14x SATA II, SATA III Benchmark Comparison - BIOS Enabled or Disabled Discussion

If they aren't, I will sever my ties with Alienware/Dell for the rest of my life. That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard.

 

Well I guess that puts a lid on the battery issue as well. The manual doesn't say sustained operation while on battery power.

 

Welll this sort of things always take some time to get solved.

Problems like shutting down on battery are the kind of things that should be addressed first, cause it could actually affect sales.

They probably have one or two (1 or 2) engineers looking at this and many other problems from other Dell Systems.

I also see "Sata III issue" going on into other systems from other brands as well. "My Guess" is that they will come up with a solution sooner or later, since it works Sata III, but not yet stable.

What would really help, is that if we could post demanding for support on Dell´s Forum that I posted above. (I cant comment there, I donnu why.)

 

M14X SATAIII/II issiue - the manual states that it does but only halfway - will this be adressed ? - Alienware Forum - Alienware Club - Dell Community

There! Lets make it relevant!!

 

In a few days I will try the vertex 3 again with some recs I've seen in this post and will let you guys know if there is any progress.

 

That topic is made by me, I got a mail that they will answer me after a while either there or mail, but yeah - register and keep up the presure so that they know that we take this seriously.

 

M14x arrived in Canada. Gonna start it's way to the Phils now..Hope they get it to SATA 3 before it arrives here in another 4-5 weeks..I really want an M4 on SATA 3..And possibly a RAID 0 setup if it were possible..

 

The Sata 3 is a hit or miss. Sometimes it work, sometimes it simply doesn't.

I am not sure, but Raid 0 would only be possible if you replace your optical drive with a HDD or SSD.
There was a thread on that here, but I can't seem to find it.

 

Wait does the M14x have a raid controller? If so that is awesome. If we can Raid 0 Sata III speeds I would get 2 vertex 3's or 2 Agility 3's and raid them. Achieve close to 1GB-s transfer rates

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2203/5762132955_5ac545fdbf_b.jpg

 

I think it's impossible because the optical drive is on SATA I, someone said that I don't remember where, thats why if you replace the optical drive by a HDD it'll be slow.

 

I can confirm that statement.

 

OCZ Confirms Vertex 3 and Agility 3 Firmware Issues

OCZ Confirms Vertex 3 and Agility 3 Firmware Issues - Softpedia

 

One would think that SSDs would be past the infancy stage by now but obviously that's not the case. Other brands are no better. I had to apply the fix mentioned earlier for my m4 to get it working correctly.

This is unrelated to the SATA III issue though. The "no mention of sustained throughput" was priceless... The problem appears to be more widespread than the M14x though. SandyBridge MacBook Pro users are apparently also having issues.

 

One word: Intel.

 

So the M14x works with SATA III speed?

 

my agility 3 is hitting 500+ mb/s atm rght now.... so yes it is sata 3

 

Sometimes.

 

Depends on whether it wants to or not.

 

Thats good to hear, I am planning on buying a 120 Gb Agility for 180 EUR, or Vertex 120 Gb for 220 EUR. Which one is you people think the right choice?

 

day two and still getting sata 3 540MB/s in ATTO

glad i went with it so far.... ill keep you guys posted if it hits sata 2.... now im just waiting on my optical disc caddy!


well in my mind the speed difference will be minimal for what i am doing..... i went with the agility 3 as it was on sale and anandtech ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/4421/the-2011-midrange-ssd-roundup )had a great review on this drive (in comparison to others)

 

Vertex 3 over Agility 3 there is a reason for the price difference you get what you pay for.

 

I Got the Agility, price mattered to me, and the performance was already good enough.

I think we will soon see firmware and Bios update addressing the Sata III issue.

 

I am getting the OCZ Vertex 3. Can I install Windows on it from my Alien respawn which is on my USB 3 stick? I also have ALien respawn on 2 dvds. I have read some people had issues with this, but cannot find it anymore. Or do I have to install everything manually from Win 7 DVD + install all drivers? I was happy with the factory setup. OR is there any other easy way to get factory setup on my new SSD? THANK YOU

 

i recommend factory install to get your proper 500MB/s ..... i have the agility 3 and was worried i wouldnt achieve the sata 3 speeds.... will check tonight but i was getting it yesterday

the install took like 40 minutes for everything.... a fresh install is always the best thing to do

 

Thank you for you answer. Will an install from my alien respawn-created recovery USB 3 stick also install a similar recovery partition with alien respawn on my new ssd? It would leave me with about 50 GB left on the new ssd I guess lol

 

UPDATE with my Vertex 3 on the M14x : achieving 500+ MBs using these steps on Read
Write is still very sporadic
Installed Vertex 3 again using these steps thanks ted264 +1

1. Fresh install W7x64
2. Install Wifi Drivers from resource disk
3. Windows Update (restart)
4. Install all drivers from Resource disk except RST and SATA drivers (restart)

2 benchmarks one after step 3


One after step 4


Definitely a huge improvement over the Intel G2 the laptop feels much faster. Had 1 BSOD before I installed drivers around step 3 but after step 4 everything seems to be running fine.

 

still going strong on the sata 3 speeds for a week now! altho 1 small problem when the computer is in sleep mode for a few hours 6+ or so i wake it to a "no bootable devices, a quick restart fixes and only happened twice so far... not that big of a deal but wondering if you guys had this?

 

Wow for some reason it looks like SATA 3 is working..Is the laptop stable without RST or SATA drivers? I mean no BSODs or any system lags or anything?

 

mine seems very stable i dont have rst or the sata drivers... only issue is in my previous post

 

And you're running at SATA 6gb/s consistently? Wow that's good news..Hope mine runs stable at SATA 6gb/s as well..Plan on getting an M4 on mine as I don't have the leisure of sending drives for rma..

