Vista - Abit F190HD SB600 and AHCI and VISTA

I have the F190HD and to begin with i was very impressed, i used the Intergrated Graphics Sound etc and it was working fine. With both Vista and Xp.
THEN, i started to have problems.
Firstly, i experienced the known vista install takes hours issue.(mostly it just froze) this was only in AHCI Mode.
Then i slipstreamed SP1 which includes the hotfix for the installation and it worked MUCH better with AHCI enabled in Bios. Windows installs fine but THEN vista goes VERY sluggish, freezes and wont let me even install programs.
So basically, i did a format except with IDE enabled in Bios, installed vista and KEPT with Vistas normal AHCI drivers. The moment i install ATI Ahci controller the system slows.
You can easily enable AHCI in vista AFTER installing in IDE mode. To do this, search in registry editor for MSACHI in the services section, set the key' enable ahci' to 0 instead of the default 4.
Restart and enable ACHI in bios and vista will work fine. DO NOT install ATI Ahci or raid drivers and you will be fine.
I really dont see an improvement in usuage in AHCI, but generally installing things seems to be a little faster. I know people mean when they think IDE is faster on this board, because ATI/ABits own driver messes things up.
Anyway, i thought everything was fine, in fact, everything seems fine, but last night after i install call of duty 4 the system just suddenly froze.
I dont know why it was, but it happens with no PCIE or PCI cards connected but strangley only started to happen after i bought my MSI Radeon 3850 card and still happens with that taken out and drivers uninstalled.
I spent ALL this weekend benchmarking my pc. No errors overnight in Memtest, WD diagnostics show no error, burnt my cpu with Prime95, all no crashing and no errors, but then it randomly crashes.
This is the most annoying problem, cos my pc is online 24 hours and it doesnt freeze then, but when i use it slightly it will randomly freeze and i dont know WHY it is.
My specs are as follows:
190HD
2x 1GB Adata CL5
WD7500AKKS SATA
WD250AAS IDE
MSI 3850 256mb
Corsair 620w
im coming to the conclusion one of two things are to blame:
1. The MB has hasd it, or the SATA controller at least
2. My psu is intermittant - I highly doubt this as its a very good psu, i have also checked the rails and they are fine.
Unfortunatley i do not have the dosh atm to invest in a replacement MB and CPU but it may be the only way to rectify this. I was just hoping if ANYONE has had the same experience.
R
~ Dodge

The things around here like this usually result in fresh installs of Vista. But there are a couple things. It doesn't necessarily have to be the SATA drive that causes the problem. The computer could be looking at both drives and be having an issue with the IDE drive (if it is an old drive, there's a chance it's going). If you think it's a hard-drive issue, you could try moving which SATA plug is plugged in, or pull the slave drive to see if you get any improvements. Still, the install issue sounds like the root of the problem and could be where you have to make improvements.

Hi!

I had the following problem with SB600 / AHCI on Windows XP:
It was an Asus M2A-VM HDMI and the CD came with two different drivers:
2.5.1540.34 and .39
Both of them worked but Windows took 15s more to start and Photoshop CS3 couldn't close properly.
So I downloaded the Catalyst 8.2 from ATI's site and the package have this version: 2.5.1540.28 wich is older (may '06 I think) but works fine. I still prefer the performance of my nForce 570, but it seemed that SB600's SATA performed better with AHCI enabled (probably because of NCQ).