Does my old mobo need this AHCI thing?

You don't need unless you add SSD it is better if you have it have you checked for BIOS updates and see what new updates give you

Like Samuria said it is not necessary if you don't have any SSDs in the system. IDE mode is the most compatible. I remember when I had an old Phenom PC with a crappy AHCI implementation on its SB600 chipset.

Open device manager. What driver is shown under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers?

bro67 said:

Yes, the mboard in question needs AHCI to operate properly. Zero IDE ports on it.

You are kidding.....I hope.

The discussion here is IDE v. AHCI mode of the SATA controller. Not PATA v. SATA.

Hi there

@Paultx

I can't believe the poster who said the mobo needs AHCI to operate properly -- that is 100% B/S so ignore that one. Note also that the use of SSD's isn't precluded if you connect via a USB-->SATA connector --- then you can use the SSD as an external drive. However a computer that old would probably not have any USB3 capability so your SSD's would only be running at USB 2 speed.

While I could tolerate old computers and mobos the thing that really (at least on typical home computers ) causes poor performance are the usually dreadfully slow HDD's -- especially those with tiny / zero cache sizes and running at 5400RPM --likely to be your old IDE drives.

While the computer will work the user experience is not likely to be very pleasant though. You could look at seeing if a cheap SATA/AHCI card was fittable to the computer --that could with an SSD improve performance no end even on that old machine.

Personally I'd think about upgrading the mobo --doesn't have to be hideously expensive to get a passable performer.

Cheers
jimbo

On the other hand some people claim performance benefits using AHCI even for mechanical hard disks. The best course of action is to try both after doing some benchmarks. To easily swap between modes, open a command prompt with admin rights: bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
to being able to use boot options with F8 key at startup.
You just need to enter SAFE MODE after making a change IDE<->AHCI

Good luck.

While the details on the motherboard that I found are skectchy, it does have an AHCI RAID SATA Controller, so I am assuming the motherboard has AHCI capability. With Windows 10, you no longer have to enter safe mode to enable AHCI. The use just has to delete the controller driver(s) listed under IDE ATA/ATAPI Contollers. After the drivers are deleted, restart the computer and enter BIOS setup. Enable AHCI. Reboot the computer back into Windows and Windows 10 will install the AHCI SATA driver. If you miss the BIOS setup screen, Windows 10 will simply re-install the IDE driver which was previously present, and the user can delete it and try again to catch BIOS setup.

This method will not work to enable/disable RAID, however.

This motherboard does only have SATA II ports. If the user wanted a less expensive option of gaining SATA III capability (w/AHCI), they might consider a PCIE SATA card.

NavyLCDR said:

Open device manager. What driver is shown under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers?