GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

[Ken429]

Please someone step back a few years and give me a hint on why my old trusty GA-EP45-UD3P MB with a Q9550 CPU hangs in the BIOS as soon as I change the SATA Controller from IDE to AHCI. If I leave it set to the Optimized Default of IDE all is well. I had run this thing for years in AHCI mode. The only hard drives I got connect to the Intel Controller are two 300 GB Raptors. I had a Highpoint 640L controller with a OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 SSD and it had been working for at least 18 months. I thought maybe it was something with the Highpoint Controller and SSD so I took it all out and went back to the Hard Drive(s). However, the problem did not go away so it is something else. Is the MB getting tired and starting to get flaky or should I be looking for something else?

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

OK, I found an old thread on Tweaktown and the solution is to let Windows change the Partition Size which fixes whatever is wrong with the Partition Table on the boot drive. It worked! I don't know what happened today to cause the problem to appear - I was not making any changes to partitions etc. - it just decided not to boot. Oh well, I'll go back and try to get the Highpoint controller and the SSD working again now that the BIOS is behaving.

[profJim]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

From a post in a TT thread:

ACHI or RAID switching from IDE mode:
If you installed in IDE mode you'll need to make the following registry changes before you change the BIOS to AHCI Vista/Win7 ONLY

Enable switching between all IDE/AHCI/RAID modes by changing "Start" Values in these keys to 0 (Win 7 / Vista ONLY)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Msahci\Start
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Pciide\Start
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\iaStorV\Start

Note: 0 = enabled and 1 = disabled.
If you are using IDE mode, you can't just change to AHCI or Raid if the MSAHCI or IASTORV settings are set to 1.

With my P35 motherboards I have all of these settings set to 0 (zero) so that I can change the between AHCI, IDE, or RAID modes where I won't get a BSOD when I reboot.

I assume that you are not using any of the Gsata ports for your boot drive.

***EDIT***
When you said that your system "hangs in the bios" does this mean that it hangs while you are trying to boot into windows or does it only hang when you try to enter the bios? The registry settings above should only affect your system when booting into Vista or win7.

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

ProfJim,

I guess you did not read my response to myself (Post #2). I have been running W7 on this machine in ACHI mode for years. Something went amok on the SSD that caused the system to hang up in the BIOS - it never got close to booting W7. Changing the Partition Size in Disk Management (while in IDE mode) apparently causes Windows to re-write the Partition Table (or does some other magic trick) and that corrects the problem. There is another thread on this site that solved the issue a long time ago.

Here is the thread that come up with solution to my problem:

http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/46467-ahci-bios-error-23-after-enabling-ahci-ide-mode.html

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

ProfJim and/or whomever can shed some light on this issue,
Problem was not as simple as I first thought! I have the Highpoint 640L card re-installed and the OCZ 120GB boot SSD is working as it should. Hard Drives that are connected to the MB SATA2_0 and SATA2_1 work in ACHI mode. Whenever I connect a drive to any other SATA port on the MB the BIOS does not post. Really strange. I have tried several HD's and have re-formatted on the system while running in IDE mode but it does not fix the "problem". When I take one of the HD's that is working in ACHI mode and connect it to SATA2_2-5 the BIOS does not Post (Hangs in my terms). I have cleared CMOS and I have re-flashed the BIOS (FFb) but nothing changes. I have tried multiple SATA cables. The System is running on the Optimized Default settings. Is the SATA Controller on the MB failing? Has anyone experienced this problem on an aging MB? Does the controller want more juice to jolt it back to life? Or... is it time to retire my old reliable system and move on?

[profJim]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

I would temporarily remove the HighPoint 4-port sata card and test all of the Intel sata2 ports with your ssd boot drive on the sata2_0 port and then connect one or more hard drives to the remaining Intel sata2 ports. Your Seasonic X-650 should easily be up to the task but you might need to try different psu sata power connectors to ensure that all of these connectors are working properly.

When the problem occurs, do you see any post information screens before windows would normally start?

[maxwedge]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

I too have been running in AHCI mode since day one and not even overclocking for about 2 years. Last October I was getting lots of bsod for no reasons (about 15 in 2 days!) and it wouldn't work in AHCI anymore. The drives wouldn't even show in the Intel AHCI bios! I ended up reflashing the bios to the same I'd been using and it's been okay since. Thank god for TrueImage!
Ga-EP45-UD3P v1.6 with FFb bios

Good luck!

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

Just a reminder, I had been running the system with the SSD and two SATA 3 drives attached to the Highpoint 640L and two SATA 2 drives connected to SATA2_0 and SATA2_1 (ACHI Mode) for almost 2 years with zero problems. So...the problem might have been there all along? IThe first thing I tried was removing the Highpoint 640L and trying to run from just the Intel Controller. However, I can't remember if I had a third SATA drive connected to one of the other Intel ports! That is when I stumbled into the Partition Table issue if that really was the issue! Once I got to running only two devices SATA2_0 and SATA2_1 things worked OK. I did swap out the power supply, I'm now using a Corsair TX850 but as expected nothing changed - it is not the power supply.

