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

So far the BSODs and Startup hangups seem to have disappeared since installing Chipset drivers. Seems stable so far.

Initial test, after installing only Windows:



Tests after installing all drivers and windows updates (Except IRST):

 

Still stable? Those are clearly SATA III speeds. Is this with the Cougar Point chipset driver minus the RST driver?

 

Stable in Windows it seems now. On about one third of the bootups or restarts, it hangs. Definitely a SSD/Sata issue. Restarts fine every time with the original HDD installed. Also, in Crystal Disk Info, the power on count remains the same whenever it hangs on boot.

Its a minor annoyance, reboot and it works. No BSODs or any other crashes in windows after installing the Chipset drivers. I've never installed the RST drivers on this drive.

 

Same here, occasionally hangs on boot but rock solid in Windows. Unfortunately only with the RST driver though, my m4 becomes totally unreliable without it.

 

Hello ! (Please excuse my bad English ).

I've been following this thread because of the same problems since i started to benchmark my m14x (R1 - French...) and the OCZ Vertex 3 240 GB and i would like to provide my answers to this topic...

I'm currently running this setup stable and SATA-III 6 Gbps for about a week now...

FACTS :

Same benchmark results :

* About 250 MB/s read | 250 MB/s write : SATA-II Speed... and not SATA-III
* Intel RST mad: ...) claims at launch SATA 6 Gbps Bus speed, but as soon as i started benchmarking, control panel shows SATA 3 Gbps...

RESOLUTION :

1/ Updated the firmware of the OCZ Vertex 3 with the 2.11 Firmware (see here and here).

Please notice that i did NOT perfom a fresh and clean install (erase, format, Win 7 x64 setup...) it wasn't necessary, time will tell me if this was a good choice ^^.

2/ Removed/Uninstalled the Intel RST from the system.
3/ Reboot, once and again... (windows asked me to...)

4/ Perfomed speed test and...





Not so bad, compared to the previous results...

And still no freeze on this setup.

 

So, your specs are great. With my M14x and vertex 3 drive i see totally other things. Without Intel RST driver and so with MS AHCI driver my system goes from UltraDMA6 mode to PIO4 mode and so the result is a slow system with much CPU overhead.
With Intel RST driver i stay on UltraDMA6, everything stable but with sataII speeds.
You are a lucky guy.

 

I have an agility 3 and have been on sata 3 for 2 solid months now..... no RST installed at first i was getting random (once in a blue moon) no bootable devices found! when the computer was asleep for more then 12 hours.... now since i installed windows 7 SP1 i have yet to have issues....

 

Agree... it seems that the performance issue is caused by either the ssd or chipset/driver and the solution is : ... random...

i tried something random... i did not think it would work...

 

Got my Intel 510 250gb yesterday. Did a fresh Win7 install and installed all drivers, included RST. It was giving me SATA III speed the whole day and everything was working good.

Today when booting up my m14x i got alot of errors and could not enter Win7 at all. Even after continuously rebooting.

Will have to do a fresh install today also now. So i will try some of the power tweaking going around here. Maybe try to not install RST and see if it gets stable.

Not fun at all.

 

Get Rid Of The 510 Ssd As Soon As Possible

 

Yeah i will se how it ends up. Its sad if i need to leet it go. How is yours working?

 

it doesn't work and most likely won't work...check out the 510 ssd poll and the numerous threads here about problems. i had to return mine and take a restocking fee loss.

 

So which is the preferred ssd, say 120gb for our m14's?

 

Portuguese:
Blz cara? Estou querendo colocar um SSD no meu alien, e pelo visto você foi uma das unicas pessoas que conseguiram sem ter problema. Estou na duvida entre o Crucial e o Ocz, qual que vc me recomenda? Como seria so pra windows, devo pegar um pequeno mesmo de 60gb. Está rodando normal, ou ta dando os problemas ainda? Vlw!


