Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 - disk drive issues

I just built my latest PC - Here are the parts:

Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 case with Cooler Master 900 UPC pwr supply.
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 mo/board with Core i7 Intel Quad 920 chip
12 GB OCZ XMP Ready triple channel RAM 6 x 2GB RAM sticks
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA disk drive
Pioneer BDR-203BKS (BluRay) and Pioneer DVR-216D (both SATA connected)

My problem: I can not get the BIOS to see the Seagate SATA drive. When I first connected it before making any BIOS changes, it did show up in the BIOS. I have attached this drive to another computer and it shows up fine in the BIOS of that computer.

I am not sure what the problem is but I need to figure it out soon.

Thanks for any help you might be able to offer.

Machack

First thing I've got to say is "Congratulations!!" Scads of people are having scads of problems with the i7/x58 MOBOs, the first of which is inability to get stable with more than one stick of RAM - whatever you're doing - keep doing it!

I'll go through a list of the BIOS settings that pertain to your drives, but first, I'd like to teach you a new function of your BIOS. There is a built-in facility in GB's Award BIOS that allows you to save sets of BIOS parameters to CMOS storage in the BIOS table area (and, actually, also to storage media, like a floppy or USB stick. The reason I want you to master this is, the thing is working SO WELL, that if something inadvertently changes that good luck (skill? - umm, always better to be lucky than good!), I want to be SURE that you can get back to EXACTLY where you started from...

Do the <DEL> at the boot to enter the BIOS; notice, at the bottom, the <F11> "Save CMOS to BIOS" - hit this, and you should get a menu that will show a number (the count varies by BIOS) of empty 'slots', each of which will store an entire set of BIOS parameters, to be re-loaded from the corresponding <F12> "Load CMOS from BIOS"; this is a wonderful overclocker's feature. What I do with it, is to save my 'baseline' working parameters, so if I change something that 'irritates' the board, and forces a reset of all the parameters to defaults, or, even worse, get so screwed up I need to do a 'clear CMOS', I can get back to my starting point with no effort, and without having to remember 85 separate settings! Another thing it prevents is two hours' troubleshooting, having forgotten a change to a crucial parameter - like, "wait a minute - didn't I have the Trd at seven?!" It's pretty self-explanatory, and I alway urge people to start right away by taking the time to give the 'slots' names that mean something: in two hours, "Try2" and "Try3" will not be very helpful, but "450@+10MCH" and "450@+15MCH" will! Another use is for 'green' settings; overclocks, as a rule, do not 'play well' with green features, such as 'down-clocking' and 'down-volting'; with the storage slots, you can set up one profile, say "Green", with all the settings at 'stock' values, and all the 'green' features enabled; another, say "Balls2Wall" with a full overclock, and all the 'green' stuff turned off... Another neat feature of this 'slot' system is, for most BIOS, the mechanism itself will keep track of which ones have booted successfully, and how many times (up to, I believe, a max of five)! What I want you to do is save your 'currently working great' set of parameters to a slot named "BaseLine" - then you can alway get 'em back...

Now, on to the SATA goodies - if I'm interpreting your post correctly, you have three SATA devices. They should be plugged into the blue SATA connectors (the white ones are run by an auxilliary jMicron controller, connected 'one layer deeper' (and thus slower because of two sets of bus transactions, rather than going direct through the ICH10R) with less robust support, and a couple of fairly esoteric bugs... Plug your Seagate into the top connector, using the plug labeled SATA2_0, then the DVDs into the next bank down, SATA2_2, and SATA2_3 - in whichever order you want your drive letters to be assigned (though you can change the letter assignments later, in your OS) Note that, if you are using Molex to SATA power adaptors, it is easy to get a bad one (I have a good sized pile of them, now up to three manufacturer's pieces - though they look like they were all molded on the same Chinese machine...), and they are tricky to troubleshoot - all but one of my bad ones will work, if they happen to be stressed or pulled a certain way, but let the cable twist a little, or simply relax over time into their natural shape, and - poof - disappearing drives!

