Legit Reviews

I have the D975XBX2 mb and it has been working fine but i want to install an external sata hd and have it plugged into the red sata port 4 and am using the Vantec NexStar-3 enclosure. the Vantgec is powered up and i can hear the hd spinning but the os won't see the hd. i went into the manage devices but the hd doesn't show, not even ghosted. if it were there and ghosted i could format it and go from there. I thought that XP would automaticaly detect the drive but no go. do i have to configure something in the BIOS to get this one sata port to be active or do in have to install a driver for this one port???
anyone have any experience with this set up?? I have all four sata ports filled and working on the black o,1,2,3 ports.

thanks,

gene

Marvell strikes again.

I wish there was a jumper to simply disable the Marvell, in fact, I should bring my board to work and de-solder that thing off, but I'm afraid the board wont boot without that embarrassing trash asic.

The older board had a SiI 3112 which is no frills but it certainly works. This Marvell stuff is just a bloody horrorshow.

so what i can do about it then ????

First, make sure that the secondary SATA controller is enabled in bios.

You can get the Marvell driver here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_ ... n&lang=eng

So I enabled secondary SATA controller in the BIOS and it found the HD on the ESATA port 4, so that is good.
Now, the HD lights flicker a lot but settle down so I think that is ok. Upon startup i get a screen wbout not having the raid selected or somethng to that effect. Should i leave it like that because everything seems to be ok or download the driver and install them? If I install the drivers is there anything that i have to select to use these ports as jobd or at least use the e Sata port ??? When i installed the drivers for the other (black) ports there were some choices that i had to make and don't remember what they were so i could use them as jobd instead of using them as RAID. Can I do this whit the blue ports as well ????
thanks,
gene

I would like to know if you get anywhere with the e-sata port. I bought this mobo thinking I would have SATA's working. I think this falls under the Marvell controller saga, see my post there. Good Luck!

Bob

Edit: I'm not sure, but did you get your drive to work on the e-sata? Are you just trying to get the other ports to work or are all 4 ports still useless?

the e sata is working .... didn't try the other blue sata ports. i have all four black ports working for a long time with no problem.... is this what you wanted to know ????

If the e-sata drive is working, you probably don't need the Marvell driver, which is to set up the Marvell controller for the three blue/one red SATA ports for RAID. Have you checked out the e-sata drive on device manager to see what it says about the driver? You also might want to try updating the driver from there.

FYI: See my post in the D975XBX2 "Marvell Controller Problem" Thread.

So this controller does have basic functionality.
Good.
Thanks,
Bob

slickmarty wrote:the e sata is working .... didn't try the other blue sata ports. i have all four black ports working for a long time with no problem.... is this what you wanted to know ????

Yes, Thanks for that information. I am trying to get my burners to work on the blue connectors.
The black connectors work perfectly. The blue/red ones are not.

so far, all i did was to enable the secondary SATA controller in the BIOS. when i start up i get the screen about not having set up the raid system so i have to see what to do about that or just let it happen every time. i don't know about that yet.
let me know if enabling the secondary SATA controller in the BIOS does activate the 3 blue ports too.
gene

Enabling the secondary SATA controller in the BIOS does turn on thre 3 blue and 1 red SATA port. Insofaras the Marvell post, I think we are stuck with it. I spoke to Intel about my issue. They said a recent BIOS upgrade fixed my problem using Plextor drives. They did not test Pioneer. I hope they will take a look at more burners. Maybe if enough people say something to them, they will put some more effort into that Marvell thing.

So ..... i can see the esata now and access it but as soon as i access it the HD light goes crazy. I am trying to update the BIOS ( I am on 2634 and it has been working great) to the 2777 one but i can't get it to work. I downloaded it from the intel site and saved it and extracted it to a folder that has three files and i double click on the IFLASH.exe file and i get a CLI for a few seconds and then the screen goes black for about 10 seconds and that is it.... after waiting for awhile i reboot and check the BIOS and it is still the old one .... any ideas as to what i am not doing right or as to what is going on ????
Thanks,
gene

Sounds like you got the version of bios that you have to put on a floppy or cd. There are four versions of the bios, but the easiest to use is the Express Bios Update -- BX97520J.86A.2777.EB.EXE -- that is here http://downloadcenter.intel.com/downloa ... 2&lang=eng

I don't think that a bios update is your answer though. If you don't want to try the Marvell driver, you should at least check in device manager to see if you can get an appropriate driver going for the esata.