 

I gave up. The laptop started to get BSOD's after several hours of using the drive. Even after installing RST I was getting BSOD's so I ended up putting the G2 back in and everything is perfect again but back at Sata 2 speeds. Not worth all the effort anymore.

 

Annoying to say the least. I'm also having problems when booting from my m4: sometimes, at random, it gives off the dreaded "a disk read error occurred" message and sometimes it hangs on the Win 7 logo.

This is just a guess, but I'm attributing this to that the system is booting at SATA III speeds (as in without the RST drivers), which it can't really handle, and only when the Intel driver kicks in and reverts it to SATA II does it become stable.

I have changed the RST service from "automatic - delayed start" to "automatic", but that still only helps after boot (if at all, hard to tell).

 

no BSOD here.... but if you read ocz's forums there are a lot of issues with vertex3 agility 3 and solid 3 drives and they have updated firmware a few times and are still working out the kinks....

im kinda glad i got the agility 3 now as i would most likely have tons of issues with the vertex 3

 

Please tell me if buying an 120gb Vertex 3 SSD for 215 EUR is a good thing to do at the moment. Because of their firmware issues and M14X limited time/performance ability to run at SATA 6 speed I decided to wait. But are there any M14X users here with no problems with installed OCZ 3 SSDs??? I read the firmware only slows them down lol

 

Plan on getting an M4 but if the M14x won't run it at SATA 3 speeds, I'm just gonna get a G2..But I really want an M4 to run on SATA 3 speeds..

 

a new firmware 2.09 for vertex 3 is out which is supposed to fix the BSOD issue, why don't you guys try it out, please dont quit now im waiting for a solution so i could buy a vertex 3 for my m14x.

 

Unfortunately, regardless of how well the Vertex 3 works by itself, that doesn't solve the problem of the M14x not being able to handle SATA III speeds

 

.... i get sata 3 speeds consistent for a month now ?

I just didn't install RST drivers

 

The question is - how stable are the sata3 speeds ? I tried without the RST and it was like running a rollercoaster.

 

The vertex 3 without RST was giving me BSOD's. I then installed RST and it was still continuing to give me BSOD's. I now have the Intel 510 SATA 3 120GB SSD installed without RST and I am very happy with the stability. NO BSOD's yet.

 

Don’t you guys ever worry about your expensive SATA 3 SSDs working without RST and having problem as such in your M14X. I mean, the intel’s own SATA driver is not designed to limit the performance but rather a booster. The driver itself offers NCQ , power saving management and a lot new features that doesn’t even support by MS driver. I just wonder why you guys satisfied with such a lame solution to keep a SATA 3 speed.

On the other hand, I’m 100 percent sure my Intel 510 worked SATA3 speed with RST on my new desktop and not even a single BSOD or boot up error for a week.However the same driver gives me boot up error 0X00000e9 every day in my M14x, and will freeze randomly as hell without RST.

What about the long term safty of you SSDs? The SSDs draw only 1 tens of power than a HDD. What if the mother board screw it up with out RST?

 

Here is my bench with Samsung 470 series SATA II

These results are good?

 

Well I purchased this drive knowing that in 3 years I will probably be upgrading... the drive has a 3 years warranty so i'm not to worried about it

Reading about the RST driver is it more for RAID and it does not affect the drive. It seems to be also for Caching the OS when you have a small SSD.

I just need to update my drive firmware when i get the chance


Yes Tsukurimashou That is about the standard for what Sata 2 drive can achieve

 

Have you tried the 2.09 firm update on your vertex3?
I installed the Agi 3 and got sata 3 speeds, with BSDO from start. I did the firmware uptade and got NO BSDO since. (got about 10h of use with all win7 updates... No BSDO and freezing so far...)

Since I'm traveling and staying in hotels till next week, its hard for me to keep testing dif configs. Since each hotel has a differente crapy internet conection.

But I think It's worth testing 2.09 firmware without SATA and RST drivers.

 

Helo everyone,
Well, I've been using my Mx14 for about 30 days now, and here is what I'm getting:

When I first start using the Agility 3 120gb with 2.06 firmware, I got BSOD all the time, with all sorts of configs. Impossible to use.

So I updated to the 2.09 firmware.

1. With RST, 7 days tests, 12h a day hard use = Sata2 speeds, very stable.

2. Without RST, 25 days, 12h a day of hard use = SATA 3 SPEEDS, VERY STABLE.

Benchmark Below:

 

This looks good, happy to see that it finally works. Please tell me what space you had left over after format, win 7 install + SP1 + updates and drivers and Alienrespawn recovery partition (if you have one).

Thank you I have been on stand by with buying Vertex 3 120 G. Now I see some results. Well done man. I hope for you it will only get faster.

 

Hey Man, go for it, I totally recommend. It´s working perfectly for me.

Hummm hard to tell how much space cause I didn´t do all at once, but now that I have all of it (Win 7 sp1 + updates and drivers) Win folder is using 21. gb.

Also, I was not able to use the Alienrespawn recovery partition to intall on the SSD. Anyone did it? I would be glad to and use all the original layouts and skins.

 

Is your SSD still performing good? Yes !?!

 

how do you guys get rid of the RST driver without reinstalling?

 

I received my M14x last week, and of course I bought my SSD of choice before reading through this thread. Well today I'm *cough* attempting *cough* installation.

So far, just in installing windows, Wifi card drivers, and windows updates, I've had one BSOD, and 8 hangs on startup. Nothing else is installed so far. I will try to do a benchmark and see what I get, but it looks like I will at least have to install the chipset drivers to maybe see some stability. Very frustrating.

Open to any ideas, use my lappy as a test bed. Specs are in my sig.

Matt