Next - the BIOS goodies!
On the "Advanced BIOS Features" page:
Check "Boot Devices" and the "HD Boot Priority" items to be sure your drive is there; if you have a floppy hooked up, I always recommend your boot order be: Floppy, CDROM, HardDrive; there are a couple recovery options to fix a screwed BIOS, or BIOS' Boot Block, that are only available to you if you have floppy set as first device; there is also a quick-boot trick for speeding up repetitive reboots (like when you're 'twiddling' BIOS parameters for tuning) that requires you to hit the DVD before the HDD - but, all in all, it really doesn't matter...
"HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability" to "Enabled" (will let you monitor some drive health/performance statistics...)

Next, on the "Integrated Peripherals" page:
"SATA RAID/AHCI Mode" to "Disabled"
"SATA Port0-3 Native Mode" to "Enabled"
"USB Storage Function" to "Disabled"
"Onboard SATA/IDE Device (GIGABYTE SATA2 Chip)" to "Disabled"
"Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode (GIGABYTE SATA2 Chip)" to "IDE"

Hopefully - that should do it! I'm working on an 'overcolocking template' doc for use by people fighting to get their i7/x58s to work
It looks like this:

CPU Clock Ratio ................................ [ 20x]
Intel(R) Turbo Boost Tech ...................... [Enabled]
CPU Cores Enabled .............................. [All]
CPU Multi Threading .............................[Enabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) ........................ [DISABLED]
C3/C6/C7 State Support ......................... [DISABLED]
CPU Thermal Monitor ............................ [DISABLED]
CPU EIST Function .............................. [Enabled]
Virtualization Technology ...................... [DISABLED]
Bi-Directional PROCHOT ......................... [DISABLED]

If I send you one, could we twist your arm to get you to fill it out? You've got the best working setup I've heard of, and, besides trying to be helpful, I have in mind my own i7 'toy', which involves using a bit more than ten of the possible twelve gig - so six operating sticks of RAM is imperative...

Good luck!

Bill

Hello John;

Well, now I'm doubly amazed; not only did you get an x58/i7 system working, it's your first try! I also find laudatory your having read the manual - you'd be surprised how many people toss it aside when they open the box... Often here, I'll come up with some oddball setting two layers deep in the BIOS that fixes an even odder problem, and I'll be asked "how could you possibly have known about that?" to which my reply is: "Umm - your manual - I, ah, read it..."

All, excellent ideas. You can set the ICH ports to RAID, as they don't require you to use RAID, but give you the option anytime. My normal recommendation is to set the ICH to RAID, and the jMicrons to AHCI, then put in the 'pre-load' drivers (F6 in Xp) for both when you install the OS. That way, your options are open, and you don't have to go through the major PITA it is to load the drivers at a later point... The jMicron (white) ports would be an ideal spot for your DVDs - its oddball bugs are mainly hard drive related...

Another thing to check is here:

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/ [...] cId=207931

There is a known (and widespread) problem with a large number of Seagate drives. There is a tool there to check your drive - you'll want to follow their instructions (but I don't need to preach at you - you read your manual ; flashing the repair firmware to a drive with incorrect original firmware can kill drives...

