Re: Looking for Windows 10x64 Drivers for Intel Q65 series 6 chipset

Marty1 · ‎10-03-2020

I upgraded to Windows 10x64 and am looking for Windows 10x64 drivers for components of the Intel Q65 series 6 chip-set in my desktop computer.

I've got an issue with the generic Microsoft (2006) drivers for AHCI and it was recommended to me to install the manufacturer's (Intel) drivers to resolve it, which I was always using and IDSA under Windows 7x64 nicely updated for me in the past.

So I used to be able to use IDSA for that, but now it reports no updates. Then I read in a @n_scott_pearson postings that IDSA doesn't work for discontinued boards. And to my surprise my Q65 chipset is now discontinued.

So I've got to find the drivers myself now and I'm in need of help. I did manage to find Intel Server Chipset Drivers for Windows Intel® Server Boards legacy Intel drivers (Version: 10.1.17903.8106, Date: 1/29/2019), that cover Microsoft Windows* 10 x64 drivers for the 6th Generation Intel® Core™ processor family / Intel® C200 series chip-set family. Would these drivers work for my computer or are they more likely to mess things up?

The hardware ID of the lastly provided AHCI driver for Win7x64 (SATA AHCI Driver, Date: 2011/04/28, Version: 10.1.0.100, Vendor: Intel) was:

[HardwareIds.scsi.iaAHCI_DesktopWorkstationServer]
id = "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C02&CC_0106","iaStor"

So I'm looking for a Windows 10x64 compatible driver for id = "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C02&CC_0106" manufactured by Intel.

The current hardware ID in Device Manager (Win10) is:

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C02&SUBSYS_04921025&REV_05
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C02&SUBSYS_04921025
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C02&CC_010601
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C02&CC_0106

Who can point me to the right (legacy) Win10x64 drivers?

I attached the IDSA output for my Acer Veriton X4610G for your convenience.

(My board manufacturer Acer stopped updating drivers on their support site after Windows8x64).

Thanks for your efforts in advance.

Kind regards,

Marty

n_scott_pearson · ‎10-05-2020

So I understand, why do you think that you need anything?

The drivers for Windows 10 for older boards like this are all built into Windows 10 and automatically installed. Only optional pieces like GFX and RST need to be handled separately. IDSA is not reporting anything as being necessary because the drivers it handles are all built in.

Now, you say that you have a problem with the MS AHCI driver. What problem? Please explain...

...S

Marty1 · ‎10-07-2020

@n_scott_pearson Thank you for looking into this matter.

The problems with the MS AHCI driver I have, are two fold. My internal fixed HDD shows up as removable hardware and the HDD performance is down. I'll elaborate below.

The internal Hard Disk Drive (HDD) WD Green Caviar WD10EADX shows up as removable hardware in Windows 10:

The suggested course of action by WD is to install the manufacturers AHCI driver. As Intel is the chipset / controller manufacturer shouldn't it be running Intel's driver? Under Windows 7x64 Acer Support provided the Intel AHCI driver: SATA AHCI Driver, Date: 2011/04/28, Version: 10.1.0.100, Vendor: Intel. The current Microsoft driver in Windows 10x64 appears to be older: 2006.

I also see some performance degradation:

Win7x64 with Intel AHCI driver:

    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     0.858 MB/s [   209.4 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     1.504 MB/s [   367.3 IOPS]

  Test : 50 MB [E: 39.7% (278.4/701.0 GB)] (x1)
  Date : 2019/11/18 14:46:01
    OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

VERSUS Win10x64 with Microsoft 2006 driver:

  Random Read 4KiB (Q=  1,T= 1) :     0.623 MB/s [    152.1 IOPS]
 Random Write 4KiB (Q=  1,T= 1) :     1.349 MB/s [    329.3 IOPS]

  Test : 50 MiB [E: 27.0% (189.3/701.0 GiB)] (x5)  [Interval=5 sec]
  Date : 2020/10/03 13:48:16
    OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 19041] (x64)

For your reference here is a link to the hardware contained in the X4610G desktop mother board. (They are mostly Intel components.)

