c0mp_g33ks

Intel D945GNT Motherboard problem - SATA Controller Stays on UDMA Mode 2 in Vista, Transfer rates stay on 33Mbps.

The maximum transfer rates that Intel D945GNT Motherboards SATA controller can achieve is 100 MB/s (UDMA mode 5) in windows XP. In Vista It stays at 33 MB/s (UDMA Mode 2). This is because D945GNT has an Emulated SATA controller. It means that the SATA controller will look like a Parallel ATA Device to the Operating system, and the Operating system will handle it as a Parallel ATA device. Windows XP handled it quite properly as a ATA 100 Device, but Vista planned to drop the idea, and Does not support many such Emulated SATA controllers. Even in Windows XP it should be ATA/133 (UDMA 6), but since Hard disks speed is 55 - 60 Mbps, ATA/100 (UDMA 5) does not matter much to me. Vista says that Manufacturers will have to provide drivers For their Emulated SATA if they don't work with the Drivers in the Operating System. I searched on Intel website for the Drivers, but they have not yet released it. I was surprised to know that I was the only one to complain about it. I tried installing Intel Matrix Storage Manager, but it kept saying that - this computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing this software .

On the following link Intel says that "Intel Matrix Storage Manager" can be installed on D945GNT motherboard.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_results.aspx?strTypes=all&ProductID=2068&OSFullName=Windows+Vista*+32&lang=eng&strOSs=164&submit=Go%21

I called Intel Support Center (Asia Pacific), I talked to a few people - but they had no idea what so ever! So they transferred my call to MR. Ayan (Intel Technical Support Engineer- Asia Pacific Region). To my horror even he had to search Intel and Microsoft websites to find an answer. Finally he said that Vista keeps it on UDMA 2 and there is no solution, and it was Vistas Mistake. I told him about Microsoft's Declaration that Emulated SATA controllers will need Drivers from the manufacturer, but he just kept blaming Vista for it. Intel Says that D945GNT motherboard is Vista Compatible, I asked him how could Intel say so even after this problem ? His Answer was terrible, he said that the Motherboard is compatible with Vista, but Vista is not Compatible with this motherboard. I told him it means the same thing, he is just saying it the other way around ! but he did not change his statement, if you call him up now and ask him, he will say the same thing.

So my Question is what should we do, many people have the D945GNT motherboard which says - Vista Compatible but are not Vista compatible.

Please Contact abhijit.net@gmail.com if you are facing the same problem. People who can build their own websites, please mirror this site, or create your own, and then submit it to goggle so that people facing the same problem could act together. My Yahoo Messenger ID is - tech_freak_2002 feel free to contact any time.

To see the Performance difference due to this problem see the Image below.

Disk Sequential Read, and Disk Sequential Write - are the part of interest here.(click on the source link for a very large image1,024 x 3,860 )