GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

Oops, I decided to approach the old Q9550 system with renewed vigor - and in the meantime used the WD Black 750GB drive to store video files. Once I got the WD Black 750GB drive out of the mix all is well. I ran the system with the Intel Controller set to ACHI in the following configurations:
SATA2_0 OCZ SSD
SATA2_1 Raptor 300GB
SATA2_5 DVD Burner

SATA2_2 OCZ SSD
SATA2_3 Raptor 300GB
SATA2_4 Raptor 300GB
SATA2_5 DVD Burner

640L OCZ SSD
SATA2_3 Raptor 300GB
SATA2_4 Raptor 300GB
SATA2_5 DVD Burner

640L OCZ SSD
SATA2_2 WD Black 500GB
SATA2_3 Raptor 300GB
SATA2_4 Raptor 300GB
SATA2_5 DVD Burner

640L OCZ SSD
SATA2_1 Raptor 300GB
SATA2_2 WD Black 500GB
SATA2_4 Raptor 300GB
SATA2_5 DVD Burner

All of these configuration work like they should in ACHI Mode. So...it has to have been the WD Black 750GB drive that was causing the problem with the Intel Controller in ACHI Mode. Seems strange since it works on the newer MB's. It was formatted on a W8.1 system before being moved to the Q9550 system?? Thanks again for your usual great support. You made me get to the bottom of this and kept my old Q9550 in the game!

[profJim]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

Glad to hear that you solved the problem.
I have several WD Caviar Black sata2 hard drives and I've never had a problem with win7 in AHCI mode when using the drives in my P35 system. I've used the 640GB, 750GB and 1TB drives connected to the Intel sata2 ports. I don't know if formatting the 750GB hard drive under win 8.1 has anything to do with the problem. WD tech support might be able to explain why you had the problem with the Intel sata2 ports.

Thanks for the update.

[Ken429]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

ProfJim,
Last entry in this saga. I took the WD Black 750 GB drive to a W8.1 machine and wrote a whole bunch of video files to it. I took it back to the Q9550 system where it was hanging the BIOS or more probably the Windows boot system and it worked! I tried all seven SATA2 cables that I might have used when it was failing and they all worked with the 750 GB drive. The last thing I could do is reformat the drive on the W8.1 system and try it "empty" on the Q9550 system since that was the status of the drive when it was causing the problem. However, I got ~700 GB of files on the drive and really don't want to spend the time to rebuild it. I'm going to leave this mystery go unsolved for now!

[maxwedge]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P/Q9550 Hangs in Bios

I have the exact same problem!
I've been running a WD 640 black hard drive as my main boot drive for years on the Intel controller in AHCI mode with no problems and then some time in September the Intel bios was getting flaky, sometimes hanging or just slow. It got to a point where it just failed to boot past that and I had to put the board into IDE mode for it to work. I thought that the bios some how got corrupted so I re-flashed it and all seemed okay after that (why I suggested re-flash to you). It has been fine until yesterday when the Intel bios hung again and a re-flash didn't help.

Disconnecting the WD 640 it would boot just fine but I reconnected it again and the same **** happens. I didn't try it on any other ports but ended up putting on an add in PCIx sataIII card and my system is fine. Kind of sucked but I'm over it for now.