ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard and enabling AHCI

[ctp9]

Hi guys - I am trying to figure out if my ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard will allow me to use AHCI drivers in my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 OS...

I cannot, for the love of God... find where in the BIOS might there be an option to enable AHCI on this board - I have looked everywhere and did not see such an option to exist; (however, I already have it enabled in my OS, but it won't kick in until I enable it on the mobo as well).

Or, could it be that W7 is already using AHCI but isn't telling me anywhere? How can I check to see if it is using it, or not?

Oh, by the way, this mobo's chipset is nVidia nForce4, and it does not have certified W7 drivers... so maybe I am just out of luck.

Anyone experienced with this particular motherboard, please help me out. Thanks in advance!

 

[UKMedia]

Hi

I don't know this specific MB but on other ASUS cards there is an option to config the SATA devices, options being either IDE, RAID or AHCI. If you see IDE and RAID and no AHCI, then your MB won't support it.

Regards
UKMedia

 

[TVeblen]

To clarify: In the BIOS > on the MAIN Tab > Storage Configuration > Configure SATA As > and toggle to AHCI.

To check Windows:
Start > Control Panel > Hardware & Sound > (Under Devices & Printers): Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers > Look to see if you have "Intel(R) ICHxxx SATA AHCI Controller" listed.

 

[bobkn]

It looks like the board does not support AHCI. It may be that no board with that chipset (nForce4 SLI) does.

(It's a Socket 939 board, released in late 2004.)

If you wish to use hardware that benefits from AHCI (like an SSD), it's probably time to upgrade your motherboard.

 

[stormy13]

Save yourself the trouble as the NF4 has very limited AHCI support (no NCQ support for one), part of the reason you can't find any settings in the bios. Nvidia didn't really add proper AHCI support until the NF5 and up. One of the best places to find info about nForce drivers is here,

View forum - nForce Drivers • nForcersHQ.com

and even with all the modded driver packs that they came out with there is still no AHCI driver for the NF4.

To check Windows:
Start > Control Panel > Hardware & Sound > (Under Devices & Printers): Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers > Look to see if you have "Intel(R) ICHxxx SATA AHCI Controller" listed.

Um, Nvidia chipset on an AMD motherboard, don't think you'll find Intel storage controllers.

 

[TVeblen]

To check Windows:
Start > Control Panel > Hardware & Sound > (Under Devices & Printers): Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers > Look to see if you have "Intel(R) ICHxxx SATA AHCI Controller" listed.

Um, Nvidia chipset on an AMD motherboard, don't think you'll find Intel storage controllers.

Yeah, that was a bit of an oversight, wasn't it.

Do you know what would show up for an nVidia chipset?

 

[stormy13]

If I remember correctly from the last NF4 board I had (A8N-SLI SE, almost identical to ctp9's board), it just shows up as Nvidia SATA with no mention of AHCI. The only options in the bios are SATA mode or IDE mode, and doesn't change any if you enable the RAID controller.

 

[TVeblen]

Thanks for that Stormy. Good to know.

 

[seth500]

I have an a8n-sli and no ahci!

 

[TVeblen]

Yikes. Sata drives, no AHCI. Barbaric!

 

[alexncfc]

Did anybody ever get this resolved? I also have this (now very old) motherboard and Windows just shows IDE Controllers and Speccy also informs me that all three of my SATA hard drives are in IDE mode!

Any help appreciated,

Alex

 

[l3ft3r1s]

Actually, to solve this issue, I am thinking buying this one
PCIE to SATA III and eSATA CONTROLLER CARD - 2 + 2 PORTS - PCI EXPRESS 1x - CHIPSET SATA 3.0 : ASM1061: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
What do you think? The reviews say it has a built in AHCI controller

 

[alexncfc]

Looks good, cheap aswell! Could indeed be a solution instead of using the old onboard controllers, and obviously it supports SATA III which is all the better. I also suppose if you were to use a SSD with this card then it would run at its best performance as I have heard that this motherboard still sees SSDs as a normal hard drive.

The only trouble for me is that it only has 2 SATA ports and I'd need four ideally. Give it a go and keep us updated!