m570ru SATA controller in IDE mode?

Hi! I have a novatech x80r (m570ru chassis) with a 250GB SATA drive. However, when I look at Device Manager, the drive is listed as using an "IDE Channel" running under "Ultra DMA Mode 5".

Now, with my very vague knowledge of these things, I think that this running at IDE speeds and not SATA speeds?

I've looked around in the bios and there's nothing I can seem to change. How do you get it running in SATA mode/speeds? (Sorry if my terminology is incorrect). Do I have to install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager or something? I'm quite confused!

Thanks!

 

SATA and IDE are not interchangeable. It is not possible for a SATA drive to run in "IDE mode".

 

Hm. How is it then that it is showing in device manager as running in Ultra DMA mode 5, when it is a SATA model?
Also, I asked the vendor about this, and they said:
"Some motherboards (particularly intel chipseted ones) support 'IDE emulation' for the SATA, theres no performance chance in having it on or off, but if you want DOS or Windows NT to detect the drives you usually have to switch it on! Legacy thing, may be that its on on your x80r".

As it appears there's no performance chance of having it off, i'm not too bothered then about it appearing as an IDE drive and not a SATA.

 

If AHCI (aka Advanced Host Controller Interface) isn't enabled by the mobo/chipset, then the system doesn't run in SATA but instead in an IDE emulation mode. There's a bit of a discussion about this on this Wikipedia page.

And, with all due respect to Lithus, the connectors for SATA and IDE (easier distinguished as PATA now) are not interchangeable; however, SATA drives are software backwards compatible - as you are apparently experiencing.

 

I personally have the AHCI disabled ever since I installed XP. I never felt that it`s too slow. I don`t even know if I can enable back just like that.

 

The Wiki article I linked to seems to be suggesting that AHCI cannot be enabled in Win XP as a matter of course, and that you need Intel proprietary drivers for that.

 

I`m not shifting back to Vista just for that, I don`t even know what it does in real life

 

as far as I can remember, sp2 of xp supports SATA, the emulation is for further backwards compatibility, for DOS etc.

as far as I can tell from my equivalent x80r pro system, I am getting full sata performance, with load times of applications and the like, everything is much faster than the 5400rpm sata drive that was in my acer.

unfortunately I dont have my acer any more so I can't check for the emulation.

unless you are experiencing problems loading applications I wouldnt worry about it.

 

XP supported SATA from the first releases If I'm not mistaken, but even with SP2 it still only supports Intel and nVidia chipsets.

 

Thanks for the comments. I have the earlier model of the x80r, BOFH, which is with a 250gb HD that runs at 5400rpm. (T7700 processor and still has the 8800m GTX), so I might upgrade the hard drive to a 7200rpm model? Do you find them much faster? Load times of applications can be a bit of a pain i've found.

 

I do find 7200rpm makes a big difference to me
I remember moving from 5400 to 7200 on my desktop before I even got a notebook
and that was a boost, especially loading Source games etc. well games in general

then I got hold of another one and did sata 7200rpm drives in raid 0
ooooh if only I could find a way to do it to this notebook it would soooo rock,
but I digress.

dont forget to buy an external hdd enclosure for your old drive, they are so cheap and its a great way to get extra storage