Drives randomly change from SATA 3 to SATA 2

[idata]

Hi,

I have recently purchased (1 month ago) a Dell XPS 8300 dekstop which has an i7 2600 chip on what appears to be an H67 motherboard (made by Dell?) and I separately bought 2 Intel 510 120gb SSDs. My motherbaord has 6 SATA ports, 4 x SATA 2 and 2 x SATA 3. Obviously my SSDs are connected to the SATA 3 ports.

They went in easily and work very well but they do have a habit of changing from SATA 3 (6gb/s) to SATA 2 (3gb/s) for no obvious reason. It can happen to one or both of the drives and 90% of the time a complete shutdown and start returns them to SATA 3. I am using the Intel Rapid Stroage Technology Tool to check the SATA speed.

I'm quite sure they really are changing speed and that it isn't just a reporting issue as I can see a slightly longer load time for windows when the system SSD has started up as 3gb/s. Normally the windows logo only half completes when it's at 6gb/s but when it has gone back to 3gb/s the whole logo forms. When this happens I check the Intel tool and indeed the system SSD is running at 3gb/s.

One of the drives reports firmware PPG4 and the other PPG2 but the problem affects them both equally. I downloaded and booted the Intel SSD Firmware Update Tool which found both SSDs but told me that both firmwares were up to date. That seems a bit odd as one is PPG2 and surely that is not as new as PPG4?

Anyway, they work and even at 3gb/s they are considerably faster than a mechanical drive but I would obviously prefer them both to stay at 6gb/s. I expect no help whatsoever from Dell because when I first asked them about adding SSDs they said it should be possible but they couldn't offer any support as they hadn't tested them out with this system yet.

Does anyone have any idea? I've also sent a message to Intel support outlining this problem but thought I'd see if anyone else put there has come across/solved this problem.

[idata]

ian, That is a curious problem, I've never heard of that but that certainly doesn't mean it can't happen. I don't have a quick, obvious fix for you, but you should check a few things so we know what we are working with.

Just to confirm your hardware, you can download CPU-Z (free) here:

http://www.cpuid.com/downloads/cpu-z/1.58-setup-en.exe http://www.cpuid.com/downloads/cpu-z/1.58-setup-en.exe

Install and run it and check the Mainboard tab to verify your chipset and hopefully identify your mother board.

Since you are using IRST, you have an Intel chipset, but just to be certain which one check with CPU-Z.

Next, do you know which SATA mode you have enabled in the BIOS? Either AHCI or RAID is appropriate, the latter even if you are not using a RAID set of drives. Sandy Bridge mother boards usually are set to AHCI by default, which is good and saves some work enabling AHCI mode.

I have never seen or heard of the need to enable SATA 6Gb/s mode, so that should not be an issue.

I own a 120GB 510, and I have not noticed this issue on an ASUS P67 mother board, although you have me checking it now! My 510 has the PPG4 firmware, but as you said that is likely not the problem. I have noticed a few things about the 510 that may be worth checking.

First, the connector on the 510 SSD for the SATA data cable does not have the locking capability that uses the metal latch on the top of the cable's plug. My 510 came with a SATA cable, and if yours did you can see that one end has a latch, but the other doesn't. I've tried several SATA cables with it, and the ones with latches do not work well with the 510 in my experience. The plugs with latches do not lock in at all and easily disturbed or pull right out. I forgot about this and put a cable with a latch on my 510, which worked fine for a while. After again working on the inside of my PC, I must have moved the cable, and when starting the PC the 510 (my OS drive) was not seen by the BIOS and the PC would not boot. I had a SATA cable without latches and found it fit securely in the 510. My point is you should check your cable/connection to your 510 and make sure it is as firm and secure as possible.

Another possibility is your PC's power management settings. Although the 510 does not use much power at idle, about 1/3 watt according to a test I saw, when reading or writing is uses over two watts, which is a bit higher than some other comparable SSDs. Check your Windows power settings, and try it on High Performance if it is not set there now. I saw a thread in this forum regarding the 510 going to sleep or not responding in an Apple PC, when it's power management feature was active. This may have been on a laptop, I can't recall, but it might be possible that your 510 changes to 3Gb/s mode due to Windows power management feature. That is only speculation on my part, and I've never seen this happen to mine, I have the power management set to High Performance.

If it will make you feel better about running in SATA 3Gb/s mode, check the benchmark results of the Intel 510 at both 6Gb/s and 3Gb/s in this review. The link brings you directly to the most interesting results, but the entire review is worth reading:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4421/the-2011-midrange-ssd-roundup/6 http://www.anandtech.com/show/4421/the-2011-midrange-ssd-roundup/6

If I discover anything else, I'll post it here, and I'd be interested to hear if you figure this out. Post your CPU-Z results and perhaps that will tell us something.

