Upgrade from Asus Rampage Formula iii ??

H,
I have the above board which I feel pretty let down with on account of the
Marvel 6gb controller failure to operate correctly
I presently run a new Crucial 256gb ssd along with a WD Raptor 600gb for
storage.
The processor is Intel i7 950 @ 3.07GHz
6 gb Ram Crucial Ballistix ddr3
Is there an upgrade option that has "REAL" support for 6gb sata and works?
tia.
Stuart.

srt wrote:
H,
I have the above board which I feel pretty let down with on account of
the Marvel 6gb controller failure to operate correctly
I presently run a new Crucial 256gb ssd along with a WD Raptor 600gb for
storage.
The processor is Intel i7 950 @ 3.07GHz
6 gb Ram Crucial Ballistix ddr3
Is there an upgrade option that has "REAL" support for 6gb sata and works?
tia.
Stuart.

The Intel Southbridge chips now, have two 6gbit/sec ports.

It's possible the AMD Southbridge chips have six 6gbit/sec ports.

Chances are good that just about any new board, will offer something
like that. There's no reason to use Marvell 9128 chips as a crutch.

*******

This site, lists the most recent version of driver. The Marvell site,
I couldn't find a storage driver on there for the 9128, and a couple
references to this site is all I could find.

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/marvell.htm

Drivers Version 1.2.0.1019 WHQL (Xp/Vista/7) 05/03/12

The date field there might not be accurate. But perhaps the driver
version is something to look for (like, in Windows Update or via
Update Driver from Device Manager).

The digits sometimes imply "stream" of driver. I notice the
Asus one is 1.0.0.xxxx while the one above is 1.2.0.xxxx and
sometimes those distinguish between retail or OEM drivers.
The difference in this case, might be when the chip is
soldered to a motherboard, versus being on a separate plug-in card.
Other than that, I don't know why that digit is different.

Sometimes, you can find another Asus motherboard with Marvell storage
on it, and get a driver from there. It appears the Asus ftp site is
gone, so I can't offer "browsing" to find the best one :-(

http://support.asus.com/Download.asp...ELUXE&p=1&s=39

That gets me this one. The internal date stamp is 2011-09-02, while
the Asus page shows a 2012 date.

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...7_V1201010.zip

I can find a slightly later one here, but still not the 1019 one.
Internal folder date stamp 2011-12-16.

http://support.asus.com/Download.asp...9+PRO&p=1&s=42

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mis...PVistaWin7.zip

I was trying to get the driver off an Asus site, as I don't know
how trustworthy the station-driver site is (never used it).

You could try a different driver version, and see if that
helps the stability.

The 9128 apparently has a single PCI Express lane on the
chip, meaning it's likely to support one SSD well. And
benchmarks measure in at around ~400MB/sec or so. They
never quite make it further than that. An Intel Southbridge
might do a bit better, and lots of new boards should
have 4xSATA II + 2xSATA III as their Southbridge config.

One reason they might not want to put too many III ports,
is the hub bus between the Southbridge and the processor,
has limited bandwidth. And they wouldn't want some
customer trying 6xRAID0 at 500MB/sec per SSD and
not getting the 3GB/sec transfer rate they were
expecting. Limiting the number of ports, is to
reduce people's expectations caused by the hub bus.
The hub bus does power a number of things, and if
a user was careful, they might max out that bus.
(But how many people run a disk benchmark in the
background, while playing a 3D game. Some of the
scenarios have to be artificially constructed,
and at this point in time, aren't realistic in
how people would normally use a computer.)

If you want a new motherboard, it shouldn't be hard
to find one with a native SATA III.

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message ...

srt wrote:
H,
I have the above board which I feel pretty let down with on account of
the Marvel 6gb controller failure to operate correctly
I presently run a new Crucial 256gb ssd along with a WD Raptor 600gb for
storage.
The processor is Intel i7 950 @ 3.07GHz
6 gb Ram Crucial Ballistix ddr3
Is there an upgrade option that has "REAL" support for 6gb sata and works?
tia.
Stuart.

The Intel Southbridge chips now, have two 6gbit/sec ports.

It's possible the AMD Southbridge chips have six 6gbit/sec ports.

Chances are good that just about any new board, will offer something
like that. There's no reason to use Marvell 9128 chips as a crutch.

*******

This site, lists the most recent version of driver. The Marvell site,
I couldn't find a storage driver on there for the 9128, and a couple
references to this site is all I could find.

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/marvell.htm

Drivers Version 1.2.0.1019 WHQL (Xp/Vista/7) 05/03/12

The date field there might not be accurate. But perhaps the driver
version is something to look for (like, in Windows Update or via
Update Driver from Device Manager).

The digits sometimes imply "stream" of driver. I notice the
Asus one is 1.0.0.xxxx while the one above is 1.2.0.xxxx and
sometimes those distinguish between retail or OEM drivers.
The difference in this case, might be when the chip is
soldered to a motherboard, versus being on a separate plug-in card.
Other than that, I don't know why that digit is different.

Sometimes, you can find another Asus motherboard with Marvell storage
on it, and get a driver from there. It appears the Asus ftp site is
gone, so I can't offer "browsing" to find the best one :-(

http://support.asus.com/Download.asp...ELUXE&p=1&s=39

That gets me this one. The internal date stamp is 2011-09-02, while
the Asus page shows a 2012 date.

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...7_V1201010.zip

I can find a slightly later one here, but still not the 1019 one.
Internal folder date stamp 2011-12-16.

http://support.asus.com/Download.asp...9+PRO&p=1&s=42

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mis...PVistaWin7.zip

I was trying to get the driver off an Asus site, as I don't know
how trustworthy the station-driver site is (never used it).

