Alienware owners with Samsung PM800 SSD - TRIM now available!

Understood, which is why I stated they will replace a drive if it has issues (IE. data transfer speed drops to an unacceptable level), but even if they do replace the drive, there is no garantee it will have TRIM, though some here have had TRIM enabled replacements given to them.

 

Question everyone. How do you determine what firmware your on?

Searching on the net shows that Samsung used to have a utility, but I cant find it. I also saw on the first page, the poster was using something called CDI, but I cant find that on the net at all.

I just got a new Dell M15x on the 22nd, and I want to make absolutley sure I got what I expected (quality). So if it isnt the latest firmware, and it cant be updated, I need to send it back to where it came from.

Thanks in advance for your help.

John

 

Here you go. CrystalDiskInfo

 

I came across this today, the results are interesting as in that test the PB22 drives appeared to be faster than the PM800 drives in the passmark test.
Then again we don't know how full the drives where etc but it's interesting anyway.

DELL e4200 ???? Samsung SSD ?????? - Mobile01 ????


TT 1.8 CDM. I get 1,020.4 passmark for my drive a 256GB MMDPE56GTDXP PBJJ 1.8 with 26GB used and that does support TRIM.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/att...y-vaio-tt-series-owners-thread-ssdcrystal.jpg

 

Same thing just happened to me. I flashed on dell D620, i thought it asked for a reboot so I rebooted. Now its asking for a password on every reboot and I cannot complete the second step.
Any ideas on how to bypass this? I have tried Dell Precision M6400, HP 6930p, Acer 8920g, and clevo m57ru, and none of them work. Dell D620 is about the only laptop that successfully allowed maindiag.exe to detect the ssd and now I cannot get it to boot at all.

 

YAY, I found a way around my problem. Had to boot with a different SATA drive, get past POST and press F12 to bring up the boot from menu.
Once the menu appears remove the SATA drive and stick in the SSD select choose USB drive to boot from and load up maindiag to proceed with the next phase.

 

Wonder if this would work with the Samsung drive I got from HP? MMDOE56G5MXP-0VBH1. Current firmware is VBM1AH1Q

 

Can confirm hot swapping drive during post boot works.

I have a hp branded ssd with that firmware. Got Bored waiting for firmware from hp. I dont think they will ever bring it out.

boot from usb stick with normal sata drive. then when maindiag menu is displayed swap with ssd and you should be able flash firmware.

Tryed and tested on xps m1710 before warrenty returned for m17xr2.

 

Thanks, I'll give it a shot then. I have a Shuttle desktop with G33 chipset, will that work? Or just use my laptop (HP Envy 14)?

So basically boot with normal hard drive in my Shuttle using USB with program from first post, then after running maindiag, swap the main drive with my SSD then flash? Should I be in IDE mode or AHCI?

Thanks so much, I really hope this works. I'm quite a bit irked at HP for this crap.

edit: anywhere else I can get the maindiag.exe file. Link in first page is down.

 

Hi,

Should be ide settings. Only tested on dell laptops. dont know about hp or shuttle pc.

Worth a shot i suppose. Hope it works for you

 

Dell has finally released an official update for these Samsung SSD drives

see link for the M17x, should be the same for the M15, and M11

Drivers & Downloads

 

So, is this firmware only for SSD's with VBM25D1Q/VBM1AD1Q firmware, or does it upgrade any Dell/Samsung SSD to VBM25D1Q/VBM1AD1Q firmware?

I didn't see where it listed any supported SSD's, just supported Dell computer models.

It will be interesting what people find here...

 

I have attached the pdf file with the instructions and reference list for the compatible drives and Firmware

 

They also released a new driver for the PM800. its called intel rapid storage technology. it replaces the intel matrix driver. It really increased my read and right speeds.

 

Am I right to assume this firmware will also work for a Studio XPS 1340 even though it is not listed in compatibility list?

 

As long as the drive and firmware is one of the ones listed in the update should work

Having said that, there maybe still a problem flashing the drive itself on different platforms. So if you can get it to work on the 1340, try it on a different computer

 

doe flashing erase the data on the drive?

 

Yes, it is a destructive update. All data will be erased on the drive.

 

Can't download PDF, it hangs after about 10% in. Not sure if temporary problem or not?

edit: downloaded and says file is damaged and cannot be repaired.

 

works fine for me

but if you dl the BIOS file from Dell it has the pdf included

 

I have a problem: I followed everything PDF said with the bootable USB drive, etc. I successfully installed the new firmware. Now, however, after it was installed, I turned off the computer, removed the USB stick, and went to reconfigure my BIOS (AHCI back to IRRT, Diskette at top of boot order, etc). I closed the BIOS configuration to start the computer, only to get "No boot sector on Internal HDD (IRRT)...No bootable devices"

What do I do?!?!

 

can anyone confirm that the firmware update gives some sort of boost in speed? ...or what would be the benefit to installing the firmware update otherwise? i'm not sure if i want to do a reinstall lol.

 

After the firmware flash is done, you have to start with a freash OS install incouding formatting the drive

the BIOS should be set to AHCI to work with the SSD drive

 

we believe that the firmware update makes the SSD support TRIM, but I still have not seen anyone who has flashed it confirm that.

 

I did the flash and it erases the drive. However, I used True Image to Restore.

I am using a Dell Precision M6500.

There is a bug in the current True Image Boot Disk and you need to contact Acronis to get an updated one.

 

can you confirm if TRIM is now supported

check with crystaldiskinfo

 

Trim was supported in the last firmware as well as the updated.

 

^did u notice any speed increase or run crystakdiskmark for any benches?

