Crucial 256GB SSD (for my G71Gx-A1)

I just ordered one of these off of Ebay. Should have it and my laptop in a couple of days, that's if the guy on Ebay actually has the SSD in stock. I tried to order one from Techsunny.com and they did not have them in stock as their web site had indicated. I informed them I would not be purchasing from them in the future if they can't even be honest about availability.

Anyway, I was hoping some of you had experience with SSD's and wanted to give some input. I've done a lot of research, specifically, I've read all the articles on AnandTech.com, which seems to be the best source for useful info on SSD's. It's a lot to read but if you're going to spend $500-$1000 on one of these, I recommend you check it out.

I could give a brief summary of the AnandTech articles if any of you are interested, but the most important thing to note is that some of the SSD's out there are just crap. Really expensive crap. On the other hand, people that have used some of the good SSD's say it's the best computer upgrade they've ever bought.

Anyway, I hope to hear from some of you that already have SSD's and I'll post my experiences as soon as I get mine.

 

I am running a SuperTalent UltraDrive ME 64GB with my 320GB stock HDD. Obviously the SSD is for OS, HDD for games and music and crap. I had two SSD's in raid 0, it was awesome, but I really did not need all that performance so I gave my dad my extra drive.

I am VERY jealous of your purchase of the 256GB version!!!! That is a sick SSD, and puts mine to shame! I think that it is the most important piece of hardware in my laptop, and gave me the most real world performance gains. Does that one also run the Idilinx controller?

 

Yes, it runs the Indilinx controller. I looked at the Corsair, I think it does also, but on Newegg everyone that had the Corsair 256GB reported a failure. That's some pretty lame reliability. Tomshardware.com has a great list of the performance of newer SSD's. Only thing missing were some random write tests, but I believe some of the other benchmarks test random write, like PCMark application launch.

I thought about getting a 128GB, especially the Intel, but I think that would be too cramped for me. I do a lot of RAW photo editing, 20-30MB per photo.

 

yea, those intel's are sweet, but i think that you will find your crucial to be more than enough! i used mine for video editing just to see what it could do, and i was blown away with the transfer speeds! how much did you end up paying for that thing?

 

I found a couple for $599 but most at least admitted they were out of stock. I ended up ordering from Ebay for $620+$30 for 2 day shipping. Usually the guys on Ebay really have the item in stock, but I've been burned before.

For video editing, Intel might not be the best choice either. Some of the other drives can be faster for large files, especially the "slower" ones.

 

this is all true. i payed 150 for one 64gb, so it all works out in the end. 2 day shipping!!! you must really want this thing haha

 

I love my ssd, simply made my laptop a pleasure to work with, boots really fast and all programs open in sec or so, playing COD4 im always one of the first inside, and in wow loads places in 1/3 of the time also no lag at all. For me the drive made my laptop experience great, so imo they are worth it.

 

Are we not allowed to express frustration with vendors on here? I could swear I put that TechSunny.com falsely reported the Crucial in stock until after I ordered. It must have been edited.

And yes, I'm very impatient, lol. I figure $30 for 2 day shipping is no big deal since I'm paying $629 for the drive. Actually I'm working away from home too so I want to get it before this job finishes and I'm not here to receive it.

Abula, that's good to hear. I tend to do lots of multitasking and multi tabbed browsing. Of course you have the Cadillac, lol. But I think I'll be happier with the extra capacity.

 

Sweet, the Crucial SSD I ordered from mitxpc124 on Ebay and my G71 both shipped today.

The G71 comes with restore disks so I can install everything on the SSD right?

FYI: ZipZoomFly.com is a pain if you are trying to ship to an address different than your billing address. I had to send them a signed copy of my order before they ship. Which would have been ok if I'd known this in the first place.

 

yes, the G71 should come with restore media.

 

Well ZipZoomFly has done it to me again. They told me yesterday that they had shipped my laptop. Now today they tell me they just received it in stock and it will ship today or tomorrow. I wish NewEgg still had these. I wouldn't have to deal with all this. Yes, I'm impatient but that's no excuse for them to lie to customers.

 

hmmm that is quite a low thing to do to a customer! what made you decide on the G71 vs G51?

 

I don't remember how much I actually looked at the G51, but I like the bigger screen and higher resolution of the G71. Also really like the extra ram. Blu-Ray drive and the styling is a plus also.

Oh, ZipZoomFly did ship my laptop a couple hours ago. I asked for a free upgrade to overnight shipping since they clearly lied to me and they refused.

 

those ba****ds! well i think that you will be pleasantly surprised with the performance and will forget all about those zipzoomfly losers when your games and apps load instantaneously!

 

Ya, I forgot all about them already, now I'm just wearing out the FedEx website, lol.