Since I really want to run the SSD and SATA3 drives at full speed I don't want to give up the Highpoint 640L even if it is the culprit. I have enough SATA ports on the system 4-640L and 3 on the onboard non-Intel controller to keep me happy.

Now that I have a better idea of what hangs the BIOS, just to prove a point, I will take the 640L out of the system and see if it makes a difference and allows the Intel Controller to handle more that two ACHI devices.

[profJim]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

There is very little real world difference running your ssd boot drive at sata3 bandwidth compared with sata2 bandwidth with your EP45 motherboard. My o/s ssd's in each P35 mobo work great using the Intel sata2 ports. It wouldn't surprise me if your drives connected to the sata3 controller card are bottle-necked when you're copying or moving large files.

While ATTO is hardly a meaningful real world benchmark, the results below show that my WD Caviar Black hard drives were not crippled in my lower mid-level dual core cpu system. SSD performance with my newer 128 GB Samsung 830 and 256GB Samsung 840 Pro models is better than the much smaller 60GB OCZ Agility2 drives, but they are still limited to ~ 275 MB/second for the sequential read and write tests. The most important difference is the 4K ssd random read and write speeds. I don't have the patience to run the 4K tests on my hard drives. Yawn is hardly appropriate, I need to find a snooze icon.




***EDIT***
I just found the following CrystalDiskMark test results in my http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...-capacity.html thread:



As I recall, the 120 GB OCZ Vertex2 results were from a P55 system.

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

ProfJim,
I don't know how much real world difference SATA 2 VS SATA 3 makes but Otto says that the 640L which uses 2 PCI Lanes does a pretty good job and is very close to the performance of a Vertex 3 on a MB with native Intel SATA 3 ports. I know my old Q9550 comes to life went the SSD is connected to the 640L card. I agree that I could overwhelm the 640L card if I copy huge files from 640L t0 640L but that is not a major concern. I tend to go to my server and that is limited to the network speed.

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

One other question - since the Highpoint 640L is handling the SATA 3 Devices and I cannot change it's SATA Mode in the BIOS I got to assume it is locked into ACHI mode for the devices connect to it? So... what difference does it make if the Intel Controller is set to IDE Mode?

[profJim]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

With IDE mode? Probably lower performance and loss of hot plug capability for sata devices.
I doubt that your sata3 hard drives will have any performance penalty.
Don't worry about ATTO sequential read and write speeds with sata2 bandwidth, all we're doing right now is temporarily removing the 640L sata3 card to ensure that the card isn'trelated to your boot problems when you have one or more hard drives connected to the mobo's Intel sata2_2 through sata2_5 ports.

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

ProfJim,
The reason I posted the OTTO result was to show you that the 640L does a pretty darn good job of getting the most out of the SATA 3 SSD (538 versus your 278). Just to humor you I removed the 640L card, connected the SSD to SATA2_0, the Raptors to SATA2_1 and SATA2_3, the 750 WD Black to SATA2_5 and the DVD Burner to SATA2_2. The Intel Controller was set to AHCI. The BIOS hung at the end of the Post Routine showing "Verifying DMI Pool Data ........". Just in case you were going to ask, I disconnect the DVD Burner and the BIOS hung in the same place. So...it "ain't" the 640L that is causing the problem. I also booted with just the SSD in SATA2_0 and the D: Raptor in SATA2_1 (I've got the Paging File and a bunch of Windows Stuff on the D: Drive from back in the days when you were supposed to keep writes to a minimum on the SSD) and of course Window booted with no issues. I suspect the Intel Controller is failing. Any other ideas?

[profJim]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

The problem appears to be with one or more of the Intel sata2 motherboard ports.
To simplify things, try booting while using only 3 of the sata2 ports:

1. sata2_0, sata2_1 and sata2_2
2. sata2_0, sata2_1 and sata2_3
3. sata2_0, sata2_1 and sata2_4
4. sata2_0, sata2_1 and sata2_5

It's possible that one or more of the sata2 ports has failed.
The cause might be due to a faulty sata2 data cable or one of the drives.
This might be similar to a memory problem where you don't know if the problem is due to a defective memory slot or one of the memory modules.

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

ProfJim,

I know SATA2_0 and SATA2_1 work in AHCI Mode. I know that SATA2_2, SATA2_3 and SATA2_4 cause the BIOS to hang when something is connected to one of them. First thing I tried was different SATA cables, multiple different working hard drives and finally re-flashed the BIOS. So...I set the Intel Controller to IDE and will call it a controller failure. I guess things wear out - I had used that system for many years as the primary always reliable machine.

However, the ASUS P8Z68-V Pro/2600K has taken over that position and I am really impressed with the ASRock Z77 OC Formula/3770K/W8.1 system. Now, since I have an excuse, I am playing with a new 3570K in the GA-Z77-UD5H. It too seems like it is going to be a very good system. See my recent post on temps and Vcore. After fighting voltages and temperatures on the 3770K the 3570K runs cool and fast.