[idata]

Hi and many thanks for the very helpful reply.

Firstly, my the motherbaord tab on CPU-Z reports:

Manufacturer : Dell Inc.

Model : OY2MRG

Chipset : Intel Sandybridge Rev 09

Southbridge : Intel H67 Rev B3

I've already spoken to Intel and Dell:

Intel suggested swapping cables and also the possibility of Dell having limited the motherboard in some way which apparently some manufacturers do.

Dell said they couldn't really support putting SSDs in this system as they hadn't tested them for themselves which sounds a bit odd. I pointed out that their service manual shows two SATA 3 ports on the motherboard and in that case they should be working. So now someone is looking into whether or not a limitation has been put on the motherboard and will get back to me in a few days.

As for cables: I bought a new pair but when they arrived today I discovered that cables with 90 degree connectors on either end will not fit in my system. So I will order some more. The cables that came with my drives are black and have latches on both ends.As you say, the drive itself does not have a locking mechanism. I removed the latch from one end of the cables and put them back in today. I might get in touch with Intel today and ask them about sending out a better pair of cables as it seems silly to send me ones with latches on both ends!

After removing the latches at the drive end and refitting them I wasn't terribly surprised to see that the problem hadn't gone away. I'll give the cables one more try with some new ones (from Intel or elsewhere) then rule that out as a possible cause.

I had a look at all the power management features on this desktop sysem and couldn't find anything specific to the drives. There are different power plans but they seem to differ only in how long it takes before something is put into sleep mode. I couldn't find anything in the BIOS about this either.

After a lot of shutting down and restarting I am now 99% certain when I say that a cold boot results in both drives at 6gb/s and they stay that way until a restart. The restart will then result in either one or both of the drives going to 3gb/s. Disk 0 is my system SSD and disk 1 is for programmes. Disk 0 goes to 3gb/s in about 25% or less of restarts and Disk 1 in about 90%. Those figures will get more accurate as I seem to be dong a lot of restarts and boots since I got these drives!

I used ATTO to benchmark the drives and in comparison to the 1tb 7200rpm mechanical drive they are both a lot faster even in 3gb/s mode. I compared 3gb/s to 6gb/s mode and although the difference wasn't as large it was still noticable enough. The annoying thing is knowing that they can run at 6gb/s but something is changing them back to 3gb/s.

So I'll wait and see if Dell own up to limiting things and gives new cables a try again. In the meanwhile I'll keep an eye on the starts/restarts and narrow those figures down a bit. If you do discover anything else please let me know but it seems I'm stuck between Dell and Intel waiting for one of them to take responsibility. If Dell say they haven't limited anything then it could just be a motherboard fault which they could fix easily with a new one. If it's not Dell then who knows what it could be? If it's not Dell and not the cables then I'm pretty much baffled.

Thanks for coming on board with this!

[idata]

Hi,

A further update - it's not the cable. Have now tried 3 types (great waste of money!) - with and without clasps and no change. Next step - hassle Dell into doing something.

Cheers,

Ian

[idata]

OK - another update. This time I feel I'm getting nearer to the cause but have no idea for a solution.

When I was talking to Dell half an hour ago they suggested something that I really should have thought of first. I have two SSDs and one mechanical drive in the system. They suggested putting the mechanical drive on one of the SATA 3 (6gb/s) ports and testing that. So I put the mechanical into Port 1 and tested. The result was that the problem didn't affect the mechanical drive. The connected SSD in port 0 did eventually change speed to 3gb/s after a few reboots but the mechanical stayed at 6gb/s.

In these circumstances Dell won't help further as they only support the drives that the system shipped with, ie the mechanical one. And as that stays at 6gb/s there is no problem as far as they are concerned. I can't really argue with that much more. Dell also say they aren't limitng the motherboard in any way.

My choices now are:

1) Put up with not using restarts but just cold boots to keep the speed.

2) Try a different brand of SSD to see if it's just the Intel 510 that has the problem.

2) Just be happy with 3gb/s when it happens but my benchmark results from ATTO do show a considerable difference between the SSD on 6gb/s and 3gb/s. Here are the benchmark results: the one on the left is my system drive at 3gb/s and the one on the right at 6gb/s. There's quite a big difference!

So time to research another drive I think? Or give up?

What would you do?

Cheers,

Ian