330 SSD appears as SATA 2, not SATA 3

[idata]

Hello all... I am hoping you can help me with an issue I am having with a new Intel 330 180gb SSD drive. I have been battling with this all weekend, to no avail.

My computer: HP Pavilion HPE h9-1130 Phoenix AMD

Technical details: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=120&prodSeriesId=... http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=120&prodSeriesId=...

Motherboard info: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03117539 http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03117539 HP and Compaq Desktop PCs - Motherboard Specifications, M3970AM-HP (Angelica) - c03117539 - HP Business Support Center

The computer is brand new. It came with Windows 7. I installed the SSD, installed Windows 8 on it and have been booting from the SSD drive. The drive appears fine in BIOS, works in Windows (it is my boot drive) and is recognized by the Intel Toolbox which has no complaints. There are no firmware updates available.

However... when I run benchmark tests, the speeds returned are SATA 2. When I run a utility like Speccy to show me the specs of the drive, it is reporting back as SATA 2 and NOT SATA 3.

The original hard drive that came with the system is consistently reporting as SATA 3. I have swapped cables and swapped SATA ports, both to no avail. I see nothing in the BIOS that will tell me the detected SATA speed so I can determine if it is some kind of Windows driver issue.

I called HP tonight and they were clueless as I thought they would be. According to my research on the motherboard, all 6 ports support SATA 3. HP support was able to confirm this.

Intel's phone support is closed and I will be at work during their normal business hours, so I am hoping you guys can share some of your briliiance. Thank you for any advice. Much appreciated!

[idata]

First of all, I doubt anything is wrong with your 330 SSD.

Next, your description of the 330's speed being SATA II is vague, what are you using to test it? What are the speeds you are seeing?

SSD performance depends upon the SATA mode used, is your SATA mode set to IDE, AHCI, or RAID? Any idea what SATA driver you are using, AMD's or Windows?

You mentioned your original hard drive as consistently reports as SATA III. Is that a standard HDD, or SSD? The link for your PC you provided shows a 2TB standard HDD SATA II (yes SATA 2) drive, but there might have been options for different drives. Any and ALL standard HDDs, even those that claim to operate at SATA III speeds, will not even reach the real world maximum speed of SATA II.

Programs that supply drive information can do two things, read the data populated by the manufacture in the drive regarding its SATA protocol or speed, or read the actual SATA port interface a drive is attached to. The former is much easier and does not really tell us what SATA protocol/speed the drive is operating in. A SATA III drive connected to a SATA I interface will still report SATA III if all the program does is read the drives spec data. Few programs report the true speed of the SATA interface. Unfortunately, one that does, the Intel AHCI/RAID driver Windows UI, will not work on an AMD SATA chipset.

I tried Speccy on my PC, that has a SATA III SSD connected to a SATA II port. It reported it as a SATA III SSD, which is true, but I know it is on a SATA II port. Speccy is just reading the drives information. I have no Intel SSDs on this PC, so I can't check Speccy on them, but it sounds like it has a problem reading its data if it claims it is a SATA II SSD, or the 330 SSD has some compatibility problem with Speccy.

Start the Intel SSD Toolbox and select your 330. Right below the Serial Number field is the Drive Details button, click on that. On the left of that screens heading line, you should see Word, and just below it a 0. On the right side you'll find Hex Value, which are numbers in the hexadecimal number system. In general, a single 0 or 1 in the Hex Value field means off or on, no or yes, false or true (0 = False, 1 = True.) Scroll down that screen to Word 76. Scroll down slowly and find bits 3, 2, and 1, which show the SATA Generation Speed support. What values do you find in those three fields?

AMD SATA chipsets (I cannot determine which one your board has) can allow multiple configurations of each SATA port/connection. Your boards BIOS may not allow you to access all of them. Their SATA III performance is very good, but not as fast as the latest Intel SATA chipsets, if you are comparing your SSDs results with its specs or reviews, which are always done on Intel SATA III boards.

[idata]

Thanks for replying!

AS SSD benchmark gives me these numbers:

Sequential: 254 / 162

4K: 13 / 42

4K-64Thrd: 161 / 135

Acc Time: .238 / .329

Score: 201 / 194

Total: 498

I initially had it accidentally setup as RAID. I switched to AHCI and reinstalled Windows today. I am not sure which driver I am using. Do you know how to determine?

The default drive is a 2 TB Hitachi 7200 RPM regular hard drive, not SSD.

Value for the data in Word 76 is: 0/1/1, meaning Gen3 is 0, Gen2 is 1, Gen1 is 1. That doesn't look good.

[idata]

Well, so much for nothing wrong with your 330, or at least the drives technical data. There is a Intel SSD 320, but that is not sold in 180GB models, so I highly doubt you have a 320. Then again, do you have version 3.1.1 of the Toolbox, a recent new version? If so, that SSD has a problem, if not try it with the newest version, I know some of the earlier versions of the Toolbox would not work well with some newer Intel SSDs.

If you can, return that 330 to the retailer if it still shows up as a 0 in the SATA Gen 3 data field. I've never seen that before in this forum. Might be hard to convince them of your issue, or even Intel's support, but if you sound like you know what you are talking about, which you should, at least with Intel support, you could at least RMA it to Intel. I'm sure they will ask you what version of the Toolbox you have, which should be this one:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18455&ProductFamily=Solid... http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18455&ProductFamily=Solid...

Maybe Intel support has seen this before, and may even be interested in seeing your SSD, unless you got so unlucky to get the only one like that. That data field should not be changeable by anything, certainly not a mother board or BIOS. Glad I thought of checking that.

[idata]

Parsec - thanks for your continued support.

I left work early so I can call Intel and talk to someone about this issue. The person I spoke to was not very knowledgeable. Of course he just wanted me to contact HP which I already did. He reviewed the motherboard specs here and insists that they are SATA 2 ports and not SATA 3.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03117539&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en... N62 http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03117539&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en... N62

He is not willing to do a drive swap since it is working great and the problem is that I am plugging into a SATA 2 port even though I do not have any on my motherboard. They are all SATA 3.

Frustrated, I called back and was told that they were closing in one minute and there was nobody I could talk to. Something tells me the first person just wanted to go home so I tried a chat session...

Same roadblock there. "The drive is working fine. It must be an issue with the controller."

Neither would acknowledge the issue you pointed out above where the Intel Toolbox reports than gen3 is somehow disabled.

At this point, the issue is either with the drive itself or an incompatability with the drive and AMD chipsets or the drive and the SATA controller. I don't know how to prove what the issue is though and I am hitting nothing but dead ends.

When you call tech support and you are more knowledgeable than they are, it is a very frustrating experience. If I don't hear from someone at Intel that reads this board within a day or so, I guess I will send this drive back and buy another brand. Nothing is worth this aggravation.