several issues on my ga x58a-ud7

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Moflo

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Mar 10, 2014
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So I put together my PC during October 2010 and it has been running without trouble for years.
Specs: GA X58a-ud7 (rev 2.0) Intel i7 930 @2.80GHz Patriot memory 12Gbytes DDR3 1333LL Series MSI Lightning GTX 680
I have been overclocking the CPU and GPU but have stopped doing so. Everything is at default to find out what is giving me trouble.

About 6 month ago I bought a Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256 GB and while I was at it I installed Windows 8.1 to run on the SSD and used my Velociraptor as secondary drive. I also have 2 WD Caviar Black 1TB running in RAID1

I had several issues and have formatted a few times since, but they always seam to come back. So the SSD is running on the Marvel controller over AHCI, while the rest of my HDD are running on Intel's IDE controller. The SSD is actually connected to the Marvel controller over GSATA (SATA3 from Gigabyte)
The Marvel controller was installed correctly before installing Windows, although I had some trouble. In order to make it work better I updated my BIOS to the latest possible version, which is FC. I can not instal the FD version since it's size is to big (only have 1MB BIOS and FD is 1,2MB)
I used the Marvel driver from the official Gigabyte mobo website. Although when searching for drivers or software on the site the only options are Windows XP/Vista or Windows 7. So that made me think the mobo is not compatible with Windows 8.1 Still, from Microsofts side there seams to be no problem in using Windows 8.1

Now to the issues at hand, inside Windows device manager I find the Marvel controller under Other Devices and with an interrogation sign. Although it detects the controller and tells me it is working fin it does not recognize the provider, date or version.
And it gets weirder, when I go in to the Devices and Printer window the Marvel Controller shows up under Other Devices. I even find the Marvel controller and the Samsundg SSD in my taskbar, when removing USB connected devices.
I also noticed the Write/Read speed is not the same as the one mentioned by Samsung and different reviews, I guess that has to to do withe the Marvel controller and the GSATA. So at this point I don't really know what is happening and how to fix it. There is apparently nothing wrong with the SSD, still it is strange and might be connected to the second issue I'm having.

The next problem are USB ports. When I boot, every HDD or flash drive connected will be detected and I can use them without trouble. But once inside of Windows any newly connected Drives over USB will not be detected. This applies also to wireless headphones that connect over a Bluetooth dongle.
Furthermore, if I try to open up the Devices and Printer Window the Control Panel does not respond and I have to restart Explorer from the Task Manager. I have set my Power Configuration to High Performance and turned of the Power Saving for USB, but this does not help.

Last but least, Rebooting or shutting down does not work. If I reboot, the reboot screen pops up and keeps at it for a while and I guess at some point the PC just decides to reboot. If I shut down the PC, Windows closes and the screens turn off but my machine keeps running. I also noticed that I'm having trouble getting into BIOS at startup, this might be because I use a Keyboard connected via USB.
All of this goes away as soon as I format the whole thing and than it is just a question of time before the problems show up again. So I really would like some opinion on what is going on, is it the SSD, is it Marvell or is it al because of Windows 8.1
 
I believe I have the exact same Marvell controller on my Gigabyte P55 board....

I disabled it in the BIOS yearssss ago. Along with whatever garbage USB3 (Marvell?) is on it....

I can pretty much guarantee you it's not your SSD (I have the EXACT same one)

But that Marvell controller is bad news. SATA3 is not worth sacrificing stability etc.

And the USB3 controller eats PCI-E lanes (as does the Marvell SATA)

So yeah, I'd disable GSata and USB3 then see where you stand....
 
Moflo said:
OK, I'll give it a try. My USB should work with Renesas (Nec)
Click to expand...

Sorry, just walked in the door and you're right.

Our USB3 is NEC based.

Still, these Marvell and NEC chipsets were basically a shoddy patch job to advertise SATA3/USB3 on the box. Neither worked near spec speeds and gobbled PCI-E lanes.
 
Just restarted everything. Jeez did I sweat to get this SATA cable in the right spot. I had to take out my MSI Lightning GTX680, did some cleaning while I was in there and filed up some cooling liquid. Yes I know, it seams I'm talking about my car :D but I'm still talking about my PC.

So everything works normal, it's MAGIC like nothing had ever been wrong. So now I can finally move on to more important stuff.

As for the speed, it has gone down a bit although the write speed is not to different from the one running on AHCI.
I guess that's it, I will be working with my PC for a few days and eventually move back to the overclock and see if everything keeps stable.

tanks a lot horrorshow you're painless solution did work just fine
 
Just a little FYI.

Your motherboard should have two 16 mbit (2 mbyte) flash chips for BIOS, and there should not be any problems supporting the latest BIOS release.

That is unless you have soldered special smaller flash chips onto the motherboard.
 
runs2far I have not modified the mobo in any way. I used Qflash and tried to install the FD version, but as far as I remember it wouldn't let me. I don't recall the exact warning it gave me but I'm pretty certain it said something about not having enough space. So I went with the FC version.
Although I remember reading something about the use of @BIOS to flash the FD version, but most people from Gigabyte would say that is very risky and not worth the trouble.

Now back to the matter at hand, it seams that it was no MAGIC after all. A couple of reboots and a few shutdowns and everything is back to NOT working. The Marvel drivers are all gone, with exception of the ones already in the BIOS.
I turned off all GSATA and eSATA. By the way, I turned on the SATA native mode. It was turned off but I guess that shouldn't be a problem.

The culprit seams to be the Bluetooth dongle. It's an ASUS USB-BT400 and I use it to connect my Sony MDR-1RBT headphones. I noticed that everything works fin if I start Windows without the dongle plugged in, but if I start the system with it than I get all the above mentioned problems.

This is strange however because I had this thing already ruining in Windows 7 and it didn't give me any trouble. I remember seeing a Windows update for this hardware 2 weeks back. So I checked and the drive version was 12.0.0.7820 but the one on the ASUS website is 12.0.0.2700.
So I went back and installed the on form the CD that came with it. It turns out that is a different version 12.0.0.4604. So now I'm running tests with these different versions to see if I am able to boot Windows with Bluetooth and not getting any USB problems.

Btw, horrorshow you mentioned something about the USB3 using PCIE lanes. This made me wonder, I want to buy a second graphics card, Quadro or FirePro. Would the two work on the same PCIE lane? and would that diminish their performance?
 
Well, no luck. I went back until the first driver upon release but still the same. So I don't relay understand what is going on. Maybe I have to format and do a clean install.
But what bothers me the most is that eventually the problem comes back. For now I will just boot into Windows without the Bluetooth dongle connected.

Maybe Windows 10 is going to take care af all my problems ;)
 
Well, at least you were able to isolate the issue etc.

Unplugging one USB before rebooting/shutting down isn't too bad. I only restart once ever couple of days max but your mileage may vary....

As for the PCIE lane business, after thinking about it more today I think that was an issue that only pertained to the P55 series of Gigabyte boards. But, I'd look into it if I were you just to be safe.

Best of luck!
 
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