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]

One more tidbit of info...

PC Wizard reports that the SATA port is running at 6 gb/sec (SATA 3) while the drive itself is running at 3 gb/sec (SATA 2).

[idata]

I have the same problem with a 330 series 180 gig ssd. Did this get resolved? I have gone everywhere I can go except to think the drive itself is defective.

[idata]

Jim - interesting adventure this turned out to be.

After returning the Intel SSD, I tried a Mushkin SSD. The Mushkin was reporting itself as being SATA 3, so that was a positive. However, the speeds were STILL ONLY SATA 2!

I went another couple of rounds with HP support who tried to blame it on the cable and that was a dead end. After posting my frustrations to the HP support forums, where one of the community members tried his best to to help me, it turns out that someone else had this same exact issue. After putting this poor guy through hell, HP finally admitted that they were able to duplicate the problem and they blamed it on an incompatibility with AMP chipsets. They took care of him and upgraded him to an Intel based system.

I returned the HP and I have an Intel based Acer system in transit to me and I am hoping this solves my problem.

I am curious if you have an HP AMD config or something else?

[idata]

Incompatibility with the AMD chipset? So one of AMD's latest chips from their 900 series can't recognize or negotiate SATA III with a SATA III SSD? That sounds ridiculous, and could be a driver issue. I wonder if (pure speculation) HP somehow limited the SATA interface to SATA II, as is sometimes seen with laptops. Could also be a BIOS issue, where the limited options HP provides does not allow the correct configuration of the SATA ports. AMD SATA chipsets can have all kinds of options and settings, depending on the driver. I've read that using RAID mode with single, non-RAID volume drives on AMD chipsets increases performance, but I've never used an AMD board.

This is an example of why all in one PCs are not good for modifications.

[idata]

To clarify my specifics: I am running a HP dv7t - 6100 CTO Pavilion notebook. It is a second gen Sandy Bridge chip with the Cougar point chipset. The chipset for this unit is specified to support SATA 3 and the HP support person told me that the port on the notebook is SATA3 as well. Intel tells me that it is the fault of the notebook because notebooks typically are built not to support SATA3 because they are trying to sell them as cheap as possible. His suggestion was to configure the drive into a desktop that had known SATA3 ports and see if it configures to SATA 3 and if so it was a good drive. Intel's Rapid Storage Software says that the drive is SATA2 and their Toolbox software also says SATA2. PC Wizard software shows the controler bandwidth on the computer as SATA3. Problem is I dont have a SATA 3 Desktop to put it into to check it. So where I go from here I dont know.