@n_scott_pearson wrote: Only optional pieces like GFX and RST need to be handled separately.

Do AHCI drivers qualify as RST? And does integrated Intel HD Graphics qualify as GFX?

n_scott_pearson · ‎10-07-2020

The first problem is a BIOS issue and the Intel Storage driver won't help with it.
While in current H/W generations the performance of the storage drivers is (roughly) the same, it is true that, with older generations, the performance of the Intel Storage driver was better.
To answer the third question, yes, the Intel Storage driver is built into RST. To use it, I believe you have to enable RAID in the BIOS and then load the storage drivers (from the F6FLPY.ZIP package) as you install Windows.
Hope this helps,
...S

Marty1 · ‎10-08-2020

Dear @n_scott_pearson , thank you for your reply.

Regarding the first problem.

In my BIOS/UEFI there are no settings related to disabling HotSwap nor HotPlug mode for the SATA/AHCI controller. I'm running the latest BIOS version that was published by Acer Support: Date: 2012/11/12, Version: P01.B3, Vendor: Acer, Size: 2.0 MB. It is quite old, would that settings have been around back then?

In Windows 7x64 this problem did not occur whilst running the Intel driver. Shouldn't the same problem have happened there as well?

Could .INF files maybe provide a solution to the problem?

Regarding problem 2 / performance.

I'd like to get my storage controller/HDD combination performing up to par again. The downloads section for the Q65 Express Chipset doesn't show anything. Is there a fitting driver for my rig? Could you please point me to where I could download the right driver for my hardware and Windows 10x64 combination? I'd like to give it a try. (I never had to set my system up as a RAID system, should I now?)

I'm running in UEFI mode and GPT structured disks. Is the driver designed and tested for Windows 10x64 in such a configuration? Are there any known problems with the driver? Does is need any additional drivers or .INF files?

n_scott_pearson · ‎10-08-2020

You cannot compare the Windows 7 environment with Windows 10. Drivers are drastically different.

I have attached the oldest package that I have that provides Windows 10 support. AFAIK, you can take the drivers provided in the F6FLPY package and install using the accompanying INF files. You don't absolutely have to enable RAID unless you are installing the full package (which won't succeed if RAID is not enabled).

...S

Marty1 · ‎10-10-2020

Dear @n_scott_pearson ,

Thanks for your suggested driver package, but I'm afraid it doesn't contain drivers for device ID: 1C02 (a 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port Desktop SATA AHCI Controller).

n_scott_pearson · ‎10-10-2020

As I said, that is the oldest I had that supported Windows 10. Unfortunately, at the same time that they started supporting Windows 10, Intel started removing support for older hardware that they won't support on Windows 10.

I fired up the WayBack machine and was able to find a 10.0 version - which, unlike the 10.1 versions, is supposed to not have support for the old hardware chopped out. Give it a try and see if it works for 5 Series. I suggest that you execute it using this process:

Extract the ZIP file to a temporary folder.
Open a Command Prompt or PowerShell window.
Make the temporary folder current.
Execute command ".\SetupChipset.exe /overall".
Reboot.
Delete the temporary folder.

Hope this helps,

...S

Marty1 · ‎10-13-2020

Dear @n_scott_pearson ,

Thank you again for your efforts and suggested INF driver package, somehow your attention got shifted from a search for Intel SATA AHCI Controller drivers to Chip-set INF drivers.

I'm afraid the Chip-set INF driver package that you suggested doesn't contain drivers for device ID: 1C02 (a 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port Desktop SATA AHCI Controller) neither.

Windows 10 was broadly released for the general public on July 29, 2015.

Start of self service / EOL date of the processor is: January 17, 2018.

I can't find the EOL date of the Q65 chipset, but the EOL date of the Intel HD Graphics 2000 is June 24, 2016.

