Windows 8 64-bit install on 970a-g46 Mainboard AHCI and NVIDIA DRIVER issues

Question

My Box:
MSI 970A-G46
BIOS 1.9  (AUG 2012) (Tried 1.11 but the nightmare started then)
AMD FX-6100 (STOCK SPEED AND SETTINGS) WITH OEM HSF
16GB PATRIOT VIPER 3 (1866) RUNNING @ (1600)
USED an EVGA 9800GT 1ST AND UPGRADED TO NVIDIA REFERENCE CARD GTX 550 Ti (1GB) WITH SAME ISSUES
90gb MonsterDigital Daytona SATA III SSD DRIVE (OS and minimal programs)
Antec HE 550
I am at a point of pulling my hair out. I decided to upgrade my system to enhance Diablo III game play. I got a combo deal on the mainboard and cpu, and thought the speed of the game caching on a SSD would also help. The first attempt which took a little struggle was Vista 64-bit. Eventually, I was able to get the OS to work with me, and it was smooth.  Since M$ decided to offer the Windows 8 Pro upgrade for only $39.99, I thought, what do I had to lose. Well….lots of time. Now, I am not a newbie, though SSD drives haven’t been more than an interesting thought. So yes, I read many guides on everything from Trim enabled Win 7 and 8, and many other do’s and don’ts. What is driving me to the Netherlands of hell, is the installation and how buggy it has been. It boils down to drivers for the IDE/SATA/AHCI CONTROLLER. First, even thought it “sees”  the SSD on installation drive selection, after pulling the USB installation drive, the system forgets it, and there is a “problem with the boot sector”. If you load the driver from the AMD site, it lets the install occur “fine”, but there is an issue with that driver which causes an irq conflict which leads to D3 audio issues and freeze ups. I did finally get things in order (not sure which driver I choose for that), and things were smooth, except I tried to install the GTX 550 ti and that led to a corrupt file error, which the system runs a check disk and cycles the “preparing to repair” and “diagnosing PC” a few times and never allows me to enter SAFE MODE (shift+f8), to disable the NVIDIA driver that is buggy, and doesn’t allow for the NVIDIA Control Panel to install without losing video, and starts the repair cycles again… Leading to ANOTHER RE-INSTALL...
My question, for the Windows 8 Pro installation on the 970a-G46 mainboard and then after install is complete, which driver is the correct choice for the AHCI/SATA Controller?  All I find is Win7 64-bit AHCI inf’s, and SB7XX 64-bit inf’s (no SB950 INF). The Driver disk which came with the mainboard is very dated pre Win 8 stuff, ASMEDIA X106 which are not recognized by the OS as written for Win 8. AMD’s latest drivers are the ones causing the IRQ type lags and corruption.
What version, build and type of Windows 8 installations have you used on this mainboard, and what drivers allowed you install it without the above conflicts? Your input may decrease my insanity… So, thank you in advance…

Answer 1

Quote from: m0r9h3u5 on 28-January-13, 12:11:16
I understand what you are telling me,  only the generic drivers deliver subpar results. What is the point of running those drivers instead of windows 8 certified drivers written for said devices. My last install is functioning better, but still windows update fails every attempt, the apps i install (ie. weather bug) on the start screen wont load... to me windows 8 is a big fail....but that is just my view...
OK...I also own the 970a G46, and my upgrade experience from Win7 x64 AHCI to Win8 x64 AHCI was flawless the first time.  No problems at all.  You are running an AMD chipset board with a nVidia gpu, which means that your chipset drivers are not automatically updated with every gpu driver update you do--this would happen automatically if you owned an AMD gpu because AMD includes them in its gpu driver install packages.  But--all you have to do to get the proper drivers for your motherboard is go here and download them.  You only need the *chipset drivers* from this page--you do not need the RAID drivers, of course.  That's it.  It's no big deal, and back in the days when nVidia was making motherboard chipsets you had to separately download both the motherboard chipset drivers from nVidia and the AMD gpu drivers from AMD if you did not also own a nVidia gpu.
From your description of your problems it sounds like your installation of Win8 is hosed and you need to format C:\ and clean install from scratch, anyway, so...
A note about AHCI--the *ideal* way to install the AHCI drivers is prior to installing your OS for the first time, you enter the UEFI and set "AHCI" in the appropriate place, instead of IDE, and *then* you reboot from DVD and install your OS which will automatically install the correct AHCI driver from Windows.  After the driver installation is complete you should then install the updated 970a drivers from AMD as linked above.
However, it is actually very easy to activate and install AHCI *after* you have installed Windows in normal IDE mode:
To enable AHCI in existing Windows 8 IDE Installation's
Caution: Do NOT enable AHCI in UEFI prior to making the following changes in your Registry! If you had AHCI enabled alreadyin UEFI, disable it first and restart your computer!
Use WinKey + R and type Regedit in the command line and hit the Enter key, this will open the Registration Editor.
Go to:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/services/iaStorV
    right click on Start, select Modify and set Data Value to 0
Close Registration Editor and restart computer.
While booting,  open the UEFI Page and set the SATA Mode to AHCI from IDE
Save UEFI settings and restart.
Windows will now install the AHCI drivers automatically and they should work without issues.
In order to avoid installation problems just like you have been experiencing, here is what I would do in your shoes:
1) Set UEFI for normal IDE drive mode
2) Reboot into IDE mode and install your OS
3) After you have finished with the installation, you should be having no troubles in IDE mode.  Then go to the instructions above on how to properly enable AHCI *after* you have installed Windows 8 in normal IDE mode.
4) After everything is coming up roses in AHCI mode and you are having no problems, then install the AMD chipset drivers as linked above and you are golden. 
Those 4 steps worked perfectly for me the first time (the first time I got them right, that is...).
There's nothing wrong with Win8--this is strictly operator error caused by insufficient research into what AHCI is and how to properly enable it.  The Internet has some bad info on Win8 registry settings for AHCI because of the developer preview and the consumer preview versions of Win8 that Microsoft released to the public prior to the final shipping build--many "instructions" for Win8 are therefore not valid for the shipping version of Win8.  At first I made some of the same goofs that you did, but now you get to benefit from my hard-won experience...  Good luck! Should work like a charm. And, registry AHCI is done differently in Win8 than it is done in Win7 or Vista.  Also, the registry settings relative to AHCI in Windows 8 for AMD are different from the registry values that must be changed for an Intel controller.
Parenthetically, My FX-6300 (Vishera) will be here in a couple of days! Yeah!