Hello!
Fernando, thank you for your work - it is great!

What about ICH9 DO (dev_2922)? I'd like to tune it like you do with ICH "R" series - is it possible? It uses the same Intel RST driver...
I have it in my Supermicro C2SBC-Q based on Intel Q35 chipset. (http://www.supermicro.com/products/mothe...Q35/C2SBC-Q.cfm)

I've seached this forum but didn't find anything about "2922" or "ich9do".

Hello and thank you for your friendliness!

My question shure wasn't about drivers, but about RAID ROM and you completely answered me in the second part of your message, thank you.
And would you please explain the difference between dev_2922 (ICHxDO) & dev_2822 (ICHxR) in terms of modding MB BIOS? Can the same operations be done on MB with DO controller as with R (in general)? What binaries should be used then?
And what is the difference between these (DO & R) controllers, why do Intel introduced this DO controller in addition to ICHxR?

Hi ShumaDK- Were you able to modify the bios for your Q35 chipset machine? I rescued a Dell Optiplex 755, and I'd like to enable trim in a raid 0 array. I was not able to open the mainboard bios with the 1.98, 1.96, 1.95 or 1.82 rom. I guess I should say it opened, but did not list the modules. What would be your suggestion to try next? Appreciate anyone's help! JohnnyB

Hello, JohnnyB.
I didn't even get a try because Frenando told it would be nearly impossible for my Phoenix BIOS. If yours is Phoenix too changing anything in it may be the same sort of problem with the same no_result.
I've read in many places that there is always no TRIM support with RAID. I'm not shure but you may think about it... put youself in place of programmer who have to implement such an option - you'll need to do double processing for data being written to the volume - managing block allocation between a number of disks +plus+ TRIM management. I doubt that Q35 chipset's processing power is enough for such a task.
May I advice you to check if it is really possible before trying to modify the BIOS.

Thank you for your reply, Fernando.
I want to note that DO controller has the same RAID option (I've built different types of RAID volumes on my Q35 board with such a DO controller), so I still doesn't see the difference between R and DO. Hope you may put some light on this.

Hi Shuma- I don't have a raid option at the bios level with my Q35 board with ICH9DO. Are you saying you've found a way to enable it? I've upgraded to 10.8 IRST. It won't let me install 11.2. Not sure if it would make a difference letting me see a raid option. I was about to go to Windows 7 software striping, but I'm anxiously awaiting to hear how you've built raid arrays with your Q35 board. Thanks--jb

btw, I've been told that only the ICH9R-82801R can have raid at the bios level, and not the ICH9DO-82801IO. Hope this is wrong!

Hi, JohnnyB.
You may look at my first post and find there the make and model of my motherboard along with the link to the support page with its User's Manual download option.
Here I provide some quotations from that User Guide.

About RAID feature:

Zitat

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Chipset
• Intel Q35 GMCH
• ICH9DO with support for RAID 0,1,5,10 (for Windows) and RAID 0,1,10 (for Linux)

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About BIOS settings for the RAID feature:

Zitat

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Serial ATA (SATA) RAID Enable
Select Enable to enable Serial ATA RAID Functions. (For the Windows OS environment, use the RAID driver if this feature is set to Enabled. When this item is set to Enabled, the item: ICH RAID Code Base will be available for you to select either Intel or Adaptec HOST RAID firmware to be activated. Is this item is set to Disabled, the item SATA AHCI Enable will be available.) The options are Enabled and Disabled.

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hmm...thanks Shuma! My dell motherboard 0PU052 gives me three options in bios...AHCI (default), ATA, and Legacy. The ATA option says nothing about raid features. Should I try it? (will I be able to boot into my OS?) I thought it was the ICH9DO chip preventing me from seeing a raid option versus the ICH9R chip. But thanks to your info, all my theories are out the window. What is it about my motherboard that won't give me raid options, yet two other models of the Dell 755 with the exact same bios have it? I'm very interested in your thoughts- Thank you, Shuma!

Hi Shuma- Last night I upgraded the ICH9DO Intel AHCI driver from 10.8 to Fernando's 11.2, and I believe it made an immediate improvement in boot time. (I should have done some benchmarking, but my wife is ready to kill me because I've been spending so much time reading about these never-believed-possible upgrades) Did you you upgrade your ICH9DO driver, and how far did you go? Do you think I will receive more benefits by going up to the latest Fernando driver with this chipset, or will it start to overwhelm things at some point? Thanks! jb

Hi, JohnnyB.

I've looked at the specifications for your Dell 755 and only RAID 1 is mentioed there. I think RAID functionality have to be supported by BIOS too, not only by the ICH9DO chip you really have, so if the manufacturer of your PC decided to have it, it should work. In your case it is RAID 1 (mirroring) functionality only. Check if you have the latest firmware version - it is "A22": http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/1...lex-755/drivers. Then try to create RAID in Windows. Shure you should use RAID drivers and included Intel utility, not AHCI. Before installing new drivers make the full backup of your system drive as you may loose bootability of the OS. If everything brakes you have to recover from backup and then try to make a clean OS (and chipset+RAID driver) install on anoter free HDD to experiment and check if RAID is available. If you have Windows 7 or higher it would be easy to do. With XP you have to use F6 option at the start of setup process.

AHCI mode is the optimal one - it is most advanced and supports NCQ which improves performance on random access. And RAID is "extention" for AHCI mode only, there is no any RAID in ATA or Legacy mode on modern (~ >2005 year) hardware.

Good luck!

P. S. Say hello to your wife from Russian guy and tell her that in fact it is not so bad to spend time reading tech forums and experimenting with computer as it is for your personal growth ;-)