# AMD Non-Raid AHCI drivers?



## ShRoOmAlIsTiC (Aug 8, 2009)

Does anyone know where to find the amd ahci non-raid drivers

Im having some issues here. When I use the stock vista ahci driver my S.M.A.R.T works no problem. When I install the AMD AHCI RAID drivers S.M.A.R.T doesnt work but everything feels alot faster. I remember reading somewhere that there are 3 different drivers that can be used. Stock vista driver, AMD AHCI Non-Raid Drivers and AMD AHCI Raid drivers.

So far I can only find the are ahci raid drivers. I cant find the non raid drivers anywhere. Can anyone help me out with this. I know I used to have them somewhere but I cant find them anymore.


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## Zubasa (Aug 9, 2009)

The Vista AHCI drivers are fine.
The AMD AHCI drivers are for XP.


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## ShRoOmAlIsTiC (Aug 9, 2009)

when testing hd tune with vista drivers,  cpu usage is around 20%,  amd raid drive is around 10%
Windows load time is atleast doubled with vista drivers.  Burst rate for vista drivers is 75mb/s and amd raid drive is 134mb/s.  Dont get me wrong the vista drivers are fine but not efficient.

test were done with my western digital black  1tb drive.  I was hoping there was ahappy medium with non raid drivers.  only thing the vista drivers were good for was S.M.A.R.T.  I like knowing my drive temps.  they stay under 35c so im not tooo worried about that.


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## btarunr (Aug 9, 2009)

Aha, so you have AHCI working. So keep the Microsoft driver. AMD's driver is far worse. Here are some figures to back that: http://techreport.com/articles.x/17061/9


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## Mussels (Aug 9, 2009)

its hidden away on the AMD website really far (look for drivers based on chipset), the only reason i use it over the MS one, is that the stock one doesnt support port multipliers, while the AMD one does.

(translation: only one of my 5 drives show up in my E-sata cage, on the MS drivers)


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## ShRoOmAlIsTiC (Aug 9, 2009)

btarunr said:


> Aha, so you have AHCI working. So keep the Microsoft driver. AMD's driver is far worse. Here are some figures to back that: http://techreport.com/articles.x/17061/9



well compairing that report to my personal testing they seem to not agree with each other.  Maybe I need to do a fresh install and compair agian.  Should probly compair with Native IDE mode too.


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## Mussels (Aug 10, 2009)

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?driver=Integrated/vista32-chipset


drivers are hidden away at the above link.

While the link says its 32 bit, its both 32 and 64 in the one driver.


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## windy81 (Sep 19, 2009)

ShRoOmAlIsTiC said:


> Does anyone know where to find the amd ahci non-raid drivers
> 
> Im having some issues here. When I use the stock vista ahci driver my S.M.A.R.T works no problem. When I install the AMD AHCI RAID drivers S.M.A.R.T doesnt work but everything feels alot faster. I remember reading somewhere that there are 3 different drivers that can be used. Stock vista driver, AMD AHCI Non-Raid Drivers and AMD AHCI Raid drivers.
> 
> So far I can only find the are ahci raid drivers. I cant find the non raid drivers anywhere. Can anyone help me out with this. I know I used to have them somewhere but I cant find them anymore.



you know what ? i'm having the exact same problem, explained by yourself to the letter with the velociraptor 300Gb GLFS.

i googled this so sry for dragging an old thread up and all that.



to sum up -

with the ACHI AMD Raid driver

S.M.A.R.T access disabled
burst rate of 194
average transfer 100 
max transfer of 120
access time of 7

with the vista drivers however

S.M.A.R.T access enabled
burst rate 90
average tranfer 90
max transfer 110
access time of 7.5

like yoursef i like to see my HDD temps so for me its massively anoying not beng able to see them with the AMD driver, in fact it's the only reason i don't use the AMD driver. 
The reason it doesn't allow SMART is because it's a RAID driver, and you cannot read SMART data in RAID ( without a really good, expensive, RAID controller)

Why can't AMD release a AHCI driver for single drives ? or have they already and i am blind or stupid or AMD have mislabled it as something else ?



> http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_ca...ista32-chipset
> 
> 
> drivers are hidden away at the above link.
> ...



which one is the non raid AHCI HDD driver ?

i tried installing that southbridge driver and it corrupted my USB registry, somehow, which is a mystery to me, and i had to re install vista x64 to fix it.

Im not keen on the idea of having to do the same.


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## Mussels (Sep 20, 2009)

windy81 said:


> which one is the non raid AHCI HDD driver ?
> 
> i tried installing that southbridge driver and it corrupted my USB registry, somehow, which is a mystery to me, and i had to re install vista x64 to fix it.
> 
> Im not keen on the idea of having to do the same.



http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx (previous link died?)








its possible the SB driver includes the non RAID one, and the other is the RAID specific one.

In order to know, you'd have to test it.

also that corruption is a bit odd. no clue to that.


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## ShRoOmAlIsTiC (Sep 20, 2009)

i installed the sb driver,  not there for me.


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## wiak (Sep 20, 2009)

use the Native AHCI Vista or 7 Driver
AMD's AHCI driver is horrible


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## Mussels (Sep 20, 2009)

wiak said:


> use the Native AHCI Vista or 7 Driver
> AMD's AHCI driver is horrible



true, but if you need the AHCI features, you dont have a choice.


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## windy81 (Sep 20, 2009)

i have actually swapped back to the RAID AHCI driver, since its much quicker and eats lets CPU.

the problem for me last time was that i didn't have a restore point, so i had no choice but to re install my OS, which was a PITA.

 Why cant ATI/AMD put a disclaimer or an explanation as to the purpose and function of the latest SB driver... ffs, it's such a small detail and would be so useful. More to the point however why cant AMD release a proper NON-RAID AHCI driver for their boards ? it's incredulous when you think about it.


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## windy81 (Sep 20, 2009)

wiak said:


> use the Native AHCI Vista or 7 Driver
> AMD's AHCI driver is horrible



the performance of my HDD with the visa x64 drivers is horrible. i think it's MS just deliberately not supporting AMD chipsets as a form of tactical marketing.

My system

ASUS M4A78T-E
AMD Phenom II 955 3.2Ghz (Stock)
4Gb 1600 DDR3 RAM
300Gb WD Velociraptor
ATI HD4870 1Gb 

runs better with ati/amd drivers.


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## Velvet Wafer (Sep 20, 2009)

is there any xp-32bit ahci driver that actually works on the 790gx? i have to run my samsung sata in ide mode. if i use the amd ahci raid driver, the hd disappear completly from the controller list in AOD,start to work in raidxpert, and otherwise run normal, but no performance increase is yielded... any solutions?


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## windy81 (Sep 22, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> is there any xp-32bit ahci driver that actually works on the 790gx? i have to run my samsung sata in ide mode. if i use the amd ahci raid driver, the hd disappear completly from the controller list in AOD,start to work in raidxpert, and otherwise run normal, but no performance increase is yielded... any solutions?



yes, get vista x64 with Windows 7 upgrade voucher.


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## Velvet Wafer (Sep 22, 2009)

anyone anything useful?


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