Regarding the ICH RAIDs, I can give you a 'barn-stormer' of an idea: I use all six ports on my ICH9R for RAIDs; I have two pair of RAID0 150G Velociraptors on the first four ports; then, a pair of 1TB WD RE3s in a RAID1 array for my data. I use a boot manager, and my first partition on both pairs of RAID0s is a hidden boot manager extended master boot record (I use the one on the first pair - the second is a backup, in case of disaster; can just switch to it); the next partition on each pair is an extended, right at the 'nose' of the drive, where it's fastest - inside of which are the logical partitions for the swaps; on volume_0, I have: 764_Swap (12G), V64_Swap (12G), and V32_Swap (6G); then, the partitions are assigned from the front (again, putting the most used OSs [which, since RC1 from TechNet, has been Win - especially 7x64] closest to the fastest part) - 732_Boot (96G); X64_Boot (48G); and X32_Boot (32G)... I keep Xp on volume_0 as, while you can install it to the second volume, evermore it will assign the system drive as 'D:', and I want all my OSs to show the same drive order: C: is the system/boot drive; D: is the RE3 pair for (reduntant) data (umm - 'd' for 'data' - has a certain ring to it ), E for my 1.5 T backup drive, F,G, & H for the swaps...On volume_1, I again have the extended, which contains 732_Swap (6G), V64_Swap (12G), and V32_Swap (6G); then the primaries: 764_Boot (96G), V64_Boot (64G), and V32_Boot (64G). This leaves roughly one third of each RAID0 pair unpartioned, meaning the furthest my heads will ever have to 'seek' is two-thirds of the disk, with an average stroke of one third! So, for this effort, I get:


from the system volume, and:


from the swaps...

If you were to use a setup like this on a fast i7, it would really cook!

Turning off SMART is certainly a good idea to simplify things, as, until we get the *&^% drive to connect, obviously we won't be getting any diagnostic info from it anyway! I thought, for the same reason, to turn off AHCI, but it shouldn't matter to the 'connect'; I have AHCI enabled on my jMicron, to use 'hot-plug' on a front panel eSATA - which also turns it on for my Seagate 1.5 backup drive; I did extensive throughput testing, and saw exactly zero difference - enabled or disabled. Further research revealed I was using the wrong tests! Turns out the big advantage to AHCI really only appears if you're 'loading up' the drive with lots of requests for small pieces of data (especially write requests), as then the NCQ feature (Native Command Queueing) goes to work for you by 'sub-optimizing' the access mechanics.

I recommend the floppy in the boot order, even if you don't have one, as you can then try a "blind flash" procedure should your BIOS ever 'take a dump"; it should not matter whether you have the drive connected now, but, if you have severe BIOS problems, you won't be able to go in an change the boot order, so you're 'locked out of' one of the few things you can do with a board whose BIOS is 'gone bye-bye', besides use it to prop open a door What I did realize, while writing this, is that, though I've recommended this before, I've never actually tested it, to see whether having the floppy in the boot order, but not physically connected, causes any kind of 'can't boot this' problem; will shut down later, disconnect the floppy, and test!

What you want to do here is, as the machine starts to boot up, peck at that <TAB> key like a woodpecker, then, when the screen 'switches views', peck again at the <DEL> key to get into the BIOS; this has to be caught fairly quickly (especially at the speed that demon is running), so you need to kind of locate the relevant keys before the boot, so you can do <TAB> with one hand (I've learned from experience) preferably your 'off' hand (i.e., if you're right handed, get the <TAB> with the left), and the <DEL> with the 'faster' one - a really nitpicky, minor point, but it has proven to help! Once you get into the BIOS, if you change "Full Screen LOGO Show" on the "Advanced BIOS Features" page to "Disabled", it will get rid of the 'splash' screen, and reduce the task to just hitting the <DEL>; also (at least, if they're still supporting it), there's a utility for changing the 'splash' to anything you want - I used to know of a site that had hilarious stuff (a pot leaf logo, with "powered by ganja!"; the Intel 'Intel Inside logo, that instead said "Idiot Outside!", but they appear to have gone commercial...

If you do decide to do this, I can give you a very safe and easy procedure for it. In the meantime, I'll give you the MAIN WARNING! DO NOT use the Gigabyte @BIOS utility - it is a well known source of 'trashed' GB motherboards - for which the only 'fix' is an RMA!

I'm thinking, too - as well as your system is running (especially in comparison to the oodles of people either unable to boot at all, or only able to boot with one solitary stick of RAM), I'd really want to know for certain, that a BIOS upgrade would really be a functional upgrade, before I'd be willing to 'mess with success'!