Both EOL dates are after the introduction of Windows 10. Wouldn't Intel have produced drivers for its components in the overlapping period that the products were supported and Windows 10 was available to the general public?

n_scott_pearson · ‎10-13-2020

You will just muddy the waters trying to piece together EOL dates. What's important is that,

Just prior to the release of Windows 10, Intel made the decision that they would only support Windows 10 on 3rd gen and later processors and 7 Series and later chipsets. No drivers for older hardware would be (intentionally) provided or supported.
In fact, however, from the standpoint of Intel RST, the decision was made to support Windows 10 with only 8 Series and later chipsets. There was an inbox driver for RST on 7 Series chipsets, but it was only used to support cases where a Windows upgrade was being done (subsequent updates to Windows 10 from Microsoft eventually removed this inbox driver as well).
Aside: Intel also, BTW, subsequently made the decision to support ONLY Windows 10 on 7th gen and later processors and 100 Series and later chipsets. ONLY Windows 10 means no Windows 7, no Windows 8 and no Windows 8.1. Period.

So there I was searching for a RST release that would allow you to use it's Storage driver to get around this Device Id issue. In fact, however, now that I think about it, the inbox support from Microsoft contained support for the 6 Series chipsets, so this Device Id *should* have been resolved. That it wasn't resolved confuses me.

...S

P.S. BTW, the INF Update packages do not provide any drivers. Microsoft provides all of these drivers. The INF Update package (only) provides INF files that optimally configure the Microsoft-provided drivers for particular chipsets. The Chipset Device Software packages that replaced the INF Update packages do contain some drivers, I believe.

Marty1 · ‎10-15-2020

@n_scott_pearson Thank you for your explanation. It is so hard to distill that information from the various components (iDSA shows nothing, the Q65 driver download page shows nothing at all.) I was not even able to find EOL dates (and I even searched for them). Now things start to make some sense.

When I bought my Desktop PC it was delivered with Win7pro and an upgrade lic. to Win8pro. I especially opted for a desktop with mostly stock Intel components, so I could fall back on Intel support once my OEM would fail. Because of the terrible user experience with Win8 many people sticked with Win7. Then it got retired and the upgrade path to Win10pro was available to those users, and here we are.

Now it turns out that within three years of purchasing my system Intel already dropped support for the components inside my desktop PC. (When Win 10 was already available.) I'd like to have known that back then. What is the support road map on currently released hardware?

So now I've got a computer who's hardware is still pretty feisty and plenty viable for all my purposes. It has the latest Win10 OS, but Intel driver support lets it down.

I also got aware, that I landed in Management Engine (ME) hell. A piece of Intel micro programming that is deeply embedded within the system and shouldn't be visible to normal users. It now turns out to be full of hefty security vulnerabilities (load and execute arbitrary code outside the visibility of the user and operating system), that won't even get fixed for my system.

Then Intel points us to this forum as Self support, where volunteers like you are doing a really great job, but get all the frustration of disgruntled Intel users.

Is the Intel driver code released to the public for self support?

n_scott_pearson · ‎10-15-2020

Only the Linux version is ever released. The Windows drivers - even those discontinued - are considered IP and Intel does not release them. Don't ask me why.

There's no set rule (that I know of), but in my experience, Intel generally discontinues hardware X years after launch, where X is the number of years that the product is warranted. The problem is that Intel has absolutely no control over when a 3rd party will use an Intel component. Parts cannot be purchased from Intel after they have been discontinued (Intel declares a last-buy date sometime before this), but there could still be a ton of parts in stock in the distribution channels. Bottom line, you can sometimes purchase brand new boards that have discontinued parts on them.

Since it is possible that someone could be purchasing a part - say a processor - just before the part is discontinued, there is an expectation that intel will support this part - with drivers where necessary - for the warranted lifetime of the part. Give or take a few exceptions, Intel provides this level of coverage where many other manufacturers do not. In your case, however, your product was launched way back in 2011 and this period ended a long time ago.

...S