Abit IP35 Pro and SSD

Piratepete

Piratepete

Piratepete

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Joined
1 Nov 2007
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19
Well it appears to be over 4 years since I last logged in. I guess kids and life get in the way sometimes.....

My problem is that I have an old Abit IP35 Pro motherboard, and its been running Win 7 32 bit for a while now. Consequently it has started to slow down and in a fit of drunken anger I decided to reinstall windows and buy an SSD drive. Especially as my current 500Gb drive is worryingly old.

The SSD drive I have bought is the one on sale at a well known internet shopping site the Kingston SSDNOW 200.

My plan was to fit this as my main drive and run the 500gb for applications.

However I am worried that the SSD drive won't work. So to give it the best chance I started to update drivers while the PC is still on the old config. I managed to get the chipset drivers but can't find the board drivers anywhere, nor can i find out what its running. The PC isn't overclocked.

I realise that all you guys run PC's made with lasers these days, but can you help a lapsed overclocker who has been distracted from the "true way" by nappies and school runs and all that rubbish.

I'm not adverse to begging but no cash will change hands :)
 
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I did think about fitting it to the current system as a backup, just to see if it worked ok before wiping everything and making it the main drive. I was also just going to fit the SSD first. Install windows and then start adding the secondary drives in. Is that a good way to do it do you think?
 
Good, I don't know if your board has an option in the BIOS for AHCI on the SATA controller so IDE will have to do.

The SSD will be limited by the boards slower SATA transfer rate.

You say "nor can i find out what its running." did you want a program to try and tell you your PC specs?
 
yeah I realise I won't get the full potential out of the SSD drive but I am still expecting a performance improvement. I'll go check the BIOS for that option.

You say "if your board has an option in the BIOS for AHCI on the SATA controller so IDE will have to do.

The SSD will be limited by the boards slower SATA transfer rate."

When you said IDE did you mean sata, or are you just talking about the transfer rate rather than the connections?
 
yes I have the option for AHCI in my BIOS.

When I remove the other drives and fit the SSD I gather I should turn that on?

A quick google answers my question for me. I should do it before installing the new OS.
 
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To get Trim working on the SSD you want AHCI option for the SATA controller.


Also with AHCI you get native command queuing (NCQ).

You have Win7 which is also needed.

My board for example has IDE/AHCI/RAID options for the SATA controller.


I just seen this thread - http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/288457-14-ahci-problem

The OP says he has a IP35 board (not sure if it's 100% the same as the "pro" version) and doesn't have AHCI as an option.

If you read the thread further, you will see some comments about getting a SSD with a decent garbage collection facility if you cant support TRIM.


EDIT just seen reply above, sweet.
 
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The ip35 pro xe is the same board but with faster 'official' ram support so these would work:

http://abit.ws/page/en/motherboard/...ME=IP35+Pro+XE&fMTYPE=LGA775&pPRODINFO=Driver

To be honest though, i'd just go straight to intel/jmicron ect and grab the latest drivers direct from the manufacturers where possible as that's exactly what i did when i installed a sandisk SSD in my fathers pc a few months ago and he's got my old ip35 pro which answers your other question - will it work? yup :) I wouldnt mess around though, id go straight for a fresh install, setting the bios to ACHI as stulid has mentioned.

as for being limited in performance, it shouldn't be an issue. The board doesnt have sataIII so sataII will limit the drive, but it'll really only limit the sequential read speeds - it's unlikely the write speeds on the drive will be fast enough to be limited by sataII's bandwidth and random reads aren't fast enough to be bottlenecked by the sata interface anyway. Even with the limitations in mind, it has to be said i didn't notice the sandisk SSD on sataII to be much slower (if at all) in use to my own samsung 830 on sataIII, i think i'd have to have them side-by-side to see any difference in use. So I wouldnt worry too much - it should be plenty fast enough;)
 
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CPU Z ahh yes I've used that before......

See a few minutes in the company of gentlemen who know what they are talking about and its all coming back.

I grabbed the latest Intel chipset drivers earlier this evening from the intel site (i let it scan my system and suggest the drivers).


Sooo

My path to success is.

1. remove all drives

2. Place the SSD in the system where my main drive was before (same cable connection)

3. Set Bios to AHCI mode

4. Install Win 7

5. Add main 500gb drive install (using win 7) as a secondary drive for apps, then install any remaining.

Sound like a plan?

As for performance, i think when you go from couple of minutes to a few seconds, a few tenths of seconds won't matter to me.
 
Guys.

Thanks for the help, as ever you have been stellar.

i thought you had to periodically run disk defrag? That would explain why it always says 0% fragmented. Does it do it automatically in Win 7, if so how do you turn that off (win help is as useful as ever). Do you mean the scheduler?

thanks for the guide as well, its always nice to be validated by realising I was going to go the same route as the guide suggested!
 
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SSD's don't need to be defrag, the multiple writes to the memory cells only speeds up their deterioration which defrag does.

Go to accessories/system tools select disk defrag and you can change the configuration/schedule.

Yoou can manually select a defrag for the HDD from there.
 
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