The news of the SATA 2.0 issues with Intel 6 series chipsets has sparked a lot of uncertainty about how this will affect those of us who upgraded to the new Sandy Bridge architecture. Essentially, if you’re using 1 or 2 SATA devices then this chipset issue need not affect you at all because you can connect your devices to the 2 white SATA 3.0 ports. However, if you’re using 3 or more SATA devices, you may want to prioritize your more important devices on the white SATA 3.0 ports (e.g. hard drive with your operating system on it) and the less important devices on the Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports (e.g. a DVD ROM).

To help our customers optimize SATA performance on their 6 series mobos, GIGABYTE has created an easy to use utility called the GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check that tells you if the SATA ports that you are using are in fact the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports. It also recommends that you change your SATA devices to the white SATA 3.0 ports. The utility is a simple program that will work on any 6 series chipset based mobo, and has 3 possible scenarios that offer different advice for users to configure their SATA devices. Please copy this utility to P67/H67 system’s Windows desktop and unzip, double click the “67sfck.exe” file.

The 1st scenario is where there are no devices connected to the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports, and the utility
will let you know that your “SATA configuration (is) OK”.



The 2nd scenario is where your devices are all connected to the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports, and the utility will advise you to “(Please) move 1 or 2 devices from (the) Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports to the free SATA 3.0 ports.



The 3rd scenario is where you have devices connected to the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports and the SATA 3.0 ports are also populated. Here the utility will advice you that “Use of (the) Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports is not recommended”.



The GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check utility is available for download on the GIGABYTE website.

If you currently own any GIGABYTE 6 series motherboard product affected by the design error identified by Intel® and wish to exchange your older product to an equivalent motherboard based on the new 6 series B3 stepping chipsets, please fill in the following form and ensure you provide your personal contact details and motherboard information as requested.

Once the new motherboards are available in the store where you originally purchased your product, the re-seller will contact you informing you that your replacement is ready.

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