Soon To Be Arrested For Motherboard Abuse (P8P67 and Marvell Issue)

[mln35]

Very long time lurker here. And although I only know "enough to be dangerous" about this stuff, I thought I'd come out and actually ask a question or two about my setup, because I wouldn't trust anyone else on the net besides these forums, honestly, to give me a straight answer. Here's my story of how I am currently ready to throw this new motherboard out into the street and watch it splash onto the asphalt. And that's no joke, I just may do that soon.

Anyway, so I had some change in the piggy bank and I built this. ("Built" is the key term here. Feel free to replace that term with "struggled more than a few times". What I thought would be fun, actually turned out to be a crappy experience for a lot of reasons.)

Anyway...

Cooler Master HAF X
Asus P8P87 Deluxe Motherboard
16 GB Corsair Vengeance
i7-2600k proc
Crucial Real SSD 128 GB (Boot Drive)
2x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200/64 mb SATA 6
Asus ENG TX580 Graphics Card
blah, blah, blah...bunch of other stuff...

So what's the problem?

Anyway, now I basically want to punch myself in the face because I can't get Windows to see the two Seagate 2TB drives. Here's the deal if you care to listen.

So here i am plugging stuff in, and I see that I have three devices (Seagate x2, Crucial SSD) that will need to be plugged into a SATA 6 port. I also have an optical drive (just a regular DVD RW) and the front port for eSATA that need to be plugged in as well.

So...lets see what I got here 'cuz I am ready to fire this thing up and impress the family. I have:

2x Marvell SATA 6.0 Connectors
2x Intel SATA 6.0 Connectors
4x Intel SATA 3.0 Connectors

Lemme see. I plug the SSD (Boot Drive) into the Intel 6.0 taking one spot there, and the Seagates into the two Marvell 6.0 spots, and oh yeah, the DVD and the front eSATA are going into whatever crap spots I have left so lets just park them on the SATA 3.0 ports. Now fire it up and see what we got.

Well, hell. The data drive works fine and man that SSD is smoking fast and quiet, but the two Seagates, are now seen by Device Manager as SCSI drives and even though they are seen in the BIOS, they aren't seen in My Computer. What? Better use a lifeline and get on the phone. I call another idiot buddy as if one isn't enough.

He says...hell Marvell is for RAID. And basically you have told the PC to take those large drives that you plugged into the Marvell ports and make a raid array out of them, to which I say not only no, but hell no. For one, I didn't install the Marvel driver or anything to do with Marvell, and secondly I just want these Marvell ports to act like regular old SATA 6.0 ports and see my drives.

He says, try this...redo everything you did to get to this point (which meant and OS reinstall and setting that cool UEFI back to default) and take one Seagate, and plug it into one of those Intel SATA 6.0 ports, and see what happens. Well, hell...now I got a boot drive and a data drive. Well that would be great and all, except for the fact that I still have a 2TB drive that is left an orphan.

So, long story short, I can' plug a damn thing into these Marvell SATA 6.0 ports at all, and have them recognized as just SATA 6.0. No matter if I change the UEFI to AHCP or to IDE or back and forth or whatever....which basically results in me killing a lot of time because it just won't work.

I guess I got all excited because I thought I could actually plug three SATA 6.0 devices into this motherboard, as badass as everyone as well as the salesman told me it was, but in reality I actually can't.

That is unless one of you fine fellows lets me know how. That, or this mobo gets launched to the sun in the next few days, and as I see it go up in the sky and starting its downfall to kiss the asphalt, I'll remember to CHECK OUT THE ACTUAL CAPABILITIES of ANY hardware I buy from now on.

And hey, don't even get me started on the crappy engineering (to save money) on the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Cooler, or the how Hot Swap drives (which I was finally really looking forward to) are just kind of gimmicky and fragile...but hey, thats a story for next time.

Please tell me how to make these three drives with this motherboard, or the [strike]dog[/strike] motherboard gets it.

Thanks, guys.

 

[rolli59]

The marwell is not only for raid. Here is a stupid question is the Marwell controller enabled in BIOS?

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

Why don't you take one of the 2TB data drives and plug it into the second Intel SATA3 port alongside the SSD? It should be recognized then, with no special setup.

...and the mainboard manual should be a good place to check whether you can have individual drives on the Marvell controller, and if so how to do it. ASUS is usually pretty good about such things.

