[phantommenace2]

I'm using a Maximus Formula board and Vista Business 64-bit SP1 with AHCI currently disabled in the BIOS...should I enable AHCI for better performance?...I'm hearing conflicting info on whether or not it should be enabled or not...I mostly use my system for hard core gaming in a home/non server environment...I also have 1 SATA DVD drive and 1 IDE DVD drive in the system along with a SATA hard drive

[RoyBatty]

I would definitely enable AHCI as it offers some features not available in IDE mode. I have it enabled on my system and I really don't see any reason for having it disabled. Tme Maximus Formula uses separate Jmicron chip for PATA, so your DVD drive should work fine with AHCI enabled on the ICH9R ports.

If you installed Vista with AHCI disabled you have to follow the instructions here to enable the AHCI driver before enabling it in BIOS: Error message when you start a Windows Vista-based computer after you change the SATA mode of the boot drive: "STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE"

Some more info from wikipedia: Advanced Host Controller Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[phantommenace2]

thanks...I reformatted my Vista 64 system tonight enabling AHCI...is NCQ enabled by default now or do I have to do something to enable it?...I remember with one of my older hard drives from a year or 2 back there was an option in 'Device Manager' under my Hard Drive to enable NCQ but I don't see that now

[RoyBatty]

From what I have read it should be enabled by default in AHCI mode. You can check if it is enabled with PC Wizard for example.