English (sorry my bad english )
Hi, i wanna buy a SSD to my alien m14x, and I'd like some help. Im doubt between Crucial and Ocz, what will be better? Is just for Windows, so i wanna get a small drive like 60gb. Is running everything great, or are u getting problems? Thanks.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Alienware M14x--
Core i7 2720QM --8gb DDR3 1600mhz 1600x900p--3gb 555m GT
500gb 7200rps(Upgrading to SSD)
Killer WirelessN 1103--Soundblaster X-Fi --Bt 3.0

 

Crucial i think ... by the way im Brazilian too.

 

thx dude!

mas vc ta conseguindo rodar com o ssd sem problema?to na duvida se compro ja o ssd ou espero resolver esse negocio se trava..da erro no boot..

 

Hey guys, I`m Brazilian too.

I`ve been using OCZ Agility 3 for almost 3 months now. Without Intel RST drivers. No problens so far!

Both Crucial and OCZ seems to be good options.

Good luck to you!

 

I have other friends that are using OCZ SSDs and they all had to update to 2.09.
All problems solved so far.

 

vc instalou um outro windows no ssd ou passou o recevery para o ssd?so perderia as skins e o tema da alienware ne..axo q vo comprar um ssd de 60gb intao so para o windows ja q vc conseguiu rodar sem problema

 

For those using the Crucial m4, I can report that the new firmware 0009 doesn't solve anything Still running at SATA II and randomly hangs on boot.

 

Hallo everyone, just bought OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 120GB. Are there any important and/or necessary steps to take before installing Windows 7 on it from the installation disk? Or I just replace the Hard Disk with SSD and go straight to installing?

Thank you for any answer. Peace

 

YEEESSSS!!!!

Clean installed win7 from Alienware win7 DVD, SP1, all updates, Microsoft Security Centre. The 120 GB Vertex 3 MAX IOPS SSD is 111 GB after format and now I have 93.5 GB free. Luckily it runs SATA III, I hope it stays that way. ATTO shows max 504 MB write and 480 MB read (yes, write is higher). AND as this is my first SSD, I am overall VERY impressed. No firmware SSD updated. If you need any extra info, let me know. Btw, I installled no RST and I used newest Intel chipset driver from Intel webpage.

 

Is the intel driver newer than the on in Dell? If you can give me the link that would be great!

 

Yes, it is a newer version. Dell is 1019, this is 1030.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...oduct=Mobile+Intel®+6+Series+Chipset&lang=eng

 

Hey guys,

I just installed the Plextor PX-256M2S 256GB SSD. I used Acronis to clone my factory 500gb HD then just swapped the drives. I booted up and ran a bench on ATTO. I attached the results. It's a SATAIII drive currently running SATAII but the Read AND Writes are incredibly fast and well balanced. I have rock solid stability which is why I chose Plextor over OCZ/Crucial. I know it's not as fast as those drives but the reliability of the Plextor based SSDs are amazing. I don't see anyone with failures or freezing issues. This drive is supposed to peak at 480MB read, 330Write. I don't care enough at the moment to push it harder. 280 is fast enough for me.

Let me know if you have questions!

BTW - 7.7 WEI running on SATAII. Using RST, and all original settings from cloned drive. I saved a ton of time and headaches by doing this.

 

Well, I've tried about 5 fresh installs and I can not get SATA 6gb/s speed out of my 128gb M4. I'm pretty irritated with dell right now. I would love to be able to fully utilize my drive. Not to mention, I think booting every time I turn on the computer isn't too much to ask.

 

Custom, the only thing I can think of is that maybe the alien ware win7 restore has something different. That is the only difference we have in our systems and my sata is still at 6 and no hangs on boot.

 

Btw, rst with my vertex 2-120gb even with updated firmware = hangs. M4 is running perfect.

 

UPDATE (not so computer-happy now):

So I have had this 120 GB Vertex 3 MAX IOPS SSD for a week now and things changed very rapidly into multiple startup issues and multiple Win7 reinstalls. I had to reinstall Win7+SP1+updates haha about 30 times (from an USB stick lol). Every time I start the system on the next day (from being turned off) I would not be able to get past win logo. Tried all boot repairs - no joint. So far what works for me (this is the second day of running the same copy of Win7) with all drivers newest (Intel Chipset, Intel Graphics, eeeffing RST, and so on), with leaving indexing ON, all cores unparked, and with LPM.reg fix applied to port0, Firmware 2.09, defrag OFF (course), Trim ON, Hibernate OFF, Sys. restore OFF, Latest Bios v5 on defaults- no overclock incl. no memory overclock).

