GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

[damonbrodie]

Hi,

I just installed my new OCZ Vertex 3 into my rig with the GA-P67A-UD7-B3 Mobo and now I'm having quite a few BIOS issues with drive detection. All of the controllers are set to AHCI and none are set to RAID. The Vertex 3 is not the boot drive.

I'm on the F3 Bios, and I plan to try the F4a bios tonight to see if that helps.

The symptoms are that I sometimes don't see the Vertex in Windows, and now the Drive detection during POST takes a very very long time to complete.

[Acebmxer]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

Try the latest bios. Also make sure the SSD has the latest firmware.

Only enabled the controllers that are needed. If you are not useing the gsata ports disable them.. If your not using the Sata3 ports disable them..

Will the drive show up if its the only drive attached? if it does add 1 drive at a time untill the ssd stops showing up.

Try setting the contoller that you are using to raid. Raid and ahci are the same for stand alone drives.

[damonbrodie]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

Try the latest bios. Also make sure the SSD has the latest firmware.

Only enabled the controllers that are needed. If you are not useing the gsata ports disable them.. If your not using the Sata3 ports disable them..

Will the drive show up if its the only drive attached? if it does add 1 drive at a time untill the ssd stops showing up.

Try setting the contoller that you are using to raid. Raid and ahci are the same for stand alone drives.

-Yes - I'll try the latest bios tonight. There are no BIOS updates for the Vertex (Yet)
-I want to use Sata3 - the Vertex will saturate Sata2
-I do have quite a few drives, but I could probably turn off the Marvell Sata controller (as long as it doesn't kill the eSata too)
-The Vertex was the last drive I connected, which is why I suspect it. I will go through and disconnect the other ones though.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

Have you used the drive on other computers, if not can you test? The drive may be going bad, I've seen this before and it's often a sign of a faulty drive.

6Gb/s ports are fine to use on P67, and cannot be disabled really as that would disable the Intel controller totally (Not sure if you even have a choice?)

I believe eSATA has it's own setting if I remember correctly.

[damonbrodie]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

So here are the things that I've tried so far.

I updated to the f4a beta bios. After I did that, I noticed that the bios only shows 5 drives connected - not 6. I disconnected the eSata drive, and rebooted and the vertex showed up. I tried plugging the vertex into a different Sata port - same problem.

I disabled the gSata controller and moved everything onto the remaining ports. I also found a new option in the BIOS for EFI. It says something about drives larger than 2.2TB - of which I have one, so I enabled that. I also turned on "Quick Boot" and I added a 1 second "Delay for HDD" - both options in the BIOS.

Now that I've done that, I seem to have reliable detection of the all six sata devices that I have connected.

The strange thing is that the Sata BIOS during POST still shows that I have 5 devices connected rather than 6.

Anyhow that seems to have cured the issue for now - we'll see if it pops up again or not....

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

BIOS may or may not show drives if they are in RAID or AHCI mode, if you mean on the standard CMOS Page *Which you shouldn't adjust anything on by the way*

During post only hard drives connected to the Intel ports will show up, and if everything is working smoothly but there is still one disk missing from post at bootup screen I wouldn't worry about it

[damonbrodie]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

BIOS may or may not show drives if they are in RAID or AHCI mode, if you mean on the standard CMOS Page *Which you shouldn't adjust anything on by the way*

During post only hard drives connected to the Intel ports will show up, and if everything is working smoothly but there is still one disk missing from post at bootup screen I wouldn't worry about it

I don't mean the standard cmos page - that's entirely empty. What I mean is the drive discovery during POST just before it enters the sata bios - it seems to have a lot of hitches and it can take a very long time to get past that screen sometimes (like it will hang there for 30 seconds).

The other settings I mentioned seem to help - I'm getting the vertex to appear 100% of the time now. The BIOS itself seems a bit buggy though. I'll often find that on normal reboot it will show that it is using the F2 version of the bios - hang for some time, then spontaneously reboot before POST and then the F4A version appears. Strange stuff.

[wazza300]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

You might just need bios's to catch up as this drive is very new,its worth a shot at emailing gigabyte directly stating your problems and they might send you a custom bios to try

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

Be sure you also set your 1, 2, 3, boot order in Advanced BIOS page to HDD, nothing, nothing, that will help!

[damonbrodie]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

You might just need bios's to catch up as this drive is very new,its worth a shot at emailing gigabyte directly stating your problems and they might send you a custom bios to try

Worth a shot - yes. I have a 3TB Seagate and the Vertex 3 - and I can't help but think that one/both of these are causing my issues.

[damonbrodie]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

Be sure you also set your 1, 2, 3, boot order in Advanced BIOS page to HDD, nothing, nothing, that will help!

I'll try that - currently it is set to HDD, DVD, USB-HDD.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

That may be ok, but trying as I mentioned might help.

I do know having anything before HDD can cause DMI Pool hangs, such as having CD first when you're not actually using it (If you need to boot from CD Use F12 at startup)

And Quick boot can actually cause issues as well, EuP/ErP too, so if you are using thosec test with then disable instead to be sure they are not causing you any problems.

[damonbrodie]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

So I seem to have a stable configuration now. The drives are not going bad - that's good.

Where I have ended up is:
Turned off the Marvell Sata3 in the BIOS. That leaves 2 Intel Sata3 ports and 4 Sata2 ports - more than enough.
My boot lag was entirely caused by the boot sequence. I've changed that to HDD only.

I also flashed to the F4a version of the bios.

After doing all of that - everything works as expected now. The vertex shows up every time now. I haven't traced down exactly what fixed it - though I suspect it might be the Marvell controller. I'll do some more checking on this at some point.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

Did you test both Marvell ports with your Vertex 3? I ask because we just had some issues with X58 and certain Marvell ports

You should use Intel 6Gb/s anyway on P67, they would be the best for this drive and sorry I didn't mention that before if I forgot.

[damonbrodie]

Re: GA-P67A-UD7-B3 and Vertex 3 - Bios problem?

No, I don't think I tried both. For now, I'm happy leaving Marvell off. That leaves 6 Sata ports - 4 of them 3Gbs and 2 of them 6Gbs. If I buy a third Sata3 device then I guess I'll consider turning the Marvell back on then.

My system has been completely stable ever since.