Native IDE vs AHCI for SATA HD (clicking sounds)

[Z80]

I installed a new HD in a new PC build over the weekend using a Gigabyte GA-785GMT-USB3 motherboard, an AMD Athlon II X3 435 Rana processor and a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 1.5TB ST31500341AS HD . During my initial bench testing, I changed the BIOS setting for the HD from "Native IDE" to "AHCI". I noticed the HD was virtually silent except for a few loud clicking sounds when booting (BIOS AHCI scanning for HD)and when shutting down. Also, the AHCI scanning sometimes seemed to take quite a few seconds before the drive was recognized. I installed Windows 7 Pro with the AHCI driver but started getting worried about the loud clicking sound (only during bootup or shutdown). I changed the BIOS setting back to "Native IDE" and the clicking sounds stopped along with no more AHCI scanning. Anyone else ever have this happen with this model Seagate HD or other SATA HD's?

 

[JasonCoder]

The scanning is due to the bios in the controller chip being invoked instead of the normal bios IDE scanning. AHCI is like SCSI in this sense.

As for the clicking, I'd invoke a support issue with seagate. I've run seagate drives in AHCI before and never got a clicking sound.

Might be nothing though... seems every motherboard behaves a bit of differently. I once had a mobo that took almost a full minute to detect all my HDDs. Something about timings, etc.

 

[Z80]

Thanks for the info. I did a full long format on the drive and I downloaded and ran the Seagate Seatools diagnostics without any errors. Considering the faster boot time, I think I will just stay with native IDE and pass on AHCI. I'm not planning on doing any hot-swapping any time soon.

 

[JasonCoder]

Nothing wrong with your choice. Just FYI though, you're passing on NCQ and other enhancements you paid for when you bought a SATA drive. Won't hurt to pass on them but you might see some gains.