Switch e6510 qm57 chipset from IRRT to AHCI

Afternoon all,
This is my first post here but wanted to share my experience today in hopes it may help someone else. We needed to switch a Win7x64 install (non Dell OEM, we started with a clean Win7x64 install) from IRRT to AHCI (on a e6510 quad coreI7) and an older post here for the e6x00 pointed me in the right direction so I wanted to return the favor. Basically everything in the e6x00 post is accurate but you need a different reg key, I suspect because the chipset in the e6x10 is changed to the new QM57 to support the new CoreI procs, the chipset in the e6x00 series is the GM45 for the older Core2 chips. I've attached the reg key needed to this post but should you prefer to create the reg key by hand here it is:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_3b2f&cc_0106]
"Service"="iaStor"
"ClassGUID"="{4d36e96a-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}"
"Security"=hex:01,00,04,90,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,02,\
00,4c,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,\
00,00,00,00,18,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,20,02,00,\
00,00,00,18,00,00,00,00,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,21,02,00,00

Just follow the steps in the original post here

But instead of using the reg key referenced in that post use the one here.

Hope this saves someone a few hours of frustration.. I suspect this method would work for any other machines using the QM57 chipset with the built in IRRT controller as well.

 

Thanks. This should work for all of the systems which have the same chipset installation utility software:

I took the precaution of changing my E6410 from IRRT to AHCI as soon as I received it (the Dell factory installation has all the drivers pre-loaded) so that when I reinstalled Windows the AHCI drivers were loaded.

John

 

Sorry for reviving an older topic, but...Why would one want to disable IRRT?

 

Firstly, I think one needs AHCI for TRIM to work; secondly, it can pop up and offer to try to use any external HDDs that get plugged in.

John

 

Don't use it, don't want it to burden/load the system with it's function, and don't want to install the IRST app/service which is required to use IRST/RAID.

GK

 

@GK,
Well, actually, I'd like to know billkil's reasons

@john:
AHDI is included in the BIOS support for IRRT

(Personally, I left it enabled in the BIOS, but didn't install the drivers since I didn't have any ESATA disk enclosures. Of course, I then couldn't resist getting one of the cheapies which claimed to support a pair of ESATA disks on a single cable. But it turned out to need Port Multiplier support in the motherboard chipset. Only one disk is visible, so apparently that isn't available in the E6510 -- i'll be investigating further, though.)

p.s. I was almost amused that my subsequent Google search returned this very post as the first of its results.

 

I'm pretty sure AHCI and IRRT modes provide equivalent advanced SATA support, but that IRRT mode enables Intel's Rapid Restore Technology for mirroring the internal drive to an external drive, either automatically upon connection or on demand, and for easily restoring the internal drive from the external mirror. If you are not going to use IRRT to backup/recover your internal drive, there is no need to enable this hardware/firmware and load its Intel driver and application... the AHCI mode and Intel driver are sufficient and will support eSATA devices... just not IRRT functions. The machine BIOS gives you this option by design, presumably because the 'overhead' of IRRT mode is worth shedding if you are never going to use it for disaster recovery.

GK

 

In the this topic http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-latitude-vostro-precision/349173-tutorial-how-switch-irrt-ahci-mode-e6400-e6500-vista.html
I cant find the Intel 8.2.2.1001 SATA driver application. So can I use the latest Intel Sata driver application ? Or where can I get the right one ?
After switching, how can we know that we are successful ?

 

I've read through the thread describing how and why to change to just AHCI when running Vista if RAID is not needed. As best I can tell, there are the following reasons:

1. enable TRIM for flash SD drives
2. presumably eliminates eSATA port polling, which should
a. improve system response time
b. reduce stutter in audio
c. improve battery lifetime

I've never heard audio stutter on my system. When I've run dpclat, it's usually well under 500 us and maybe 1/minute (or less often) has a spike that's close to 1 ms (maybe that's the polling). At the moment, I don't have any SD drives. My understanding is that TRIM is enabled in the most recent Win7 drivers, anyhow. So, for the moment, I'm inclined to leave it as-is.

 

Check through these files at Intel. Rapid Storage is the latest incarnation of Matrix Storage and you should be able to extract the drivers from one of these files.

The test for success is to enable AHCI in the BIOS and not get a BSOD when Windows starts up.

John