I am getting stable SATA II speeds (with RST). WEI shows still 7.9 btw. Without RST I was getting terrible ATTO values, about 100Mbps with one spike to 300Mbps lol. Yes, I love the SSD, I learned so much about stuff I thought I never have to (bother) to learn. I hope for some new wind from Dell bios/driver police department as I would wish to fully utilise stable SATA III speeds.

 

UPDATE 2 (Much better)

Flashed to newest Firmware 2.13, all above (see the post) settings the same. This is screenshot with RST installed, please note the small file benchmark speeds increase and overall read/write balance.

 

Seems to be running at Sata II speeds but with no hangups or BSOD's? Have you tried without RST to see if you can get Sata III?

 

What is this for?

 

$horty...yes it runs at SATA II speeds, I have no BSODs but I have startup hangups when starting laptop after being turned off about 10 hours. I tried w/o RST, it gave me SATA III 500Mbps max but only on one bar but ATTO started freezing and small file transfer speeds (first 6-7 ATTO bars) were very inconsistent and very low. But as I said, comparing my scores from before, with RST I have better small file speed than without RST. If you have more questions please let me know.

Duna Unha... please read this Solution: C300 Disk Freeze-ups in Windows 7 solved... - Crucial Community
It is for a different SSD brand but I read on OCZ forums that this helps on any SSD having freezes. If you have more questions please let me know.

So, for me this is day 3 without the need to reinstall Win7, today I had 3 freezes on Startup, then everything went/goes normal. As soon as I successfully boot up in Desktop, I do not have any freezes, not even once (incl. gaming, etc.). Only startup after the laptop is being turned off for 8-10 hours gives me headache.

 

I had similar issues, but mine wouldn't boot after being off for about 10 mins, then I would have to try booting 20-30 times before it would go into windows. Turned out to be a motherboard. I had dell send me a new one and I replaced it, now I can boot up every time. SataII speeds now, but at least it boots...

 

Thank you for input. How long does it take to change a motherboard?

 

I have done a lot of computer repair so it took me about 20 mins to swap out motherboards. If it's something you're not comfortable with, dell will have a technician do it for you.

 

I have a photo of my motherboard revision #, customs was a little newer then mine, so i'm assuming the newer ones dont have the issue with RST. But mine is stuck at sataII speeds sometimes also. But yes, it does boot!

http://i.imgur.com/LTWnd.jpg

 

Hello everyone, been running SATA II speeds stable for a week. The only problem is startup (2-3 restarts to boot Win7) from laptop being turned off. Now, looking at other laptop users, (Dell xps, Alienware M17x) for example here at OCZ forum

Guide Laptop sata speed data base...end user input needed

I see that almost everyone in the forum runs SATA III speeds even with Intel RST installled.
Now, I would like to have SATA III speeds, BUT I also see that ATTO speeds of 0.5 - 4 filesizes are always lower when running SATA III speeds than running SATA II speeds (with Intel RST installed in my case).

I can run SATA III speeds without Intel RST installed, but ATTO results are very inconsistent. Now, as far as I read on the net Win7 system mostly utilises 0.5 - 4 - 8 filesizes running system tasks etc, so should I care about large file transfer speed at all (280 vs 550 Mbps)?

Is the speed for m14x SATA III (port 0 and 1) disabled/unsupported in Bios? Or in hardware? Does anyone know this?

 

Ok. Good news for my SATA 6Gbps speeds. Uninstalled Intel RST, restart, uninstalled (SW) SSD, restart, ran WEI 7.9, went to Bios,

****DISABLED C states****THIS WAS THE KEY FOR ME***** (power saving)

Secondarily I already had Disabled Aggressive LPM Support, Disabled spin-up device, disabled hot-plugging on all SATA ports, processor OC to 103.1 and 95-96-99, RAM 1600 manual and I have disconnected and taken out DVD drive from the laptop bay which is now empty (unnecessary - just an info).

