Boot times on 7K500 take one minute hit after installing ICH9 drivers. Why?

I installed Windows 7 on my DM3 with Hitachi 7K500 hard drive. Everything seems ok. Then I install the ICH9 driver. After that, booting takes one minute longer.

Any idea why?

When I do the same thing with WD3200BEKT there is no problem.

The driver is listed as Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=4063&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=4064863#

 

My guess is when you installed the driver, it also installed a hard drive utility software. I remember that happened when I installed the driver from an executable file. Try if you can uninstall the utility from Control Panel.

Note: the cleanest method to install ICH9 driver is by downloading the zip version for floppy drive. Unzip it and install the driver manually from Device Manager.

 

Yes the driver installs 'Intel Matrix Storage manager'.

I'd like to install the driver manually but the the package does not contain a .inf file. I can't find one elsewhere.

 

this should be driver files you want in .zip format.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18053&ProdId=2991&lang=eng

 

Great, that worked.

For future reference: how can I find that driver myself on Intel.com?

 

goto intel.com then click downloads , then product family chipsets, then laptop chipsets , then select mobile series 4 , then drivers and look for the INF Update Utility -​ Zip Format , not the exe format.

 

Thanks.

By the way, is there any point in installing the ICH9 driver? Seems like it has zero impact on performance.

 

Very little performance difference, though in raid it might matter , if you use the free hdtune , i have noticed you get no smart or drive info with the intel driver , but you do with the microsoft one.

 

I noticed that after installing the ICH9 drivers copying a 16GB folder went from 9 minutes to taking 12 minutes.

Now I did a clean install and I am running the MS driver again. It's back to 9 minutes.

I'm not 100% sure it was caused by the driver because I also removed a couple of programs like Avast and Magicvirtualdisk, but I really think the ICH9 causes bad performance on my DM3.

 

and how long does "other" hdd take ?? (pls give us spoiler lol)

edit: now I wonder does the ICH8 driver dated 6/4/2009 affect my hdd.. I'm seriously considering to remove it now

 

OK one spoiler. It was 9:07 for the Hitachi, 9:27 for the WD.

But I can also say there are a couple of benchmarks were the roles were reversed. Review will be published monday (probably).

 

I also have Intel ICH9M drivers and after reading this , i'm considering to remove them... Phill , have u seen this on any other notebooks other than the DM3?

 

No, only tested on DM3.

If I were you I would benchmark it yourself. Take a large folder and duplicate it in the same partition. Time it by hand.

I had a hard time removing the ICH9 drivers though. They would come back after I removed them. In the end I just did a clean install.

Maybe you can just manually select the standard 'Standard AHCI Serial ATA controller 1.0' driver.

It would be interesting to see if it works for you too Sean.

 

I have the AHCI Intel 8.9.2.1002, Copying 15.2 GB picture folder from my DSLR archive to desktop took 8:30 so I'm in the 16 GB in 9 minute territory. My boots are relatively quick too. Not to cross post but this is my regular desktop boot up. No striped down version other than blaotware I would never use not initialized but it is my every day configuration with 4 gadgets, Rainelendar lite, and my printer suite etc etc etc......

 

You can't compare the scores between different systems that way because it is dependent on how many files (and what size) are in the 16GB folder.

If you want to compare it, compare it to copying the same folder with the different driver.

 

I agree there, I just wanted to say that it doesn't seem to affect mine. My boot is fast and copy seems fine............

 

Alright. But I don't think you really know unless you compare it to the standard AHCI driver...

 

I just tried the M$ AHCI. Before each driver I used DP10 to fragment the drive and freespace to be sure of an equal footing. I found the M$ driver slower on my Asus U81a.

15.2GB folder copy to desktop, Intel = 8:30 then M$ = 9:34

Boottimer Intel = 35-36 seconds then M$ 36-37 seconds (several reboots each)