REFRESH, REFRESH, REFRESH

 

Picked up my Crucial SSD today. G71 not coming until tomorrow so I had to install it on my Alienware. I had an XP disk laying around so I figured what the heck. Rebooting and application launching is very impressive. Some programs install surprisingly fast too. Multitasking significantly improved. Very happy with it so far. Tomorrow I'll have to install Vista on it in the G71.

Windows installation was a little slower than I expected but I think it was limited by the optical read speed.

 

I have the same setup as xcskiier23, except with the q9000. I pulled the OS drive and replaced it with the SSD, then installed Windows 7 RTM and the drivers from Asus. The boot time is fast, programs load instantly, and I have had no trouble at all from this setup. I would love to have a larger SSD so I could put my games on it as well, but even with the OS on the SSD and games on the HDD, performance is excellent.

 

I agree completely with KimoT, the small SSD and large HDD combo is the best bang for the buck IMO. I had the chance to see what Raid 0 was like for a little bit with my SSD's, it was awesome, but I could only put so much on 128 GB! I cant wait to see the future of the SSD and the speeds that should be reached. In a year, our systems will probably be slow and dated....gosh darn technology! Why cant you stay the same for a while!?

 

Close your eyes, quit reading the forums, then technology will stay the same.

OK, got my G71GX in!!! Very impressed so far. Load times for the restore disk was a little longer than I expected but oh well.

QUESTIONS:
1. What tool do you guys use to resize partitions? Anything free? Maybe I picked the wrong options but it split both my disks.

2. How the crap do I use SetFSB? I change the value to 6/7, the clock goes up, i change it to 7/7, the clock goes back to stock.

 

Gparted live CD is great for resizing partitions. you did pick the wrong option- there should be an option to restore to entire disk. Also visit:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=401345

for using SetFSB. you do NOT touch the 6/7 you change the FSB, the xxx/xxx slider, should be 3 digits.

 

It was set on 5/7. Should I change it back? The other slider is greyed out.

 

yes


10 char

 

I did but slider is still greyed out. I dunno. 6/7 increased the FSB some and it's running great but only about a 7% overclock.

 

did you read the post I directed you to? *edit* pertinent info:


1) Download SetFSB
2) Unzip it and run



3) Select “ICS9LPR604AGLF” as the Clock Generator

Note: This is based on the motherboard of your laptop so if you're trying to do this with a model that is not the Asus G51, you will have to search around online for the correct clock generator for your model.

The G71's clock generator should be 9LPRS929AKLF. There apparently appears to be an issue with SetFSB and Task Scheduler though so it may be better for you to just use the overclocking utility provided by Asus for the G71s.

4) Click “Get FSB”
5) If you’re running stock clocks, the current FSB should be 200.0
6) Move the top slider (corresponds to 500/760 in the picture above) until you get the desired FSB. To get your new speed after overclocking multiplier the Select FSB by 10 to get the speed in MHz.

Note: The above statement regarding multiplying the Select FSB by 10 is true for the P7350 in the Best Buy models. For other processors and/or models, it is likely that the calculations would be different. To get it, once you get the FSB, just divide the Current FSB from your stock clock in MHz to get the factor you multiply by.

7) Click “Set FSB” and the bottom right should show you’re new clocks.
8) Download CPU-Z (version 1.52 does NOT appear to work right now), HWMonitor, and Orthos.
9) Start up all three programs and run Orthos for a few minutes. In CPU-Z check that your CPU will reach the clocks that you overclocked to and that the temperatures aren’t crazy in HWMonitor. Anything past 80C I would say would be very abnormal. If Orthos stops at any time, it means that your overclock is somewhat unstable. Take this with a grain of salt, though. Orthos will most likely stress your CPU other than any normal usage should.

Notes: When you are overclocking, it is recommending to go slowly, maybe 25Mhz at a time. If you overclock too much, you may get a BSOD. That is normal and means that you simply overclocked too much. Just simply restart and your CPU clocks will boot at stock.

It seems like with the P7350, the maximum you can go to is around 2.5Ghz. Every processor is different, however, and there is no guarantee that your processor may overclock at all.

If you found that after you overclocked, CPU-Z is not showing the increase in clock speed or is even showing one that is lower than the stock clocks, remember that you have the CPU under load before the correct speed is shown. When idle, the CPU automatically downclocks to a 6.0 multiplier, giving you the misleading impression that you didn't get the correct increase in clock speeds.

 

Ah, sorry, thought the link was for the partition program. Thanks so much!

 

np.




10chars

 

I had the FSB up to about 540 at one point, clock speed was a little over 2.3GHz. Tried to go higher, system froze. Now I can't get it to clock even to 460. If I use the default clock generator and select 6/7. I can still get 2.134GHz. Not sure what is going on. Maybe the generator in your link for the G71 is for a different model.

 

you'd have to open up your laptop and find the clockgenerator listed on your board then.

 

Got gparted to work, great tip, thanks. I tried to set it up on a USB drive since I didn't have any blank CD's handy. That was a big hassle. Got me a blank CD and it went very smooth that way.