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

Hi every one.

Lately I've been having trouble with my SATA3 Hard Drive hanging and discovered I had them plugged into GSATA3 Marvell 9128 ports. I promptly replugged them into SATA2 ICH10R ports and now I have no troubles with the SATA3 Hard Drive with too major hanging. But it does skip a bit time to time and it's a new hard drive.

I've heard there is a bug with the Marvell 9128 port connectors if they're not updated to the latest drivers. I am wondering if this is the case and how should I go about updating the drivers for all my SATA ports from GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1366 - GA-X58A-UD7 (rev. 1.0) will stop the hard drive hanging / skipping?

Is it safe to install the new drivers right on top of the old ones? Or is there some thing special I have to do?

If there are updates on the Gigabyte site I would go ahead and install them, it should be OK to just install them, I would also check for Chipset drivers and make sure that the BIOS is up to date.
I am not sure I understand what you mean by skipping, but the PC hanging may possibly be caused by something else.

Thanks for the replies.

By skipping, I mean. When running programs (specially games and skype), the picture and sound freeze for a split second time to time.

When I try accessing my two 1TB hard drives that are not my first system drive, some times they have 10 second load times when using windows explorer to browse file and folder contents.

As for ACHI or IDE mode, I'm unsure. I have not touched the bios and left it on its default settings since I got the mother board straight from the box. (Edit: They're all IDE)

Also it is not likely that my DVD copy of Windows 7 has SP1. It's Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, a student copy that I obtained back in 2009.

I would check that you are on AHCI mode, if your BIOS is set to IDE then you will need to make some changes before setting it to AHCI see here; AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

You might want to defragment your drives see here; disk fragmenter and enable write caching see here; Write-Caching - Enable or Disable

After you are finished let us know how you get on

Alright.

Just checked my BIOS settings. They're all set to IDE.

Would this be the issue that is causing my 1TB hard drives to hang for up to 10 seconds when accessed?

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.

sygnus21 said:

Azure Prower said:

Alright.

Just checked my BIOS settings. They're all set to IDE.

Would this be the issue that is causing my 1TB hard drives to hang when accessed?

While it would probably give you better performance if enabled I highly doubt it's the reason for your hangs. Also be aware that if you now enable it, Windows may hang (you can't get into Windows). If that does, you'll have to set it back to IDE to get into Windows. If you want AHCI there are two ways to get it - One would be to reinstall Windows, the other involves this procedures - AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista. Either one of these methods require that AHCI be set in the BIOS.

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.

Amswers to your questions in blue.

Anyway Pooch gave an excellent suggestion which was to try defragging the drives. Give that a try and let us know what happens.

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.

My drives are defragged monthly, so I don't think that's the answer.

I'll probably then update the drivers and edit the registry to prepare an AHCI install for Windows 7 later on. Yet if you say the up to 10 second hanging when accessing my two 1TB hard drives is caused by some thing else, I'm looking to try and fix that first before any thing else.

My 232 gig system disk seems to have no troubles with hanging and every folder is accessed instantly unlike the other two. Unsure why that is. I tested one of my 1TB hard drives on another computer and worked fine with every folder accessed instantly. So that rules out faulty hard drives.

Azure Prower said:

My drives are defragged monthly, so I don't think that's the answer.

Ok

Azure Prower said:

I'll probably then update the drivers and edit the registry to prepare an AHCI install for Windows 7 later on. Yet if you say the up to 10 second hanging when accessing my two 1TB hard drives is caused by some thing else, I'm looking to try and fix that first before any thing else.

Its best to follow some sort of order here so I would say do the AHCI thingy first, after all it may possibly help.

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.

Ok I can understand this :) you do not have to make any changes, but I do think it may make a difference.

You can download a manual for your MB here; GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1366 - GA-X58A-UD7 (rev. 2.0)

It should be a help when changing this setting.