 

I did not notice a significant increase. My firmware was VBM24D1Q. After the upgrade it is now VBM25D1Q.

Maybe because I did a disk restore oppose to a new install.

 

is there also an update for the VBM15D1Q drives?

 

i have big problem after i run maindiag.exe and select option 2 i tried to run option 1 but it doesnt work.

I turned on the pc but now before i can start the bios it asked for a HDD Password (lenovo T410s) but i doesnt know it.

What can i do? Before I tried to flash the ssd i disable all passwords in Bios. And my old password doesnt work.

Any idea?

 

If your talking about a BIOS password then you will most likely have to call IBM and get them to give you a back door password.

 

Nope, and supposedly there won't. You can use Tony Trim method to restore some of the performance to the drive though.

 

I've got an XPS 1645 with a 128gb ssd that looks eligible for the update but as they don't list any XPS models I wondered if anyone has done an upgrade using one of these yet?

 

download crystaldiskinfo and it'll tell u exactly what model and revision your ssd is. then you can just check it against the list from dell to see if it's eligible for the update.

 

Yes my version is listed in the pdf doc that comes with the upgrade. The query I had was why the XPS models weren't listed under the compatibility section of the driver download site and made me wonder if there is an issue specific to the XPS machines that stopped it working.

I suppose I'll give it a go then.

 

My drive: SAMSUNG PM800 256GB with firmware: VBM19D1Q is listed as compatible for the update (its even used in the download guide!) but does not work for me! Error after scanning in DOSRD1_0.EXE: "No supported SSD(s) detected for firmware download"

After months of trying to get the mushkin update to work with countless pc's I was so excited about this.

 

what computer are you trying to do this on ?

laptop, Desktop ?

The update does not work on all computers, I had to try 5 different ones before I got it to work.

The Port has to be in AHCI or IDE mode.

The drive also should be on sata Port 0 if possible

 

Thank you for replying! So far I've only tried Dell Latitude D631 (european model). I can't find any option to change my drive mode to IDE or ACHI in my bios. I tried updating the bios to A10, but it only made bootup slower. :S ( latitude D631 - Dell - Search - All Dell.com) But would the DOSRD1_0.EXE app even launched if I weren't in the correct drive mode??

 

yes it will launch OK, just will not be able to execute the firmware update.

usually it does not see the SSD drive.

 

Thank you! It worked with a desktop at work! So happy.
Is there anything else I should do now before installing a new os/partion?

Are my speeds what they should be?:

 

Hi what's your WEI? Or better still, what're your CrystalDiskMark scores like?

I've got the same firmware VBM24D1Q currently but on a 128 GB drive. Have had a drop in WEI (6.8 to 5.9) and not sure why. Wondering if it's worth the hassle of updating the firmware.

My current scores:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 198.219 MB/s
Sequential Write : 138.266 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 159.453 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 107.033 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 13.317 MB/s [ 3251.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 4.532 MB/s [ 1106.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 23.631 MB/s [ 5769.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 5.544 MB/s [ 1353.6 IOPS]

Test : 100 MB [C: 64.4% (76.8/119.2 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/08/31 22:36:32
OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

 

Hi, using crystal disk info I have seen that the samsung drive has TRIM supported, but does that mean that TRIM is being used right now or I have to do something to enable it?

On a side note, my alienware will not let me do the RUN command as an administrator (which i am) the option is greyed out. So I cannot even do the "fsutil....." to check if TRIM is working. Why is it greyed out :S ?

Any help will be appreciated, thanks!

 

Your SSD supports TRIM feature just use the MS AHCI driver or Intel RST driver.

Admin rights, hmm.. not sure on this since I only use the default user account and haven't had that problem ever.

 

How do I see which driver I'm using? Its odd, I can run any other program as administrator except the run command

thanks for the help!

 

Is this how you tried to run the CMD?
Start menu > type "CMD" > run as admin?


Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers > Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller > properties > driver

 

Go to device manager to check drivers. I don't think it's as simple as just the drivers though - I thought it was firmware dependent.

I think CrystalDiskInfo does report on whether your SSD is doing TRIM. I used HD Tune 2.55 as well to double-check and this program (as well as CDI) reported a change when I went from a firmware disabled TRIM to one with TRIM enabled for my Samsung PM800 SSD (i.e. TRIM enabled!).

Finally have you tried just opening command prompt directly without using run from the start menu (right click and open as administrator)?

By the way, have you got a Samsung PM800? If you have I'll be interested in your crystaldiskmark speeds and WEI score for drive.

 

All the above said DOES NOT guarantee you that your SSD is doing the TRIM. It only tells you that if your SSD is supporting TRIM feature or not and if the TRIM feature is enabled on your OS (fsutil).

Best thing to do is to use either MS AHCI driver or Intel RST driver on your SSD.

 

I see what you mean. Mine looks exactly the same as yours with those 2006 drivers. Guess I've got TRIM going and still have no explanation for a 1.0 point drop in WEI for primary hard disk performance.

 

My path was slightly different and the driver was listed as just "intel". No I was not using that way to run as admin. I found a shortcut to elevate my access rights (start -> search "CMD" -> ctrl+shift+enter) and that opens the command prompt as administrator.
I checked fsutil and "disabledeletenotify=0" which is supposed to mean TRIM is working. So I'm very happy in that respect. Thanks a lot for your help, greatly appreciated!

I haven't downloaded Crystaldiskmark yet but my WEI for drive is 7.2 for the samsung pm800. I was lucky I guess because buying my laptop when I did, it already came with all the latest updates etc (it arrived yesterday ).