You could try a different driver version, and see if that
helps the stability.

The 9128 apparently has a single PCI Express lane on the
chip, meaning it's likely to support one SSD well. And
benchmarks measure in at around ~400MB/sec or so. They
never quite make it further than that. An Intel Southbridge
might do a bit better, and lots of new boards should
have 4xSATA II + 2xSATA III as their Southbridge config.

One reason they might not want to put too many III ports,
is the hub bus between the Southbridge and the processor,
has limited bandwidth. And they wouldn't want some
customer trying 6xRAID0 at 500MB/sec per SSD and
not getting the 3GB/sec transfer rate they were
expecting. Limiting the number of ports, is to
reduce people's expectations caused by the hub bus.
The hub bus does power a number of things, and if
a user was careful, they might max out that bus.
(But how many people run a disk benchmark in the
background, while playing a 3D game. Some of the
scenarios have to be artificially constructed,
and at this point in time, aren't realistic in
how people would normally use a computer.)

If you want a new motherboard, it shouldn't be hard
to find one with a native SATA III.

Paul

Many thanks for your time researching
I feel a little less inclined to try different drivers so
I guess I will need to plod along with what I have at present although I
don't see me keeping to that.
I`m forever seeming to upgrade I guess!
So do you think there might be a better Asus board I should definitely
consider?
Regards.
Stuart.

srt wrote:


Many thanks for your time researching
I feel a little less inclined to try different drivers so
I guess I will need to plod along with what I have at present although I
don't see me keeping to that.
I`m forever seeming to upgrade I guess!
So do you think there might be a better Asus board I should definitely
consider?
Regards.
Stuart.

You can go to Newegg, select motherboards, select Intel, select
the "socket" of the processor. And that should narrow the
search down. Then, in the output of the search, sort the
results by "customer rating". That will give you some
good candidates to research further. Since so many boards
will have those two Intel SATA III ports, you should have
many boards to choose from.

Before buying the board, you can visit support.asus.com and
download a user manual and use the "CPU Support" web page,
to verify the board takes your processor. That also gives an
opportunity to verify the RAM types are the same or whatever.

One reason for reading customer reviews, is to discover boards
which have nagging problems experienced by many. The customer
reviews are a "skewed statistic", but they still give you
a general feeling for failures.

You don't have to buy the motherboard from Newegg, but you
can use them for their "data-mining" potential.

Paul

srt wrote:


Many thanks for your time researching
I feel a little less inclined to try different drivers so
I guess I will need to plod along with what I have at present although I
don't see me keeping to that.
I`m forever seeming to upgrade I guess!
So do you think there might be a better Asus board I should definitely
consider?
Regards.
Stuart.

You can go to Newegg, select motherboards, select Intel, select
the "socket" of the processor. And that should narrow the
search down. Then, in the output of the search, sort the
results by "customer rating". That will give you some
good candidates to research further. Since so many boards
will have those two Intel SATA III ports, you should have
many boards to choose from.

Before buying the board, you can visit support.asus.com and
download a user manual and use the "CPU Support" web page,
to verify the board takes your processor. That also gives an
opportunity to verify the RAM types are the same or whatever.

One reason for reading customer reviews, is to discover boards
which have nagging problems experienced by many. The customer
reviews are a "skewed statistic", but they still give you
a general feeling for failures.

You don't have to buy the motherboard from Newegg, but you
can use them for their "data-mining" potential.

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message ...

srt wrote:


Many thanks for your time researching
I feel a little less inclined to try different drivers so
I guess I will need to plod along with what I have at present although I
don't see me keeping to that.
I`m forever seeming to upgrade I guess!
So do you think there might be a better Asus board I should definitely
consider?
Regards.
Stuart.

You can go to Newegg, select motherboards, select Intel, select
the "socket" of the processor. And that should narrow the
search down. Then, in the output of the search, sort the
results by "customer rating". That will give you some
good candidates to research further. Since so many boards
will have those two Intel SATA III ports, you should have
many boards to choose from.

Before buying the board, you can visit support.asus.com and
download a user manual and use the "CPU Support" web page,
to verify the board takes your processor. That also gives an
opportunity to verify the RAM types are the same or whatever.

One reason for reading customer reviews, is to discover boards
which have nagging problems experienced by many. The customer
reviews are a "skewed statistic", but they still give you
a general feeling for failures.

You don't have to buy the motherboard from Newegg, but you
can use them for their "data-mining" potential.

Paul

Ok -- thanks - - yes I see what you mean
I have done similar with Amazon although their system is not so adaptable as
the Newegg one.
The other thing it throws up is I will prly need a new processor - - and a
bigger bank balance!

Stuart.

Are most boards going to perform the same given the same specs? That means
two boards have:
- SATA III
- DDR3
- Same CPU socket
- Same bus speed

The differences might be multiple PCIe slots for SLI, but ignoring SLI, it
seems that boards perform roughly the same.

I ask because, in the 80s, the Compaq DeskPro 40 blew away the IBM/AT big
time and others said it had a better memory controller, etc.

--g

geoff wrote:
Are most boards going to perform the same given the same specs? That
means two boards have:
- SATA III
- DDR3
- Same CPU socket
- Same bus speed

The differences might be multiple PCIe slots for SLI, but ignoring SLI,
it seems that boards perform roughly the same.

I ask because, in the 80s, the Compaq DeskPro 40 blew away the IBM/AT
big time and others said it had a better memory controller, etc.

--g


When you look at review articles now, the bars in the bar charts
are all the same length.

So the motherboards are "boringly the same".

Not like in the old days, when there were so many noticeable
bottlenecks in the designs.

The memory controller now, is inside the processor, so there
is no room for differentiation there.

Paul