GA-790XTA-UD4 -- Marvell SATA3 drivers

[churin]

How can I check if the drivers for Marvell SATA3 controller are installed?. I installed all drivers for this mobo using the DVD ROM which came with it, but the Device Manager does not show driver provider of "Marvell".

 

[bilbat]

If the Marvell controller is not configured in either AHCI, or RAID mode, I believe it will use 'native' windoze IDE/SATA drivers, which will not display a manufacturer's name...

 

[bilbat]

If the Marvell controller is not configured in either AHCI, or RAID mode, I believe it will use 'native' windoze IDE/SATA drivers, which will not display a manufacturer's name...

 

[churin]

If the Marvell controller is not configured in either AHCI, or RAID mode, I believe it will use 'native' windoze IDE/SATA drivers, which will not display a manufacturer's name...

The Marvell controller which provides SATA3 ports has been set for AHCI mode. I have just double checked it as this shows.

 

[bilbat]

Then you need to use the "<F6>(for Xp...) 'pre-install'" drivers - at OS install - the driver disk will not (can not) install these for you... It's possible to put in AHCI drivers 'post-install' but it's 'hairy', and I've not seen anything specific to the MARVELLs, so I'm not positive it'll work... The 'pre-install procedure is, I believe, on PP 92-99 of your manual...

Couple pointers to 'post-install' methods:
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardware/112584-how-enable-ahci-raid-mode-without-reinstalling-windows-p35-ich9-ich9r.html
http://edmundtse.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/upgrading-computer-without-reinstalling-windows/

 

[churin]

Then you need to use the "<F6>(for Xp...) 'pre-install'" drivers - at OS install - the driver disk will not (can not) install these for you... It's possible to put in AHCI drivers 'post-install' but it's 'hairy', and I've not seen anything specific to the MARVELLs, so I'm not positive it'll work... The 'pre-install procedure is, I believe, on PP 92-99 of your manual...

The OS installed is W7. I installed the OS with SATA controller mode set for IDE for all SATA cotrollers. After the installation of W7 I changed them to all AHCI and confirmed that the W7 boots from any of these SATA controllers being SB7xxx, Marvell and JMicron.
I see JMicron on the Device Manager but not Marvell, hence the topic of this thread. So far I have tried Marvell and JMicron controller for eSATAs and these ports are functioning as hot-swap ports.

 

[bilbat]

Well, if they will hot-swap, and show an 'eject' item in the tray, they are AHCI - I wouldn't worry any further; gotta realize this is brand-spankin'-new hardware, and, more aptly, drivers - the ICHs, starting with the first RAIDable SATA ICH5R, have been hanging around, getting continuously 'tweaked, for like eight years now [:bilbat:6]

 

[churin]

I was just curious about it. There is no functional issue so I will forget about it.
Thank you for responding to my query.

 

[bilbat]

Always welcome!

 

[Lemonhawk]

You would have had to put the preinstall drivers on a floppy or usb flash drive and used them during the windows 7 build to get the AHCI and/or RAID drivers built into windows. Its certainly worth it to do this and the easiest way is to rebuild/reinstall win 7 properly. As Bilbat mentions it is possible to add these drivers to an existing build, which is what I did when I move Win 7 from an NF590 board to the 790X and then to this 790XTA, but you need to move the entire disks from one drive to another so you don't loose anything. I never wrote down what I did but it involved removing the IDE drivers and then doing a "repair" which allowed the pre-install drivers to be installed and parts of win7 rebuilt. I spent weeks searching how to do this before attempting it. The real trick was figuring out why my quad core processor only showed 2 cores and fixing that problem without rebuilding win7.

 

[bilbat]

Boils down to: easier to do a 'fresh' install, no? [:bilbat:3]

I use seven ult64 as my main dev environment (can boot four 'flavors' of seven, Vista64, Xp32, Debian linux 32&64); use, probably, in excess of a hundred major programs, and a couple dozen utilities, and I still do a 'fresh' install, about every second or third month... Gets pretty much down to a science, after enough practice...

 

[churin]

I found the "Marvell 91xx Config Device" in the System Devices. The "Driver Details" showed "No driver files are required or have been loaded for this device". It appears that not all devices require drivers.

 

[Lemonhawk]

does the Device Manager Look like this:
Storage controllers
AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller
AMD RAID Console
GIGABYTE GBB36X Controller
Marvell 91xx SATA 6G Controller
Marvell RAID Console
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator

The controllers default to working like IDE controllers if the drivers are not loaded.

 

[churin]

does the Device Manager Look like this:
Storage controllers
AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller
AMD RAID Console
GIGABYTE GBB36X Controller
Marvell 91xx SATA 6G Controller
Marvell RAID Console
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator

The controllers default to working like IDE controllers if the drivers are not loaded.

The following is a list of links that show what are on the Device Manager. Presently the On-Chip SATA controller(SB7xx) is set for IDE mode and the On-Board SATA controllers or Marvell and JMicron controllers are in AHCI mode as shown here. The SATA ports by the JMicron and the Marvell are working as hot-swap ports.

Device Manager
IDE Controllers
Storage Controllers
System Devices