7-Series Chipset SATA/AHCI Controller Drivers for Win-10 Not Available

rcxtra · Sep 15, 2015

Are the 7-Series motherboards being left behind by the manufacturers and Intel with regards to Windows 10 drivers? Specifically updated SATA/AHCI drivers. I know everyone is suggesting that the Win-8.1 drivers be used if Win-10 drivers aren't available, and I have installed the Win-8.1 SATA drivers (using Have Disk) without issue on a clean Win-10 install.

What bothers me is that the 8-Series and newer motherboards have updated drivers for Windows 10, including SATA/AHCI. My B75 Asus board only has updated Chipset and LAN drivers so far. In fact, I've checked all the major players (Asus, ASRock, GigaByte, MSI) and all of them only have a few sporadic updated Windows 10 drivers for their 7-Series chipset boards - but non of them have updated SATA drivers.

Yes, the Win-8.1 driver seems to be working fine in Windows 10. But if no driver update is needed, then why did Asus (Intel I guess) release a new driver for the 8-Series chipset but not the B75? Actually all the 8-Series and newer chipset boards have updated SATA/AHCI drivers, but not the 7-Series boards.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Asus P8B75-M/CSM
Win10
- none
Win7,8,8.1
- Intel AHCI/RAID Driver V12.8.0.1016
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspiaStorA.sys (630 KB)

Asus B85-Plus
Win10
- Intel AHCI/RAID Driver V14.5.0.1081
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspiaStorA.sys (1422 KB)
Win7,8,8.1
- Intel AHCI/RAID Driver V12.8.0.1016
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspiaStorA.sys (630 KB)

If you notice, the B75 and B85 motherboards have the same SATA driver for Win7,8, and 8.1. But only the B85 board has the newer SATA driver for Windows 10. Is the newer driver improving performance, compatibility, or both?

Appreciate any feedback on driver status for 7-Series motherboards or what, if anything, the newer Windows 10 SATA driver brings to the table.

drtweak · Sep 15, 2015

It's like phones. Older phones don't get updates plain and simple. Same with Drivers.

Even though it isn't that old it is still a few gens back. Also Windows 10 most likely has most of the drivers needed for it built in. I have put windows 10 on a few older Core 2 Duo machines that run off the 3X 4X chipsets and the only drivers i ever need to update is Video cards (if there is an addin one) otherwise no driver issues what so ever.

Windows 10 is new. Don't expect there to be drivers for everything already. The Reason why there is probably 8 Series drivers is because it is newer and may not have those drivers built in. This is how most windows are. If they have built in drivers for older devices sometimes they just won't update the drivers on their websites because well they don't need to. Once they have a updated drivers that is NEWER than the one built in then they may post them but until then it is pointless when they are built in or can be gotten from windows updates.

That is more than likely why there are no drivers or the fact that well they just want you to use the windows 8 drivers because there is no need to have 10 drivers when they work no different.

rcxtra · Sep 15, 2015

drtweak :

That's just it, Windows 10 didn't have an updated driver. On a fresh install it put in a "Standard SATA AHCI Contoller" driver from 2006 (V10.0.10240.16384). The Win7/8 driver is V12.8.0.1016 (6/30/2013). Besides, if Intel was going to ignore the platform because it's considered to old, they wouldn't have released chipset drivers for the 7-Series boards, which they have. There just isn't any news to be had anywhere on whether Intel and or the motherboard makers are going to FULLY support the 7-Series platform or not.

I agree it would have made some sense for MS to include the current driver with Windows 10, but they didn't. I would just like to know what the newer SATA driver for say the B85 board brings to the table that its older Win8.1 driver didn't have. After all, the last Win8.1 SATA driver for B85 boards was released 6/30/2013, same date and version as its just slightly older B75 cousin.

This has been driving me nuts, as you can probably tell from my slightly ranting question...

drtweak · Sep 15, 2015

hahaha its ok. I feel the same way some times. Thinking I want a new driver for this or that or a newer bios with a few option but never come then realize all my shit is old and out of date XD

I would say IF there were any improvement on a new driver they would release it, but for now i would just install the windows 8 drive. Who knows what Intel is thinking. The 7 Series isn't that old. i wounder what driver it would pull up if you did a windows update on it (from the built in one from 2006) when updating the driver? if it would pick up the 2013 one or not?

rcxtra · Sep 16, 2015

drtweak :

Good question, I didn't try the Win10 auto "search for" driver update. Maybe I'll try it out of morbid curiosity tomorrow, but in my experience its never been worth the screen it's displayed on

What I find odd is the massive increase in size of the actual driver file iaStorA.sys on platforms that did get a Windows 10 SATA driver release. We know the Win8.1 driver works on Win10 without issue, so what could have caused the file size to more than double?

B85 chipset SATA driver: (iaStorA.sys)
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspWin7/8&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspWin10
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp630K&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp1422K

drtweak · Sep 16, 2015

That is a good question there. I'm not really sure either since I have not installed windows 10 on a 7 series chipset yet.

Could be coding, possibly features, or something else.

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7-Series Chipset SATA/AHCI Controller Drivers for Win-10 Not Available

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