Samsung 830 256gb fast boot, slow everything else.

The_Mad_Hatter · 25 Nov 2012 at 23:57

First, system spec:

I7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ)
Gigabyte EX58-UD5 Intel X58
OCZ Technology 12GB 1600 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)
1x 256gb Samsung 830 SSD
2x 640gb WD Caviar Black HDDs
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB GDDR5
Cooler Master Cosmos S Full tower case
Titan TTC-NK85TZ Fenrir air cooler
Corsair 620w HX modular PSU

Hello all,

Got me a Samsung 830 256gb drive a few days ago, upgraded from 2x640gb WD Caviar Blacks, one of which is now my Steam and page file drive and the other is just general stuff.
After installing the new drive I set up the bios to AHCI and started with a fresh install of Windows 7 home premium.
All well and good, install went fine, let it update, installed antiviruses, optimized with the Magic SSD program it comes with and so on.
The problem is it is stupidly slow at some things, I am not sure if its bipolar or not, but it acts it. It boots up and shuts down like a bullet stuck in the rear end of a bat out of hell, literally up and running in less than a minute normally.
But when it comes to things like opening an MP3 or an image, it takes ages. That green bar you get going across the folder address, like you get if you do a file search, I get that on opening any file, often more than once in the same folder.
I really don't know what to do with the thing, it can be fast, its boot times prove it, it just wont be fast (cause it's a git).
I have run the AS SSD Benchmark and got this:
http://i.imgur.com/Tabut.jpg

This is slow right? I never had to wait for MP3s before now.
I have tried to do some research on this and fix it, I made sure to use the blue SATA ports (which I read are intel controlled). Magic SSD says the drive has the latest firmware. I know this is a 3gb/s system and not 6gb/s, but this really isn't right.

Is there something I can do to try and fix this or is there likely something wrong with the drive?

Open (and grateful) to all advice

Regards
The_Mad_Hatter

Randomface74 · 26 Nov 2012 at 00:15

SATA II? so is right?

The_Mad_Hatter · 26 Nov 2012 at 00:17

Hello,

Yes SATA II. I am not expecting blistering speeds from this drive, I just want it to be faster than the old WD I am replacing.

Randomface74 · 26 Nov 2012 at 00:22

http://www.overclock.net/t/1253875/...rite-speeds-across-the-board/10#post_17195832

The_Mad_Hatter · 26 Nov 2012 at 00:43

Hello,

Right I looked through that page you sent me and tried turning on the write caching on the drive, these are the results http://i.imgur.com/knK9h.jpg as you can see. much better.
Sadly though the thing still hangs like a dog when loading any kind of file. After some searching it seems to be called the 'Green Ribbon of Death' -cute eh?
I have read a few posts regarding this evil ribbon and they all seem to involve file indexing, which I read was bad for SSDs. Also I find it strange that the files on the SSD are slow as well as the files being run from the other non SSDs.
I can only guess this is a Windows issue, is there a way to sort it that wont ruin the life span of my new drive?

wazza300 · 26 Nov 2012 at 00:46

Are you using the Intel rapid storage drivers off gigabytes website? Aswell as the latest BIOS?

The_Mad_Hatter · 26 Nov 2012 at 00:50

No idea about the first one, and yes using latest bios.
This hasn't always been the case with this drive, it was fast when first installed. I can only guess something happened to it during the bulk update / basic items installation.
If it had worked at this speed right off the bat I would have simply reinstalled windows again before going any further.
Currently downloading an ISO for 7 with SP1 included, so that should lessen the time to reinstall again if its needed.

wazza300 · 26 Nov 2012 at 00:54

In Samsung magician tool you can apply all tweaks to speed up thee ssd,and then look for Intel rapid storage drivers off gigabytes website and install them,they will improve speeds further

The_Mad_Hatter · 26 Nov 2012 at 00:59

Ran the magician tool as soon as I got the system up and running.
Installing the intel drivers as we speak, will report back how they work.

