Will Toolbox work without AHCI?

[idata]

I've just installed an X-25V (FW: 02HB) with Win7x64 on a system with an Nvidia 680i SLI MoBo Chipset. This is an older Dell XPS 720 with the awful Dell BIOS which won't let me set AHCI/IDE within BIOS.

The Nvidia Nforce Storage Controller takes over as the default Storage Controllers for all of the SATA connections (SSD is on SATA-0, two DVD Roms are on SATA-1 and SATA-2, and Storage HDD is on SATA-4. SATA-3 and SATA-5 are empty.) When I try to uninstall the Nvidia Storage Controller so I can have the default Windows 7 driver take over, it auto-installs the NVIDIA controller on reboot. So the first question: is there a way to override the Nvidia Storage Controller and have Windows use it's driver (with AHCI support) instead. EDIT: or can I install the Intel RST driver that has shown up in a few threads? Can I just use that Driver in place of the Nvidia driver?

Figuring that I wouldn't be able to get TRIM running since I couldn't get AHCI turned on, I decided to try the Toolbox instead. When I open up the ToolBox it shows me the SSD on the list at the top (as well as the 2 Partitions of my HDD) and all the buttons in the lower section are there, but I can't click on any of them. I thought it was a .NET 3.5 Framework thing, and installed the latest, but that doesn't seem to be it? This is a brand new Win7 install...is there something else I'm missing for the ToolBox buttons to work? (Java, Flash...??) or does the Toolbox need AHCI to work too?

Related to all of this, I did try to do the FW update before installing everything and when I ran the CD installer it told me that no SSD was found on my system - even though it shows up in BIOS under SATA-0. So for now I appear to be stuck with FW 02HB.

Regardless of these difficulties, the drive is running really well - but I'd like to either get TRIM up and running or at least have access to the Toolbox to be able to avoid longer term R/W degradation.

[idata]

xact - thanks for the followup. Sounds like this is a no-brainer. Going to get the card. $25 on Amazon - just slightly cheaper than Newegg, so I'm going to get it. Will follow your instructions to make sure the AHCI drivers are enabled. Will try the first setup you recommend - although I think at some point while tinkering with the original install I actually did change the registry value for the AHCI driver.

Will probably take a week or so to get the card shipped, I'll post once I've done everything to update.

[idata]

I tried Xact's recommendation using the ASUS SATA6 board to bypass the NVIDIA SATA controller and it works great. AHCI enabled and Toolbox running just fine.

[idata]

Following your example I installed a U3S6 on my XPS 720. It worked just great! Thanks for sharing.

[idata]

Hi Bilsko/ Smal/ Xact,

Would any of you guys mind running an AS SSD Benchmark? I'm interested to see what the Marvell 9123 controller does to performance. I recently tried an Adaptec 1220SA as part of a temporary trouble shooting exercise and it nearly halved my overall AS Benchmark score in comparison to ICH9.

It's possible to obtain a screen shot or just the text results of the benchmark via Edit>Copy

http://www.alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?cat_id=4 http://www.alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?cat_id=4

Thanks

[idata]

Hello, I am using Micron's C300 256gb drive on a Dell 730 with an NVidia 790i Ultra chipset. I boot through an Asus U3S6 card mounted in a PCIe x 16 slot. I have limited software installed on my PC at the moment, so I cant give a screen shot, but the drive benchmarks in ATTO at ~370/210mb/s. Here is an AS SSD bench I just took.

Regards

Mitch