You will love water - I came to it by accident. I designed my workstation to be extremely efficient at moving heat (twelve fans) 'out of the box'. My plan was to use it in a large, cool basement. However, during the, maybe a month's period when I integrated it (ten days of testing and 'speed binning' RAM alone), I ran it in the basement, and found out the dust situation was simply not tenable; even with intake filtering (I, too, have a CoolerMaster, and love it), sawdust was hideous - and the problem with sawdust is that it's 'sticky', due to the sap component, but when heat dries out the sap, the dust is anchored like freaking concrete. I had to move the thing into my bedroom, which is only about a hundred or so square feet; even in the middle of winter, the room temps were over eighty-five; absolutely had to do something... Came up with this:



Would have water cooled the rest (actually have the MOSFET water block), but, with the heat-pipe cooling, if I wanted to cool some of it, I have to cool all of it, and while I was researching 'how-to' water cool, people scared me into thinking that too many blocks would be a flow problem - more about that later.

I put this:



into the basement ceiling, and again, people told me it wouldn't work - too much hose, vertical drop...

This:



is in the wall behind the machine; the two tubes are 'quick-disconnect' fittings from Koolance, which have never leaked one single drop - though people warned me about them, too... What I mainly discovered is that, mostly, water-cooling enthusiasts blather and obsess about stuff that they don't really understand, and actually makes very little difference. Unless you're trying run an absurd overvolt/overclock (I ran into a guy using phase-change cooling to get a CAD station quad, supposedly, to over 5GHz!), just having water (of any kind) will work great! I wanted an expensive (~$150), three fan radiator, but my vendor seemed to always be out of them - so I settled for a fifty dollar one from NewEgg; when I got it 'cooking', I found out I probably could have done just as well with an even cheaper two or one fan model! I get exactly a 2°F 'drop' across my radiator; my CPU cores all run at exactly 39°C, stress test, three video streams at once, whatever, no matter; and my video cards (which are OC'd all to hell, used to just 'howl' their fans, and ran between 58 to 64°C) now are 'pegged' at 20°C! Gravity - don' matter: in a closed loop, mass of water being 'pushed up' is exactly equal to the mass 'falling down' - cancels out! Tube and pump size, number of blocks - withing reasonable limits, don' matter: bigger tubes, less blocks = faster flow, more mass of water going through the blocks to transfer heat to; smaller tubes, more blocks = slower flow, longer the mass of water stays in the blocks for heat transfer. I put a variable, 9-15 Volt 8 Amp power supply in the basement, triggered by a relay off the system power, to keep the heat from the current to run the fans and pump out of my system supply (and my bedroom), and make the air/water flow rates adjustable; the Molex on the wall plate lets my system monitor and alarm the basement fans and pump; the 'foamed' area under the basement ceiling joists (and used some of that canned 'crack-seal' expanding foam to seal up the hose and net cable holes) keeps all the noise in the basement; in my room, the thing is eerily silent...

If you'll take a peek here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] ion-needed
I wrote up a little bit of a critique, sort of 'my take' on Win7 (at about the sixth post) (you'll certainly be able to detect that I'm more than slighly enthusiastic), but the important stuff is in, I think, the eighth post - I've listed a few places where you can find 'everything you'll ever need', in the way of: tracking the release history, tweaking it once you've got it, and, if you at all intend to use Media Center - a fan-effing-tastic site that deals exclusively with 7's MC!

I also have to tell you - I've made (apparently) a serious enemy here, who's petulant because he was ignored in a tweaking discussion; he appears to be 'stalking' me, opposing and 'picking at' pretty much every single sentence I post, and pointing people at a different site. I figure this will confuse the hell out of everyone, doing a disservice to all the first timers seeking actual assistance, so I'm probably going to give up here, at least for a while. One thing it's forcing me to do is something I should have done some time ago - build and populate a web site of my own, with a section devoted to GB MOBOs (and Chinese calligraphy, and quantum mechanics, and Kit Cars, and cognitive philosophy and theory, and ceramics, and political grousing, and neuro-physiology and -chemistry, and AODA treatment, and on and on and on .

Whatever, if you need to get my attention, you can feel free to email me at: bilbat@wi.rr.com