a 240GB SSD to setup Windows 7 again (120 GB partition I think). I’d like to add Win 10 later. Linux is fine on the mSata and I’ll setup a 64 GB disk cache on the mSata later.

I’ve reset the BIOS to ACHI. Can I install Windows 7 like that and change it to Intel RST later?

Control I to bring up Intel RST ROM only worked once is that a known issue or because I’m running weird ROM version?

Should I flash the ROM before installing Windows 7 fresh? If so which version?

I tried to get RST enterprise version before but couldn’t locate it. Is that what your drivers are? Which version would be best (performance/stability) to start playing with? Kind of weird but I prefer the newer graphics / presentation of the RST software in windows to gaining the extra 5 MB/s transfer rate.

Sorry I don’t recall the ICHR chipset family number and the Linux software I have now doesn’t list it. I can get it after I install Windows using PC wizard but that would be too late :smiley:

Thanks again!

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@Rick_Lee :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

Yes.

The Intel RAID ROM resp. EFI RaidDriver version doesn’t matter at all, since you are running your system in AHCI mode.

No, the “Enterprise Edition” Intel RST drivers are designed for X79 and X99 chipsets and not for your HM77 chipset.

Please look into the table, which is at the bottom of the start post. The HM77 chipset belongs to the Intel 7-Series Chipsets.

Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)