GA-X58A-UD7: How to go about safely installing the latest drivers?  

Azure Prower said:

sygnus21 said:

Azure Prower said:

I just want to make sure since I'm a little nervous about changing the BIOS on my current computer. The last time I tried messing around with the BIOS on my previous computer, I managed to up the voltage on the CPU with out knowing what I was doing and caused the computer to shut it self off to prevent further damage done. I had to take out the BIOS battery to reset it.

Since you removed BIOS battery you'll need to go back in the BIOS and hit "Load Optimized Defaults". I'm also betting your clock/time under Windows 7 is wrong? If so, you'll need to enter the BIOS and reset the "Date" - this should be under "Standard CMOS Features".

After that, if you're unfamiliar with the BIOS, leave things alone, including removing the battery. Unless the battery is dead, there's NO reason to remove it. If you need to reset the BIOS you have a BIOS reset switch on the back of the board near the PS/2 connections.

Removing the CMOS battery for a minute to reset the BIOS was preformed on my previous computer. So no needed to Load Optimized Defaults on my current computer. Just sharing my reason why I am hesitant in changing BIOS settings outside of the basic features.

OK I see I misread that statement about the removing the BIOS battery. Yeah I would agree, if you're not sure of the BIOS/BIOS settings then do leave them alone.

With that said I guess doing a BIOS update is out of the question. The reason I bring this up is because BIOS F7 for you board deals with SATA 3 compatibility issues.

BIOS F8M deals with 3TB (terabyte) hard drive support. However I would suggest you stay away from this one since it's still in beta. On the other hand if you had a 3TB drive that was absolutely giving you issues, well you might look to this one.

Anyway I would suggest you have at least the FC BIOS IF you felt like updating.

Outside of that, yeah you might wind up having to reinstall Windows if the issue doesn't get better.

Good luck.

@ Pooch: AHCI change does seem simple enough though. I also have the hard copy of the manual with me. So should be no problem. Just weighting all my options before I proceed.

@ Sygnus21: Yeah, never done a BIOS update before. My version is F2. Unsure how out of date that is.

So I have these on my to do list:

- Updated mother board drivers
- Change Windows 7 registry and SATA port controllers to ACHI in BIOS
- Update the BIOS


Just summing it up as I'm going to take my box over to a relative tomorrow, who has been in the PC tech industry for a decade or more to help me get to the bottom of this problem. He thinks it may be a hardware problem, but I suspect it had some thing to do with the SATA port controllers themselves. It has been bothering me ever since I built back in 2009. Just been figuring out the symptoms only recently.

Thanks for your input so far. I'll let you all know how it goes.

While you're over there you might want to have him update the BIOS as well as check the settings.

And F2 is the first BIOS release back in 2009. And when you go to update the BIOS MAKE SURE you get the right one for your board. You said your board is revision 1 so make sure you're on the revision 1 page you linked to. Double check you revision number just to be sure.

Good luck.

Found the solution to my problem.

It was actually the power settings. Although I red some thing about this before and set my power settings to "high performance" previously. I didn't dive deep enough into the advanced settings. I eventually found out that my hard drives were set to power off every 20 minutes, so I increased the timer to 4 hours and haven't had a problem with hanging since.

I also updated my motherboard drivers for good measure.

How ever, I will deal with the IDE/AHCI for extra performance at a later date and leaving my BIOS the way it is as it doesn't really need an update.

Azure Prower said:

I eventually found out that my hard drives were set to power off every 20 minutes, so I increased the timer to 4 hours and haven't had a problem with hanging since.

Hmmm..... that's kind of weird because they shouldn't be powering off if there is any kind of activity.

I have mine set to shutoff after 2 hours and the timer doesn't start until there is no activity for awhile. I use "Balanced" myself.

Anyway glad to see that appears to have solved your problem.

BTW you might want to check this tutorial out - Power Plan Settings - Change

Good luck.