Hello,
I recently received a replacement DZ77BH-55K board from Intel and have been having issues with the Intel Sata 3 (6GBs) ports not working with my new Sandisk Extreme pro SSD.
Firstly, I was unable to install Win7 onto my new SSD with it connected to the Marvel or Intel Sata 3 ports - the SSD either wasn't displayed or it wouldn't allow me to install Win7 to it. I anticipated this because this occurred on the board I have had replaced, so I simply fitted it to the INTEL Sata 2 port(s). Once installed, I played around with trying to boot with the SSD connected to the INTEL Sata 3 ports. It didn't matter whether it was port 0 or port 1, sometimes the SSD wasn't listed in BIOS and when it was, I received a Disk Read Error after the splash screen when it tried to boot.
The SSD boots successfully every time when it is connected to the Sata 2 ports. Sometimes, when I remove the intel 7 series c216 chipset family sata ahci controller driver whilst the SSD is in the Sata 2 port, reboot and allow windows to locate and re-install the controller, I shut the PC down, reattach the SSD cable to the INTEL Sata 3 port(s) and it boots successfully - but this is only when it feels like it. For example, it may boot and reboot (boot from restart) successfully all day, whilst connected to the INTEL Sata 3 port. But when I shut my PC down for the night and boot up again in the morning, the boot fails and I am forced to connect back to the Sata 2 port(s).
So I presume it is a drive issue. On the Intel download page for my mobo, there is no specific drive for the Intel 7 series C216 chipset family Sata AHCI controller. The current driver is version 9.3.0.1029 dated 25/07/2013. On the DZ77BH-55K drive page, there is nothing listed with that driver date, which is curious.
Incidentally, when the SSD is connected to the Marvel Sata 3 ports, even stranger things happen. Sometimes it takes an age to reach the splash screen, but boots successfully, sometimes it doesn't boot at all.
Also, the my SSD firmware is up to date, and there are no reported occurrences of this SSD having these issues. The curious thing is, when it does boot whilst connected to the Sata 3 port(s), it is actually a few seconds slower than with the SSD connected to the Sata 2 port(s).
This is now my third replacement board from Intel, so any help or advice in this matter would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
EDIT:
I have managed to update the AHCI driver using the latest RAID driver. Unfortunately, this has not resolved the problem, and now the SSD is not even detected by the BIOS when connected to the Intel Sata 3 ports. But the boot remains sucessful when connected to the Intel Sata 2 ports.