AHCI mode locks up BIOS

[WhatHappend]

When I attach a Seagate Barracuda LP 2 TB model#ST32000542AS (Firmware CC95) to one of the first 5 SATA ports and have AHCI mode enabled in the BIOS, the BIOS locks up when it tries to detect what ever port that drive is attached to. You can't even get to the BIOS settings unless I remove the drive from the SATA connectors. If I wait until detection of SATA drives is done and AHCI Intel BIOS is loaded, I can attach the drive to the SATA port and it works fine until next boot. Anybody have any ideas on this?

In IDE mode the drive works fine.

If I attach the drive to the Gigabyte SATA controller the drive works fine in AHCI mode but then I can't read the SMART parameters from the drive. Anybody know how to get SMART to work through the Gigabye SATA controller? I am not in RAID mode.

Here is my system specs:
Antec NSK2480 w/ 380 EarthWatts PSU,
mother board: GA-H55M-USB3,
8GB DDR3 Mushkin PC3-10666,
boot drive: OCZ VERTEX 30GB SSD,
Samsung 1.5TB 5400 32MB HDD
Intel Core i3-530 retail,
LG GGW-H20L BD BURN,
InfiniTV 4 tuner w/CableCard | Conexant ATSC tuner,
Windows 7 64 bit,
2TB Seagate GoFlex USB3 HDD

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Model Name : GA-H55M-USB3(rev. 2.0)
--------------------------
M/B Rev : 2.0
BIOS Ver : F11
Serial No. : xxxxxx
Purchase Dealer : Newegg
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VGA Brand : Intel Model : On board Video
CPU Brand : Intel Model : Intel Core i3-530 Speed : 2.93Ghz
Operation System : Win 7 64-bit SP :
Memory Brand : Mushkin Type : DDR3
Memory Size : 8GB Speed : PC3-10666
Power Supply : 380 W

[Chike]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

Try with only that HD connected.
Does it work in IDE mode?

[WhatHappend]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

Try with only that HD connected.

Doesn't work with only the Seagate HDD connected.

It is the BIOS that is locking up when it tries to detect the HDD. It locks up on what ever port I plug it into.

Does it work in IDE mode?

Yes, as I stated in the OP, IDE mode works fine.

Thanks

[Chike]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

Tried different SATA cables?
Could be worth asking/reporting GB support.

EDIT: what about RAID mode? It is supposed to be AHCI too.

[WhatHappend]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

Tried different SATA cables?

Yes. I even tried a different HDD on this cable and it works fine.

Could be worth asking/reporting GB support.

Already have. But I have no luck getting anything from them. Has anyone tried the phone support? I have only done electronic support from GIGABYTE and I get no useful information.

EDIT: what about RAID mode? It is supposed to be AHCI too.

My motherboard is H55 based so no RAID mode on the Intel SATA adapter. Like I said the HDD works on the Gigabyte SATA ports in AHCI mode (I just can't read SMART data). Even if I had a H57 motherboard with RAID mode, it would probably make SMART quit working.

[Reggie]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

Firmware upgrade
Seagate 2TB ST32000542AS CC35 Firmware upgrade | Niall Best's Blog

[WhatHappend]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

Firmware upgrade
Seagate 2TB ST32000542AS CC35 Firmware upgrade | Niall Best's Blog

Thanks, but my drive already has FW CC95 which is much newer than that version. All new drives have been shipping with CC95 since about last October. I wonder why Seagate doesn't provide CC95 on their support site?

Do you know something special about CC35? I have a friend that works at Seagate as a Firmware engineer and I can ask him if you know of something that was fixed in CC35 that would have a impact on this issue (are you suggesting they broke something in the newer CC95?)

I think it is clear this issue is with the Gigabyte MB BIOS. The drive works on the Gigabyte controller on the MB so the drive should be fine.

[Chike]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

(are you suggesting they broke something in the newer CC95?)

Either they did or The BIOS not prepared fr it.

I think it is clear this issue is with the Gigabyte MB BIOS. The drive works on the Gigabyte controller on the MB so the drive should be fine.

Yup, that's why I suggested GB support, only they can fix it.
The only way to know for sure is to test the drive with older firmware.

[WhatHappend]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

The only way to know for sure is to test the drive with older firmware.

I am not going to test older FW without a way to restore the current FW version. Rolling back FW can be a bad thing if the developers didn't test for it.

[WhatHappend]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

I found the issue searching other threads on this site.

The BIOS on this MB has a AHCI bug. Doing research on the internet I found the issue with this MB BIOS. The "Serial ATA AHCI BIOS, Version iSrc 1.20_E.0019 07092009" that is in the MB BIOS has a bug were it will hang on SATA drive detection when the bytes at 0x01c3 or 0x01c4 are small values. As an experiment, I used a raw disk editor and change my 0x01c3 byte from 0x00 to 0xFe and the BIOS will not hang any longer in AHCI mode with the Seagate Sata HDD.

This bug is very troubling since this HDD comes factory partitioned and formatted from Seagate with values that hang the Gigabyte BIOS.

When is Gigabyte going to have a fix for this BIOS issue? I can't believe Gigabyte has shipped MBs with this bug for over 1 year now.

Details here: ~sstahlman/: ... In Which It Is Revealed How An AHCI Bug Makes One's Insyde(s) Freeze

and here: http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...ption-rom.html

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

Why are drives shipped out like that anyway? Just wondering

Please send in a report on this, the more users that report it the more they will realize that it's an issue
GIGABYTE - Support & Downloads - Technical Support

[WhatHappend]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

Why are drives shipped out like that anyway? Just wondering

Please send in a report on this, the more users that report it the more they will realize that it's an issue
GIGABYTE - Support & Downloads - Technical Support

I have reported it to gigabyte support. And they say they have never heard of this issue with this motherboard model.

Seem like the people on the other end of the support are not very advanced. They wanted me to zero my hdd? I am not sure why when I can change only one byte and make the drive work. They need to fix this but now that I know Gigabyte has had this issue for over year with various MB models it doesn't seem like they care. A user should have to do raw disc editing to make a computer boot.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

Well please tell them the issue is real and I've heard about it many times.

I do think the problem is the hard drive manufacturers faults though, drives shouldn't be setup that way, but yes GIGABYTE could fix it vie modifying Intel's files (Not sure if they are even allowed). So it may be up to Intel to address the issue and not GIGABYTE.

[WhatHappend]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

I do think the problem is the hard drive manufacturers faults though, drives shouldn't be setup that way, but yes GIGABYTE could fix it vie modifying Intel's files (Not sure if they are even allowed).

I have contacted my friend that is an embedded software engineer at Seagate to see if he know what tool they use to partition these drives. And let him know about the issue.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: AHCI mode locks up BIOS

I see your deleted post, and thanks for the info on that. I had no idea why it was that way, now it makes more sense.

Look forward to hearing what your friend at Seagate has to say.