The_Mad_Hatter · 26 Nov 2012 at 02:11

Ok intel RST installed and running (even installed new drivers for all the drives). Sadly though this has not fixed this issue.
The more I learn about the GRoD nonsense the more irritated I become. This clearly isn't a drive issue any more, it's a silly Windows issue, and by the sounds of it, this thing dates back from vista.
Anyone have any ideas at all on how to sort this thing?
I have tried the following, playing with indexes, changing how the folder works in the customize file settings, excluding explorer.exe from anti-viruses, disabling thumbnails in folder options and disabling the anti-viruses all together.
None of these seem to have any effect what so ever.
I feel another format coming on, which is depressing, as I just got the system how I like it...

ntg · 27 Nov 2012 at 09:17

The_Mad_Hatter said:
Ok intel RST installed and running (even installed new drivers for all the drives). Sadly though this has not fixed this issue.
The more I learn about the GRoD nonsense the more irritated I become. This clearly isn't a drive issue any more, it's a silly Windows issue, and by the sounds of it, this thing dates back from vista.
Anyone have any ideas at all on how to sort this thing?
I have tried the following, playing with indexes, changing how the folder works in the customize file settings, excluding explorer.exe from anti-viruses, disabling thumbnails in folder options and disabling the anti-viruses all together.
None of these seem to have any effect what so ever.
I feel another format coming on, which is depressing, as I just got the system how I like it...

Doesn't turning off indexing help at all?
Also, maybe it's worth checking whether Win 8 have the same problem, perhaps it's a good reason to upgrade?

The_Mad_Hatter · 15 Dec 2012 at 22:25

Hello,

Been awhile. Thought I would let you all know what's going on.
Upgraded to Windows 8 yesterday (for those of you who don't know, you can get Windows 8 Pro Upgrade for £24.99 at the moment over here http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbpage.Windows_8_Pro act fast as this wont last long, oh and Windows 8 needs this http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/).
Sadly Windows 8 had the same problem. So I sat down and thought on the issue some more. Programs themselves ran perfectly fine and quickly, system booted and shut down in seconds so the drive must have been ok. Eventually it dawned on me that the issue must have been, of all things, the icons. To that end I came across this http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/49819-icon-cache-rebuild.html
Personally I went into Performance under Advanced System Settings and turned off icons first to see if that did anything, it did, system was fast again, music files opened instantly. I left the system like that (icons turned off) and ran the command lines listed on the site above and restarted, system is now working as good as it ever had, whole pages of files (with icons) loading instantly.

Thank you all for your advice and I hope that this might be able to help someone else.

Regards,
The_Mad_Hatter

Geeman1979 · 16 Dec 2012 at 11:31

Just fitted one off these this week! Speeds look fine and runs as it should, allthough I cant run the Intel RST drivers as once installed and I reboot it crashes and blue screens the machine. Drives up to date with the latest firmware.

EasterEEL · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:17

Are you running aida64? Older versions of this software are known to cause BSOD's with new versions of IRST. aida74 v2.50.2066 beta fixes that problem.

bemaniac · 16 Dec 2012 at 22:37

lest anyone think these don't fail very often I've had a 256gb 830 fail today. Massively annoyed to censor my feelings. There goes all my saved games. Lovely.

Vimes · 17 Dec 2012 at 10:17

^^^^ I have little doubt that these SSD's fail, I have had my share of that, and so have family members. When they seem to die to is like a sudden death syndrome and yet a few years ago when these drives were being talked about and introduced I read in several places that if they should die then they would in a read only state, meaning the data would still be there to read - that has never happened.

It has always made me a little wary when returning a drive that can't be securely wiped.

bemaniac · 17 Dec 2012 at 12:52

Well one of my 2 failed and not knowing precisely which I am running one solo and seems fine at the moment. Give it a few more days and I'll return the other.

OLDPHART · 17 Dec 2012 at 18:33

Hi, win 8 not worth the upgrade, win 7 far better, my 830 ssd works like atreat, when setting it up use magician magic which came with your ssd then over a couple of weeks use the performance optimization to improve things, read the instructions.

PS same cpu + mobo.