Changing SATA 3gb cable with 6gb cable

Hello all!

I had a very basic question, I was just wondering will there be any issues with simply changing a 3gb sata cable with a 6gb sata cable?

My MOBO has 6 Grey sata ports (I think 3gb) and 2 Red sata ports (I think 6gb). I swapped out the 3gb cable with a 6gb cable in the red sata port. Do I need to do anything in BIOS, any further steps? Does it matter which red port I plugged it in? 1 of 2?

When I first booted I got a post and everything, then just as the windows logo came up to load my pc shutdown instantly.

Then when I booted it up the 2nd time it booted into windows all sweet as per usual, very strange. Would changing sata cables have anything to do with this?

The only other thing I did was clean up all the extra hard drive power cables I had, the cable that has 6 or so hardrive power plugs and replaced that with a cable that only has 2 power plugs, obviously because I wont be needing the other one since I only have 1 harddrive.

Thanks :)

Windows 20H2

Ghot said:

Side note: There's really no difference in speed between the two cable types.

Exactly correct. There really is no such thing as a 3GB or 6GB SATA cable. Now, there might be some SATA cables that are better overall quality than others.

Ghot said:

@Vellaura

Use SATA 6GB cable in the RED port (either one).
In the BIOS are your SATA ports set to IDE or AHCI?


Side note: There's really no difference in speed between the two cable types.

I believe these are my settings. Is there a signigicant difference between IDE and AHCI. I can't say I know anything about them.



Thank you :)

- - - Updated - - -

Side note: There's really no difference in speed between the two cable types

Exactly correct. There really is no such thing as a 3GB or 6GB SATA cable. Now, there might be some SATA cables that are better overall quality than others.

Yeah that's what I read as well, but I've been using the same 3gb sata cable for the past 10 years or so and I happened to find a brand new untounched sata 6gb in my mobo box so I swapped it over for that.

Been having Ultra ATA CRC error count issues so trying to troubleshoot the culprit.

Thank you for the replies :)

It might have defaulted back to IDE at some point before or after I updated my bios. I can't recall what it would have been on when it was built for me.

Oh :O. Will I potentially need to format? Could is cause any issues?

What are the benefits of AHCI? Could it help me with my Ultra ATA CRC error count issues?

The last thing I wana do is break my setup again aha, last time i installed some drivers and had to format my whole pc cos I was stuck in a windows cycle.

Thank you =]

You won't have to format again. Like @Ghot posted, set Windows to boot into safe mode. Shut down. Restart into BIOS setup. Change IDE to AHCI. Reboot into safemode. Turn safe mode off. Reboot. That's it. If you have any issues, just set it back to IDE.

Here's one article talking about the differences. In summary, AHCI is just better the IDE. It might fix you SATA CRC errors, who knows?

Okay I'll give it a crack when I have some spare time and report back with results.

Ty for the instructions =]

Could it potentially help me with my system stability? Been having weird harddrive issues, I think it would have started to occur around the time I updated bios.

@Ghot ty for the complicated instructions, it makes me feel more comfortable when its clear and harder for me to mess it up aha.