The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Studio XPS 1340 SSD Slow

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by peterf, May 21, 2012.

  1. peterf

    peterf Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    8
    Messages:
    171
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I installed a Crucial M4 128GB in my Studio XPS 1340 and the benchmarks aren't great. I'm not sure why they're so slow. I have the nVidia Chipset drivers installed and CrystalDiskInfo shows that TRIM is enabled and 4K aligned. Has anyone else installed an SSD in theirs and could compare results? Thanks.

    [​IMG]
     
    peterf, May 21, 2012
    #1
  2. ForeverZen

    ForeverZen Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    94
    Messages:
    744
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    That looks about right for a crucial m4, slowest write speed of any sata3 ssd.
     
    ForeverZen, May 21, 2012
    #2
  3. peterf

    peterf Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    8
    Messages:
    171
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    31
    No, it's going too slow. This is what the M4 looks like on SATA3

    [​IMG]

    The Studio XPS 1340 is only SATA2, but SATA2 should be able to write at around 250MBps, as it can read at much faster than 30MBps.

    Why are you hating on the M4? It's fast, reliable, and cheap.
     
    peterf, May 22, 2012
    #3
  4. ForeverZen

    ForeverZen Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    94
    Messages:
    744
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    That's what it looks like on sata 3, and the write speeds aren't even close to what crucial says they are.

    The m4 is one of the slowest ssd's around bud.
     
    ForeverZen, May 22, 2012
    #4
  5. peterf

    peterf Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    8
    Messages:
    171
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    31
    Those are actual SATA3 write speeds on the M4. That's plenty fast. SATA2 is still 3GBps, 30MBps is only 240Mbps, no where near 3GBps.
     
    peterf, May 22, 2012
    #5
  6. ForeverZen

    ForeverZen Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    94
    Messages:
    744
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    3gbps/6gbps is referring to the bus speed, not the read or write speed.
     
    ForeverZen, May 22, 2012
    #6
  7. peterf

    peterf Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    8
    Messages:
    171
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I know, but looking at the second picture it's obvious that the M4 can write at faster than 30MBps. The problem isn't the bus speed as that is much faster than 30MBps. It is only writing at 30MBps in the Studio XPS 1340 while on desktop it got pretty much the same thing as the second picture. There IS something wrong here. I want to know if the chipset in the 1340 is limited to writing at 30MBps or if there is some kind of driver issue.
     
    peterf, May 22, 2012
    #7
  8. Mr.High-Pinger

    Mr.High-Pinger Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    1
    Messages:
    184
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    False.
    M4 write performance surpass the ones of the popular corsair performance and vertex drives. and performance on compressed data is superb compared to the sandforce drives which uses aggressive compression to perform well.
    and with the price of the m4 it is still a good buy.

    Crucial m4 128GB SATA 6G Solid State Drive Review - Benchmarks - CrystalDiskMark :: TweakTown USA Edition



    Yep it is probably something with the nvidia chipset used on the 1340. Can you change to ACHI in bios for the sata-mode?
    Another solution might be to check out if you can bridge some pins on the m4 for forcing it into sata2 mode. It feels like it is now in battl with the chipset on how to act performance or so.
     
    Mr.High-Pinger, May 22, 2012
    #8
  9. Mike48236

    Mike48236 Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    For SSD's to perform correctly on the 1340, you need to change the Nvidia SATA AHCI driver to the Standard Microsoft AHCI driver. Nvidia abandoned driver development on this chipset early, so it was never updated to fully support SSD's (drives will work, but no true Trim support and low speeds).

    The MS AHCI driver works, though.
     
    Mike48236, Jun 19, 2012
    #9
  10. peterf

    peterf Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    8
    Messages:
    171
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    31
    Yes I noticed that the Nvidia driver is crap. It was actually causing the computer to lock up. I compared an older version of the driver (released for Vista x64) with the Microsoft driver and they seemed to perform at the same speed. I went with the Nvidia driver because it was made for the chipset, but if it doesn't support Trim I will switch to the Microsoft one.
     
    peterf, Jun 19, 2012
    #10