Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3r question

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I am looking for a little help. I just built a system using a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3r mobo and am not understanding some things that are going on with it. When i first put the system together and booted it up, it was dog slow. I finally got WinXP loaded on it after some tinkering, but it still reamained a dog. It took like 4 minutes to boot up.

So, after looking throught the bios numerous times, I kept noticing that my HDD showed up on IDE Channel0 Master and my dvd/cd rom showed up as IDE Channel1 Slave. (Both, hdd and dvd/cd rom are SATA drives.) The hdd and dvd/cd ALSO showed up as IDE Channel4 Master and Slave, respectively. The system would only detect a drive if something was plugged into the SATAII0 port. The why I have it hooked up now is with the HDD in the SATAII0 port and the DVD/CD rom in the SATAII2 port.

I went into the bios and set the IDE Channel4 to "none" so that it wouldnt try to detect a drive there and then the system started acting normal. It boots up super quick now.

So, my question is, why do the drives show up on multiple channels? Do I have a bad mobo?
 
Try moving the Optical Drive to #3 or #4.

1 & 2 are most likely geared toward RAID and the DVD is causing it to hang.
 
I tried that. I even unpluged the dvd/cd rom altogether. With just the hd plugged into SATA0 port, the bios would still detect it on both channel0 and channel4 which would then cause the system to be slow booting. Setting channel4 to "none" would make the system boot up correctly, but that just doesnt sound right to me that i would have to disable that channel. It also doesnt sound right that its detected on 2 diffrent channels. I am begining to think my mobo is just bad.
 
Look in the BIOS and make sure RAID isn't enabled. OR, move the DVD to 3 or 4, go into BIOS & "load setup Defaults" and see how it goes

It most definitely sounds like a ID problem when it's trying to boot.
 
hate to say it again, but Ive tried those to. I checked numerious time to be sure RAID was disabled(it is), loaded default setting, even jumped the cmos jumper on the board. Still get the same results.
 
In the BIOS under Integrated Peripherals, is AHCI mode enabled? If not, you are operating under PATA mode by default. Did you install the SATA/RAID controller drivers using F6 during Windows installation?
 
AHCI mode is disabled. Its set to IDE and i didnt install the SATA/RAID drivers during the install of Windows. The questions i have mainly deal with the BIOS detecting the drives, not with Windows. I did some more tinkering with it, connected the HD to SATA port 1 and the CD/DVD rom to SATA port 3 and everything seems to function properly. Its when i connect something to SATA port 0 that things seem to act weird. When ever something is connected to port 0, it also shows up on channel 4. Not sure why it shows up on 2 diffrent channels.
 
Although I have the same motherboard as you (see my system specs), I don't know if I can solve your problem but there are two different makes of SATA controllers on the motherboard and two ports marked "0." The orange ones are made by Intel I believe and the two purple ones are Gigabyte branded (made by JMicron, I think). The Gigabyte ports are prefixed with the letter "G." Windows XP SP2 may contain some basic SATA drivers for Intel SATA controllers but not JMicron perhaps. Sorry if I'm covering ground that you might already know but I just wanted to be sure. My feeling is if you don't install the proper drivers for the SATA ports they may not run at proper speeds regardless of which mode you are using. When switching to AHCI mode, you will notice a slightly different BIOS version the next time it boots.

In the BIOS there are two different places to enable AHCI for the two different brands of SATA controllers. Anyway, I timed my PC this morning and it took slightly less than one minute to boot to Windows.
 
Dont guess theres anyway to add the SATA drivers after you have Windows installed is there?
Seems like i tried it on ACHI mode and there was some issue, prolly that i didnt have the drivers installed.
 
I believe there is a way to install SATA drivers after Windows is installed but I've never done it that way myself. The SATA drivers found on the motherboard CD are for installation on a floppy diskette for the F6 procedure. When you go to the Gigabyte website and find the driver page for your motherboard, you will find two different versions of SATA/RAID drivers: one for the F6 floppy installation and one not for the floppy. There is a not-for-floppy for the Intel controller and one for the Gigabyte controller. You will want both.

I think if you download these drivers, they can be installed within Windows. It looks like the files are self executing .exe files.

After installing the drivers go to page 71 of the motherboard manual to see how to configure the BIOS for SATA mode operation. Since you don't want a RAID array, skip the parts about RAID setup.

If you have problems or if it doesn't seem to work, as a last resort you can always reinstall Windows from scratch and then F6 from a floppy, that is if you have a floppy drive. The manual also describes how to make the floppy diskette from the motherboard CD. You don't just copy the files directly. Also, you can't use an external USB floppy drive. The procedure only recognizes an internal drive.

If you don't have a floppy drive (although they are very inexpensive), an alternative to the F6 floppy drive procedure is to make a slipstream CD with the contents of the Windows CD and the SATA/RAID drivers. I've always used a floppy drive so I've never had to do this myself but you can google for how to make a slipstream CD.
 
Sorry

I know this is an old thread, I am planning on buying this mobo or Asus P5K Premium wi-fi. I am concerned that such an issue arose and was wondering if you managed to solve this issue

krishan
 
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