I did have the wrong one, thank you very much.... that one worked .... my bios is now the 2777 one ...
now,, back to the original problem. i can access the hd on the esata port but the hd led still flickers like crazy ... does anyone know how to eliminate this ???? i also tried to make an array with the Marvell controller hoping that i could define just that one red esata port and did do something in the Control M Marvell area but don't really know what to do there. Or if there are any other settings that i should make in the BIOS after trying to make a RAID array in the blue posrts ...
tell me again why i bought this board ???
thanks,
gene

I'm sure you looked at the Marvell thread. Iam going to give it a week or so.... If Intel fixes it I will keep my board else I will RMA, take the 15% hit and get something that works. I'm in basically the same boat you are except you may be stuck with your board.
Asus, Gigabyte?

slickmarty wrote:tell me again why i bought this board ???

We bought this board because Intel has a tradition of supporting their boards, and updating bios and providing WHQL drivers.

However, with this latest board, everything is very good except two things: The 3rd PCI-express slot is quirky - it seems one must never put a card in there that is over 4x or things go awry.

The second thing is the Marvell controller. This thing is a piece of trash and was a big mistake. I knew this before getting the board. I disabled it. Now for e-sata storage, I really don't get the point. Just get a networked attached external enclosure, or use USB 2.0. I really don't see the need to enable a risky, buggy controller like the Marvell and use a new-fangled external connector, when USB 2.0 is 480Mbit/sec which is about 60MB/sec, its faster than the MEDIA RATE on most hard drives.

So yes, the Marvell thing pissed me off, the Yellow Bang problem in device manager, the pissy-ness of booting PCI-express RAID cards pissed me off, the must-have splash screen/logo pissed me off (I have never been able to see the counting memory traditional post screen similar to all other Intel BIOS), the 3.25GB only visible out of 4.0GB is 32-bit OSes is annoying.

However. Some of these issues are general chipset issues (the 975X has only 20 lanes, 16 on the MCH, and 4 on the SB). Some are Intel having to fix the bios. There have been like 17 public rev bioses, and that is an attempt at supporting the board.

Now with the alternatives. Hah. First off, anything without an Intel chipset varies wildly in quality. I've had everything from the nForce, all flavors, the Pro/Crush 2200, the AMD 8111/8131 boards, VIA, SIS, ATI, you name it. You want big gigantic problems? Use boards like these and you will regret it. The RMA rates I see on non-Intel chipset boards are rather amusing.

At least people talk about this board, and whine to each other and Intel, and stuff gets fixed. Try calling Asus or Gigabyte technical support, or check out the linux threads with kernel developers ready to strangle Nvidia for how broken the nForce crap is or their unwillingness to reveal anything without an NDA.

While I'm not 100% satisfied with this board, its been running Vista 100% blue-screen free since Dec 2006. It runs ECC memory, I have an 8800GTX in there, and it sits there and just runs. My only fear with this thing, knock on wood, is a hard drive dying.

The one thing I've done to bring sanity to my world is to disable the damn Marvell piece of crap, and anyone who tries to mess with that thing will suffer. Its the one thing on that board that is out of Intel's control, save the Sigmatel audio and the monitoring ascics, and it sucks. I'll be Intel wishes they had put another stripped down version of the ICH7 on there to provide 4 more SATA ports.

So, since I wanted to RAID the Intel Matrix 4 SATA ports and use the Marvell 4 for burners,,,, do you think an add-on card for more SATA ports would work? I want to burn 4 to 6 DVD's at the same time. I built this machine for that purpose,,,.

Or maybe I should put my burners on USB like the advise about using a networked drive rather than e-sata?

I bought the BX2 because I just wanted good reliable funtionality. I'm not a gamer and not into tweaking. I just want good stable operation. I've got the Q6600 for Video transcoding.

BTW- Intel told me that the Plextor burners work.... Do I excahnge my Pioneers for these?

Thanks,
Bob
PS - I think this thread is getting closer to the Marvell thread. Maybe an Admin could advise?

Update: I diabled the secondary SATA controller in the Bios and am not using the Marvell or the ESATA or blue ports. Am just using the external 320Gb Seagate SATA HD as a USB device. What a waste of a great HD. I wanted to use the ESATA for video work but will have to find another way for now. 3 blue and 1 red SATA ports that are good for nothing. Thanks Intel. Thanks Marvell.
Gene

Did you fill out a tech support request at Intel? Maybe if enough people say something, they might fix it. I'll bet the chip is OK, it just needs firmware work.

For now, I bought the Addonics ADST114 PCI SATA Controller Card. Addonics told me it will work for my burners. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the update.
Bob