Ran ATTO 5 times in a row, the same results. Before disabling C states I had maybe twice stable SATA 6Gbps in ATTO over last 2 months of having an SSD.
I hope someone finds this useful as I am VERY HAPPY.

Unlocked Bios 05 download is in M14X thread.

 

Well I'll be darned....
That worked for me too.
What you can also do, is go into the power menu, then break events, and enable storage break event so that way you can keep your C-states (which help your laptop get better battery life), and still maintain Sata 6gb/s speeds...

 

What do you mean by uninstalled (SW) SSD?

Did you only do that or also all the other steps in bios c69k described in his post?

I just did everything c69k described instead of the overclocking and C-States (But instead enabled storage break) and except uninstall (SW) SSD as I have no idea what that means and I'm still stuck with SATA II speeds.

 

LOL By uninstalling SSD (SW) I meant software uninstalling SSD driver in device manager. After restart (prompted) the system installs it automatically back on. I have read on OCZ forums that it helps with re-detecting SSD in the system.

custom90gt I also Enabled storage break event as per your post now (besides C-states and all other crap), all fine, this is the score. ATTO smallest file transfer speed is none, but this is because I ran ATTO right after restart.

 

Thanks

So I now did everything that you both described in your posts first without the c-states change, as suggested by custom90gt and it didn't do anything for my.

I then also did deactive c-states and these are my results:

Before:



After:





While reading speeds are quite impressive writing speeds are worse now then with SATA II mode (except for 4k).. any idea?

It'd be also very interesting to know what those actualy do (A quick google research wasn't very informative):
- Disable Agressive LPM Support
- Disable spin-up device (Was only set for port 0)
- disable hot-plugging (Was only set for port 3 and 4 which are not the SSD I think)
- enable storage break event

 

Here we go:

- Disable aggressive LPM (link power management) support - disables power saving features for Sata connections. This was recommended by OCZ and Crucial forums, so I just did it.

Solution: C300 Disk Freeze-ups in Windows 7 solved... - Crucial Community

-Disable spin-up - this is something that applies only for classic HDD. After Bios loads the system waits till HDD's gets correct RPM

-Hot plugging - as per OCZ forums must be disabled. In Bios it was already disabled for port 0. Recommended setting is Disabled for all ports. I tried to enable it just for fun, system BSOD.

-Enable storage break event - I also dont know exactly what it does, but I just did it.

As per your low write speeds, maybe wait a bit it might level-up after time. Also, read speeds are important as over 95% of SSD activity is reads.
Also, try enabling/disabling write caching for your SSD in Properties/policies. Enabling write caching has boosted my write speeds (see attachment).

My system is 100% stable now, before I had startup issues (but no BSODs) and only SATA 3Gbps speeds. I hope this lasts.

 

I just disabled energy efficient p-states on top of all above tweaks.

Result is awesome:

 

anyone want to help me how to install the unlock bios? you guys seem like getting good results of the reads and writes. thank you

 

Hi, it is very simple. Download it and run it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m14x/612902-unlocked-bios-05-impressing.html

 

Thanks, rep+

So write cache was already on and disabling it actually made it worse on lower files sizes.
I also disabled p-states but it doesn't seem to have a huge effect on my system:

With C-States disabled:


With C-States and P-States disabled:


With C-States and P-States and write cache disabled :

 

custom90gt thank you +rep

So after all the tweaking this seems to be it. The shiznit.
I should point out, that there is one small trade-off. My processor runs maximum at 2.674,68 Ghz instead of 2.9__,__ Ghz I had before. I have set my High performance Power plan for processor to 5% when plugged in. Minimum speed is 822.98 Mhz. Not a bad trade off for stable SATA 6 Gbps lol at least in my case.

 

With only storage break event enabled (no C-states disabled) my read speeds went to hell and ATTO started freezing and giving me inconsistent values like 832, and the next line was 235 456 lol. But the processor stayed at 2.9 Ghz.

@killbeagle +1