 

[mln35]

rolli59 - I can't see anywhere specifically in the bios where the Marvell Controller is enabled. I have made sure that anything raid in the bios is off, and that no raid/storage drivers are installed.

Leaps - When I plug one of the drives into the 3GB it is seen, however, what is the point of having a 6GB drive on the 3GB input? I think I'll lose something there. Also, nothing about non-raid drives as pertaining to Marvell in the handbook.

This morning, I have plugged the SSD and one of the Seagates into the Intel controller and the other Seagate into the Marvell. The SSD and one Seagate get seen, and the other Seagate is labeled as SCSI (again) in Device Manager, and is seen by Marvell in the splash screen as a single drive under its control (where at one time there were two).

So, basically, if I plug a drive into that Marvell 6.0 GB port, it appears to me that it gets automatically controlled by Marvell and it really isn't a 6.0 port at large for anytime use.

Seems to me that I got suckered by the product features of having 4x 6.0 GB ports, when in actuality it really wasn't.

I'll do some more jacking around and let you know what I come up with.

 

[rolli59]

rolli59 - I can't see anywhere specifically in the bios where the Marvell Controller is enabled. I have made sure that anything raid in the bios is off, and that no raid/storage drivers are installed.

Page 3-20 in your manual! In the BIOS section!

 

[jaquith]

Recommended Ports:
Intel SATA3 (gray) {Closest to MOBO's PCB} Crucial Real SSD 128 GB (Boot Drive)
Intel SATA2 (blue) {Top 2 ports} 2x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200/64 mb SATA 6
Intel SATA2 DVD {bottom port}

There's zero benefit for the mechanical { R/W ~130~140MB/s} to be paired with SATA3 'Interface' to use the Marvell or Intel SATA3. Frankly, unless there more 'SSD(s)' or 'HDD(s)' I'd probably disable the Marvell.

The only plus with Marvell is if you want a second RAID 0/1 with the Marvell 9128.

edit: IF your 'stuck' with using the Marvell then in the BIOS set it to IDE and once the HDDS are recognized then open REGEDIT and set the 'Start' values = 0; assuming the C300 is AHCI. Then boot into the BIOS and set the Marvell -> AHCI.

link - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

The problem is, more than likely, a registry corruption Stopping the proper drivers from loading properly; see 'edit'.

IF you're still have a problem then update to BIOS 1501; assuming P8P67 DELUXE http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8P67_DELUXE/#download when building 'B3' I strongly recommend using the latest BIOS. Use only the ASUS EZ Flash 2 method; requires a Flash Drive FAT-32 formated.

Good Luck!

---------
Intel® P67 Express Chipset
2 xSATA 6.0 Gb/s ports (gray)
4 xSATA 3.0 Gb/s ports (blue)
Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Support RAID 0,1,5,10

Marvell® PCIe 9128 SATA 6Gb/s controller with HyperDuo function*
2 xSATA 6.0 Gb/s ports (navy blue)

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

Leaps - When I plug one of the drives into the 3GB it is seen, however, what is the point of having a 6GB drive on the 3GB input? I think I'll lose something there.

You misunderstood.

For clarification:
SATA/SATA1 = 1.5Gbps
SATA2 = 3Gbps
SATA3 = 6Gbps

You won't lose anything.

Here's what you should do:
Plug SSD into Intel SATA3 gray port.
Plug 1x Seagate into Intel SATA3 gray port.
Plug 1x Seagate into Marvell SATA3 navy blue port.
Plug optical drive(s) into Intel SATA2 blue port(s).

This morning, I have plugged the SSD and one of the Seagates into the Intel controller and the other Seagate into the Marvell. The SSD and one Seagate get seen, and the other Seagate is labeled as SCSI (again) in Device Manager, and is seen by Marvell in the splash screen as a single drive under its control (where at one time there were two).

So, basically, if I plug a drive into that Marvell 6.0 GB port, it appears to me that it gets automatically controlled by Marvell and it really isn't a 6.0 port at large for anytime use.

Seems to me that I got suckered by the product features of having 4x 6.0 GB ports, when in actuality it really wasn't.

Yes, when plugged into the Marvell port it will be controlled by the Marvell controller, which is a SATA3 6Gbps controller. It appears as SCSI because that's the way the driver works. It will still work normally.