SSD installed

Admiral Huddy said:
The drive is connected to the ICH9 but in IDE mode. I'm not sure if this would a make this much difference.

I am going to try the ssd on the Jmicron channel. See if that makes any difference.
Click to expand...

O'dear... if what you say is true about the ICH9 controller, then I shall be interested to see what my figures will look like (be ordering a Vertex 2E tomorrow). Though my BIOS does definitely seem to support it, even though the controller is "just" the ICH9 one (odd!). And it does definitely load the W7 Microsoft AHCI drivers for the SATA controller when swapping from IDE mode to AHCI mode (I've tried it).

If you are running in IDE mode, then "yes", from what I've read... the speeds will be down slightly. Though an article that I read recently seemed to imply that it did not hit performance too much.

Life...

PS. "Can I install those RST driver post W7 install? ". The answer to this is "yes". And I shall be interested to hear if they will install. I've seen comments for my mobo, that they wont.
 
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Just ordered mine, delivery tomorrow. So be "interested" to see how it goes for me, as I have the same Southbridge (IE. ICH9) as Admiral Huddy.

TBC as they say.

EDIT.

Just been looking at the Intel data sheet (see http://www.intel.com/assets/pdf/datasheet/316972.pdf ) for the ICH9 controller and it says (page 54):

"ICH9 Base provides hardware support for AHCI functionality when enabled by appropriate
system configuration and software driver."

and I suspect this is where Admiral Huddy's problems stem from.
 
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Correct, It just appears that Asus dropped the AHCI support from the BIOS..:(

You could check now.. Just head into the BIOS and check if there is an AHCI option. I only get IDE.. I think you'll be ok.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
Correct, It just appears that Asus dropped the AHCI support from the BIOS..:(

You could check now.. Just head into the BIOS and check if there is an AHCI option. I only get IDE.. I think you'll be ok.
Click to expand...

Re - ASUS AHCI support... bummer. Just don't why they dropped it!?!?!

My BIOS does appear to support it. I've already played around and cloned my boot drive and tried the registry hack and switching it on in the BIOS. So looks like I may be OK. I'll let you know how I get on.

So does it look like you are stuck with it "as is"? Should still be much quicker than any mechanical drive. Especially the seek times (near instantaneous on an SSD).
 
Well... OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB turned up this morning.

Hooked it up as a secondary drive to start with (in case it needed flashing) but it was already at 1.23

So pulled all USB leads and current disks out of PC, so that only the Vertex in and installed Windows 7 X64. Seemed to go smoothly. Obviously loads still to install but ran a couple of tests and got:

SSDCDMbenchmark.jpg


SSDATTObenchmark.jpg


SSDASbenchmark.jpg


Looks pretty good to me and that's on the standard Microsoft drivers that W7 installs. So not even going to try to install Intel RST drivers, assuming I can get them in on this mobo anyway (which from other posts I've read, is unlikely). A techie on the OCZ forum said these AHCI drivers were fine and pass TRIM OK. So I shall leave as is.

The only odd thing is that you can't see the Vertex in the BIOS under the usual Standard CMOS features (IE. all the IDE channels say NONE)! You can see it's there if you look at the Hard Disk Boot Priority. And when it POSTS, you can see the drive detected. Though it calls it a SCSI drive but there is a message that only "hard drivers and CD ROM drives are supported" (not quite sure what that's about!?!?). Unless it's trying to point out that it doesn't support RAID (which it doesn't). Must just be the way the BIOS supports SATA / AHCI. I'll be interested to see what it looks like when I add my other 2 mechanical Hard Drives tomorrow.

Otherwise happy at the moment.

Though if being totally honest, I would say the boot time is little faster than on my Velociraptor (never really took to long to boot ever in W7 anyway). Never really understood why a lot of folks bang on about it. Some folks I think just forget how quick W7 boots before you start stuffing the system full of tasks at startup. Either that, or their previous mechanical HD's must have been older / slower drives. Only my personal opinion, not looking for a flame war on this issue.

Programs certainly start quicker though and windows updates, once downloaded, install like lightening.
 
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That looks pretty much identical to the results I got with the one drive (a 60GB one).

I didn't use the RST drivers (when I just had the one drive in) either. :)
 
That's quite impressive mikeo!

I can believe that AHCI would make that much difference. I'm hoping its not a faulty drive I have. Although I doubt this, there is no way of telling.

I might get a secondhand P5Q. I hate this motherboard. There's a second hand one going on MM.
 
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Admiral Huddy said:
I might get a secondhand P5Q. I hate this motherboard. There's a second hand one going on MM.
Click to expand...

Even the Asus P5Q Deluxe on ocUK isn't a bad price. I did toy for a moment buying one myself, as my current board isn't a very good overclocker for quads (IE. 4 pin CPU power connector on board). But then decided to just get the SSD and save a complete re-build till next year when AMD / Intel will be bringing some interesting options to the table.

Let us know how you get on.
 
Admiral Huddy, apologies for butting in but can I be a pain and ask you to detail the steps you took to install your SSD and get W7 up and running on it on the P5K?. I've ordered my Vertex 60Gb and it is arriving tomorrow. Some form of idiots guide would be excellent for me as I have confused myself completely reading the forums about SSD's as they are new bits of kit to me. If you get 5 mins can you run through how you did it on your P5K ( same mobo as me which is why I'm asking ) - And also anything to watch out for etc?. I've used Clonezilla to make an image of my current 36Gb Raptor's install of Windows 7 and intended dropping that back onto the new SSD, or is that a bad idea?. My email is in my Trust if you would rather drop me a mail with any details.

Many thanks indeedy. ;)
 
RESULT!!!


better.jpg


This was after replacing the P5KC with a P5Q and enabling ACHI :) Happy days I think.

I also used the Intel® RST drivers as previously suggested.

Thanks for all your help

@ Draeger

If it's the P5KC it will still work as if you connect any SATA drive. However, like mine, if there is no option (regardless of what the manual says) for ACHI (Native Command Queuing) then it may under perform slightly.. as per opening post.
 
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mikeo said:
Good show.

What's the ATTO benchmark look like now?
Click to expand...

Still loading on all the updates and stability test at mo.. but will get them tonight.

Interesting that the write speeds are slower.. The CPU clock has been lowered from the OC 3.5Ghz to stock 2.4GHz. Maybe this has something to do with it. I'm not too worried though.
 
I just ran the AS SSD test for the first time and got the results below which are similar to your first run on the previous page.

3517dl3.png
 
Draeger said:
I just ran the AS SSD test for the first time and got the results below which are similar to your first run on the previous page.
Click to expand...

2d1wapx.jpg


Sigh i'm starting to wonder if i should've spent the same amount of money on two samsung 1TB's and gone raid instead :mad:
 
Admiral Huddy said:
Still loading on all the updates and stability test at mo.. but will get them tonight.

Interesting that the write speeds are slower.. The CPU clock has been lowered from the OC 3.5Ghz to stock 2.4GHz. Maybe this has something to do with it. I'm not too worried though.
Click to expand...

While the read speeds are pretty near identical to the Vertex 2, the write speeds look to be slightly behind. But that appears to back up the findings of the test articles that I've read.

See http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/patriot_inferno_120gb/9.htm

In real world use, I suspect that you would not notice any real difference.

Though the Patriot is still a speedy drive. Did think about one myself, but did not like the colour scheme (not joking there). That and not being able to update the firmware on them (assuming that's not changed).
 
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