AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

Only in my World!

Everything went like the instructions, but for whatever other reason a video issue cropped up. This is an HTPC. I did the REGEDIT change no problem. Did a restart and hit Delete key to enter bios and screen went blank. No image. I know it is unrelated to the registry change, but you can see this could pose a problem.

I tried both DVI (with DVI to HDMI adapter) and HDMI ports on the ATI 5970 card using HDMI to TV, but neither would produce a picture. I finally powered down and installed my desktop monitor with DVI connection. Everything worked fine now. Go figure. I went in and changed the bios to AHCI and rebooted. Installed drivers and everything looked good. I disconnected the monitor and reconnected the TV. No picture. again trying all ports. Nothing. Finally reconnected the monitor and it worked fine. Set bios back to IDE and did a system restore to get WIndows back to where it was before the change. Reconnected TV, rebooted and all is good only no AHCI.

I realize there should be no connection between the AHCI and the video issue, but can someone point me in the right direction? This makes no sense to me.

Thanks BFK, great tutorial, my computer has had a real boost in performance.

One thing you may be able to help out with though and it's a problem I have in device manager, seems there is a problem with ATA Channel controllers, it doesn't seem to be effecting the machine though.

What do you think that might be, the warning is that the device can't start.

Cheers and thanks for the increase in performance.

James

james cullen said:

Thanks BFK, great tutorial, my computer has had a real boost in performance.

One thing you may be able to help out with though and it's a problem I have in device manager, seems there is a problem with ATA Channel controllers, it doesn't seem to be effecting the machine though.

What do you think that might be, the warning is that the device can't start.

Cheers and thanks for the increase in performance.

James

You could try uninstall the device and restart your computer. Windows will try reinstall any missing drivers for devices listed here, but it won't do anything automatically for faulty drivers.

If it's a driver-related problem, that's probably the safest way to sort it out. If it requires custom device drivers, you'll be prompted for the correct driver at start up, otherwise Windows will use a driver from it's supported list.

Thanks for your help ZaLiTH, I uninstalled those two drivers, restarted and Windows tried to install drivers but failed, now I have the warning again but this time I have lost alot of ATA channels.

james cullen said:

Thanks for your help ZaLiTH, I uninstalled those two drivers, restarted and Windows tried to install drivers but failed, now I have the warning again but this time I have lost alot of ATA channels.

Hmmm... That is somewhat strange. I'd suggest you try re-install the drivers manually then; either use your motherboard driver CD or download the latest drivers from Gigabyte's website.

Just found a thread on Toms Hardware forum regarding AHCI on your motherboard.. While his/her original problem is different to yours, there is one post that may help you somewhat. There a few driver versions listed in this post that you may want to try. I'd say use the listed versions as a reference and try find drivers that are at least that version or newer.

I probably should have asked this first, but can you access all your drives in Windows, or are they not listed in Computer?

thanks,

yes I can access all my drives, in fact after doing the AHCI thing and instaling the Intel istor driver my machine is screaming along, running smooth, never been better.

Just these pesky warnings.

If I reinstall the Gygabyte drivers will they wipe the new achi and Intel storage drivers or send the bios back to IDE

Cheers again thanks for your help

James

james cullen said:

thanks,

yes I can access all my drives, in fact after doing the AHCI thing and instaling the Intel istor driver my machine is screaming along, running smooth, never been better.

Just these pesky warnings.

Ok, that's good news then. That means the warnings aren't because of a physical problem (such as faulty hardware or loose connections), it'll be software-related.

james cullen said:

If I reinstall the Gygabyte drivers will they wipe the new achi and Intel storage drivers or send the bios back to IDE

Cheers again thanks for your help

James

When drivers are installed to Windows, they're kept in the driver cache even if new drivers are installed, only one driver can be active and assigned to hardware at a time though.

By installing the drivers from Gigabyte, it will assign those drivers to the ATA controller instead of the driver being used currently (in your case, the Intel drivers).

So if, for example, the drivers from Gigabyte don't contain a driver for device XYZ, and you have an Intel driver currently installed for device XYZ, then that will stay there after installing the Gigabyte driver pack.

It won't change anything in your BIOS though, that's completely separate. Think of it this way: the options you set in the BIOS determin how Windows detects the hardware, while the drivers determine how Windows accesses that same hardware.

ZaLiTH said:

james cullen said:

thanks,

yes I can access all my drives, in fact after doing the AHCI thing and instaling the Intel istor driver my machine is screaming along, running smooth, never been better.

Just these pesky warnings.

Ok, that's good news then. That means the warnings aren't because of a physical problem (such as faulty hardware or loose connections), it'll be software-related.

james cullen said:

If I reinstall the Gygabyte drivers will they wipe the new achi and Intel storage drivers or send the bios back to IDE

Cheers again thanks for your help

James

When drivers are installed to Windows, they're kept in the driver cache even if new drivers are installed, only one driver can be active and assigned to hardware at a time though.

By installing the drivers from Gigabyte, it will assign those drivers to the ATA controller instead of the driver being used currently (in your case, the Intel drivers).

So if, for example, the drivers from Gigabyte don't contain a driver for device XYZ, and you have an Intel driver currently installed for device XYZ, then that will stay there after installing the Gigabyte driver pack.

It won't change anything in your BIOS though, that's completely separate. Think of it this way: the options you set in the BIOS determin how Windows detects the hardware, while the drivers determine how Windows accesses that same hardware.

Thanks so much for your help, I updated the gigabyte drivers and the warnings have gone.

Thanks again

James

Flawless victory! AHCI is mine.

Thank you very much.