DQ6 Question - lame maybe

[uniquewon]

I am in the process of gathering up parts to build a new system.

Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 MB
Seagate 500gig SATAII drives, two running RAID 1
EVGA 640 8800GTS
Core 2 Duo E6850
Vista Home Pre
Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 (2 gig)
IDE CD/DVD RW Liteon
Wired keyboard and mouse

I don't have the MB yet, it's on it's way but I downloaded the manual and I am a little confused with the GB Sata Controller setup in the BIOS as it's explained in the manual.

I want to use my Liteon IDE CD/DVD RW and also be able to use the external SATA ports to hook SATA drives to for backup etc., I don't want to use RAID on the GB Controller. I will use RAID on the Intel controller and load drivers using F6 during Vista install.

Question, how do I set the onboard Sata controler. Here is what it says in the manual:

Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode (GIGABYTE SATA2 Chip)
Enables or disables RAID for the SATA controller integrated in the GIGABYTE SATA 2 chip.

IDE Configures the SATA controller to PATA mode. (Default)

AHCI Configures the SATA controller to AHCI mode. Advanced Host Controller
Interface (AHCI) is an interface specification that allows the storage driver to
enable advanced Serial ATA features such as Native Command Queuing and
hot plug. For more information about AHCI, please visit Intel's website.

RAID/IDE Enables RAID for the SATA controller. (The IDE controller still operates in PATA
mode)

I just found this forum and there is a fantastic amount of info here. I guess I'll also have to set my memory voltage because my Corsair says V2.1 on it.

Thanks for any help on this.

Gene

 

[Heidfirst]

you probanly want it set for AHCI if you plan on hotplugging/unplugging external drives.
It's really a JMicron controller, I don't know why Gigabyte insist on calling it a Gigabyte controller - Asus don't call it an Asus, abit don't call it an abit etc. etc.

 

[Drexl]

Yeah, try setting it for AHCI since it supports hotswapping for SATA. However, I'm not sure if the IDE port will even work in that case, since it doesn't say that the IDE controller still operates in PATA mode when AHCI is selected (unlike RAID/IDE). You'll find out soon enough. I wonder if you could use the first two ports in RAID and the others in AHCI mode, or do they all have to be RAID if that's selected?

As for the memory, the board should default to 1.8v if it's like the other Gigabyte boards in the line, so set it for +0.30 to get 2.1v.