m14x Problem (irregular boot times after replacing hdd with ssd)

good day!

two days ago replaced my hdd with a m4 256gb ssd and placed the 750gb hdd in my optical drive via caddy. after installing windows, it booted up in a breeze (15 secs) after installing a couple of drivers (RST, OSD n Chipset) its still booting up in 15 secs. but after i installed Intel Graphics Driver it took a long time to boot and i thought something was wrong, so i did a restart and went to safemode and reinstall the driver again. after install i rebooted and it booted fast again. after booting up i went ahead and installed nvidia driver. restarted and i took forever (3-5 mins).

i was trying to figure out whats wrong so i kept on restarting my m14x. there are times when it booted in 30 secs but there were times when it took 2-3 mins to boot. i went ahead and installed the remaining drivers (following the order given by someone here in the forums, thanks for the poster :-D). after installing the driver n updating windows 7. during shutdown phase it was stuck on the logging off screen for an hour after which i turned it off by holding the alien head. i did a couple more reboots (normal reboot, safe reboot) but still it would boot in minutes! it did boot fast every once in a while but it isnt acceptable since i have a brand new ssd in there. i did get a BSOD once. but only once.

im truly truly lost here guys. i hope someone can help me or give me some suggestions. thanks for your time and contributions!


have a nice day

 

Interesting

Keep us inform as i will soon replace my hard disk drive too

 

I had the same issiue - but that was without the RST driver that make win sometimes boot 30 ++ sec. I was never able to install the intel graphic driver since I just got an bluescreen with "bios error" and when restoring windows it would take a minutt to go into windows. -_-

I have however made an official post at the alienware forum regarding SATA6 issiue so if they respond maybe we need some more.

 

If you remove all external storage devices (USBs, hard drives, etc.) then boot it will work.

 

Found something that helps alot with issues concerning Intel RST and SSD.

After reading all the complaints I got curious and installed RST to see if it caused problems.... well it did haha. Not only did it effect the speed of my drive but it also caused massive hang ups as RST started and lowered the speed of my 2nd drive from 3Gb/s to 1.5Gb/s. After some digging I found this.

I followed the steps listed to basically turn off the power management of RST for port0 (where my m4 sits). After I did this all my issues washed away.

I realize this is said to be an issue with c300 and c400 drives but I wouldnt doubt others are effected as well. Anyway hope this helps some. Laterz

 

good evening guys!

i just came home. i tried to boot my m14x again. safe boot (only ms services) i tried it 3 times. it booted up in about 25 secs. so i tried to uninstall RST, after doing so its booting way much faster now. But there was a time when it took way longer to shutdown. im wondering if i should open and check my connections to my ssd and optical bay hdd. will post if there are anything new.

Thanks for your inputs guys

update: after uninstalling, boot up time is still irregular! after the windows boot animation (windows logo warping in from the middle of the screen) the fastest it booted up in was 3 secs, but it also took as long as 10 secs. i did 5 reboots and each one was different.

 

Oh.. I see, keep me posted! I hope we can help each other here!

cheers!

 

After encountering problems with multiple vertex 3 max iops I switched to intel 510 elmcrest drive. As expected intel's own product works perfectly with RST driver so it works smoothly in my m14x

Guess I will stick to intel SSDs for life

 

ok guys! i opened up my m14x and removed+reconnected everything, after that i fired up windows and restarted it 5 times and so far it has booted up almost instantaneously! i hope it stays like this *fingers-crossed*

Note: I dont have intel RST installed.

will continue to test and will update you guys =D

 

guess i should have bought the 510! m4 was way cheaper and almost as fast if not faster! too bad! i wasted good $$$ for my m4

 

So you getting Sata6 speed all the time stable ? : o

ATM my c300 starts with sata6 and goes down, but I going to try that guide that the guy made and see how that will work.

 

not stable, some times boot as sata 3gb/s. But certainly not causing problems like random freeze, long booting etc.

At least at the end of installation of win7 sp1+ a couple of programs, that is about 2 hours of time in operation, atto still reports R/W of 450/220 MB/s

 

I have posted this before as a link but I will post the actual fix just incase.

Basically the issue is with RST power management and Curcial SSDs... They don't play well together. This fix turns the power management part of RST off for whatever Port (Main HD slot for M14x is Port0).

1. Go to Start-> Run..

2. Type in RegEdit and hit the Enter Key..

3. Go to the following Key location to insert or configure the registry keys for LPM:

Code:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic​es\iaStor\Parameters\

4a. Right click "Parameters" select "New" then "Key" name it "Port0".

4b. Left click "Port0" to open and in the pane with Name/Type/Data, Right click select "New" then "DWORD" and name the new value "LPM".

4c. Repeat 4a/4b "LPMDSTATE" and "DIPM".

5. When you want to ad the other Ports also to registry, then repeat the steps from 4a to 4c and name it Port1, Port2, Port3, Port4 and Port5.

6. Reboot.

You can also make an easy file to do this by coping and pasting the following into Wordpad and saving it as a *.reg file.

---START BELOW---
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servi​ces\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

--END ABOVE---

FYI the part above only turns it off on port0

 

Wow very interesting!!!

 

whats the deal with SSD's like is it better to have them over the HDD i know there faster but downgrading from 750gb to 256gb doesnt that make a big impact? i dont quite understand the differences all that well.

 

You have a lot of reading to do my friend, but I'll give you the summarized example.

Typical startup:

Boot Windows - 45 Seconds
Load Outlook - 10 Seconds
Load Gimp/Photoshop - 30 seconds

SSD Config:

Boot Windows - 10 seconds
Load Outlook - 1.2 seconds
Load Gimp/Photoshop - 5 seconds

Now add up eveverything you do, day to day, and everything you click on, and cut the time it takes to load, or open, in half, if not more.

 

+1 on what Conspiracy said.

And bear in mind the 2.5in laptop HDD is much slower than desktop 3.5in drives, which is not very fast already.

Personally I think dual SSD+NAS is the future, and is what I am using right now

 

Yes i understand the speed differnces and the difference in how they are made and how the operate but whats the difference in the sizes. I mean a 64 gb ssd is about same price as 500gb HDD so like that seems like a huge difference in my mind but then again im new to this stuff.

 

quick question guys,

do i really need RST?

i have an m4 256gb in port0
and
a 750gb momentus in my optical caddy port2

if i dont install RST, will something go wrong?

thanks!!

 

I'm not an expert by any means, but I read somewhere on this forum that the RST drivers are for RAID configuration, and power management. I've also read that they play friendly with Intel drives, but not Crucial. So if you're using a crucial drive, no RAID config, and you can manage the power options through Windows...

Short answer, no, leave them off.

 

You are basically in the same boat I was.

I ended up having an issue with power management when doing a long transfer of music from my old computer to my 750Gb drive over my wireless network. I installed RST and edited my reg to turn off the power management portion of RST on Port0 and havent had any issue since.

The 1 thing I did notice that RST adds is a set of drivers orginally not shown in my Device manager. I didnt really get a chance to look them all up but I know they were not there as unknown device prior to my install of RST.

 

@Conspiracy & @2GStyle

THANKS GUYS :-D

+REP

 

Anybody with an M4 experiencing boot up issues? I always get an error message right after BIOS at least two or three times until I get a successful boot. Makes it almost comparable to an HDD boot up!

 

So RST yes or NO ?

 

YES, in my experience you need NCQ that comes with RST =D

 

Just follow the regedit steps posted earlier, and install the software. It resolved my issue with the lock-ups of Windows 7 and my OCZ Vertex 2 drive.

 

Terrifique glad to hear that