topic X-25M SSD and ICH8M/965Express SATA Issues in Archive

X-25M SSD and ICH8M/965Express SATA Issues

idata — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:19:50 GMT

I've got a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop that I just plugged a new X-25M 80GB G2 SSD into. It's only operating in SATA 1 mode. I believe this laptop can operate in SATA II mode....I just can't make it work. I'm running in ACHI mode with Windows 7. My details are below:

OS Name: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium OS Version: 6.1.7600 Build 7600System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHzBIOS Version/Date: Dell Inc. A09, 07/11/2008

Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager

Intel Serial ATA Controller: Intel(R) ICH8M SATA AHCI Controller

Number of Serial ATA ports: 2 Driver Version: 8.9.0.1023Serial ATA Plug-In Version: 8.9.0.1023Language Resource Version of the Serial ATA Plug-In: 8.9.0.1023ISDI Library Version: 8.9.0.1023 Hard Drive 0Status: NormalDevice Port: 0Device Port Location: InternalCurrent Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 1Model: INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GCFirmware: 2CV102G9Native Command Queuing Support: YesSize: 74.5 GB

I've got everything up to the latest driver/firmware/rev, that I can find. I was just under the impression that this level of hardware was SATA II capable. Unfortunately, the HDD I pulled out was only SATA 1, so I can't compare there. I'm going to try in the Dell community as well, to see what they may know.

Anyone have a similar situation or have some insight?

Thanks!

Re: X-25M SSD and ICH8M/965Express SATA Issues

idata — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:12:12 GMT

Below are my benchmark results, first in AHCI mode and after, in ATA mode (changed the setting in the BIOS and didn't have to reimage the SSD). You can see a huge improvement. I'm assuming it's in SATA II mode now since it exceeded 150 MB/s. It's still shy of the 250 that the SSD is rated for, but it's much improved. The Intel Matrix drivers won't load now, so I cannot get that official report this time. I'm not sure what else I can tweak to get the 250 out of it.

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Sequential Read : 134.304 MB/s

Sequential Write : 75.134 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 121.948 MB/sRandom Write 512KB : 74.171 MB/s Random Read 4KB : 16.043 MB/s Random Write 4KB : 28.129 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB

Date : 2009/10/21 9:58:44

Sequential Read : 200.909 MB/s

Sequential Write : 79.837 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 151.993 MB/sRandom Write 512KB : 79.951 MB/s Random Read 4KB : 16.365 MB/s Random Write 4KB : 30.887 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB

Date : 2009/10/21 21:42:43

Re: X-25M SSD and ICH8M/965Express SATA Issues

idata — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:23:19 GMT

I had a similar experience. I have an X-25M G2 160 and a 2Ghz C2D Dell Precision M4300 with ICH8M. Running XP Pro SP3 and aligned partition.

First, scores with standard IDE:

Now, with XP forced driver over to Intel AHCI driver 8.9.0.1023 (June 4 2009), then AHCI enabled in BIOS:

Note: The Intel AHCI driver has only worked on 1 out of 3 XP machines I've tried it on, definitely a "try at your own risk" because you may end up with a system that won't boot.