Intel Turbo Memory 2.0

OT@anseio - edit, Miniature Poodle/Terrorist/Chi. She'll jump up on the bed at night and sleep by your feet. Then when you move in your sleep she'll trip and bite the out of your feet!!! I win with the 405nm blue/violet laser though, drives her nuts. Small win over the Night Terror.

Thanks for the link granyte!!! The AnandT review, while informative from a fresh to market perspective, it actually backs the hardware from the point of the need of a larger cache (4Gb) and updated drivers/software (2.0). I'd love to see a revised study from them, especially with the oblivious ability to get next to the right people in Intel, etc. Also, with upwards of 33k hits to this thread I'm going to email AnandT to see about some followup.

Onwards and upwards, i'll be back when I finish the F6 install, and thanks for all the input.

Avanti!!!

 

sadly ITM was droped and every one is burying it with faster and larger flash it could have brought great improvement and idealy with hardware prefetcher instead of a software one si it could work with any os

 

Oh, one more thing about useless tech/hardware, etc.

Transcend TS4GIFD25 IDE Hard Drive SSD 4 GB 2.5 laptop - eBay (item 120643342448 end time Dec-05-10 00:16:55 PST)

And my thoughts drift to all the useless and amazing tech that the future holds. And to think I could have bought a great ~64Gb SSD (for OS+Progs) and a SATA Drive Caddy for my e6400 (that i would have popped in my Seagate 500GB 7200rpm for everything else)...

And still that poor, lonely, abandoned mPCIe slot would still be calling out to me, at night, in between Terroristo attacks...

Avanti!!!

 

i know what you mean look at my spec 8Gb of ram 935Gb of HDD 2x 4850 1gb and a comming up qx9300 with a intel 6300 in my other slot and still the lonely slot waiting for a device would have bothered me

 

Guys,

ITM is done, right? You're just the ghosts of performance past haunting this should be dead thread?

 

The idea lives in hybrid drives like the Momentus XT, but yes, Intel is now pushing SSDs and thus no longer interested in ITM.

 

Well, the idea also lives in eBoostr much better. Actually, it not only lives - it is thriving there.

Thanks for the direct answer!

 

Quick note, I've made some progress, but alas I've gotta run off to a meeting for a Nightclub I'm a resident DJ for.

Signed,

The Ghost of Fresh Past Dead Tech Future Now.

 

Well TGoFPDTFN, we'll be waiting for you to post your progress as soon as your haunting of the Night Club is done.

Btw, do you play 'disco'? lol...

 

In Short: I Win.

This is my personal experience, my observations, my opinions. My prose is bourne of many many technical write-ups of 2g Mitsu Eclipse Turbo Spyders, mostly, and lots of papers I've written so chicks can pass classes.

I wholeheartedly welcome any and all corrections, better ideas, and enhanced conclusions.

We are a global tribe, us computer users, we are.

Most Important:

I'm not responsible if you break your personal belongings as any result of any sorted interaction directly or indirectly with the words I have painstakingly typed for you to read and/or re-read.

Milk (Beer) ~~> Nasal Passage ~~> Laptop = YP not MP.

C'mon, this is the internet, and it was invented by Pr0n hungry Ascii artists...

Or was that the fax machine???

Moving on.

For those in-the-know, I'm about as Virgo as I could possibly be, with my Moon in Aquarius, Venus in Scorpio, and Mars in Libra. I'm overtly rational, exacting, experienced, perfectionist with a penchant for the best things in life (and a sucker for a Hot Blonde).

Arrogant, I've heard, but I digress. I say (for others to hear) that I've got Hands-On Success Oriented and Experienced Based Extreme Confidence.

I have faith in Me.

I'm one of those Rouge Warriors that does not use anti-virus or comp-based Firewalls because I know how to setup routers with DD-WRT. I don't open strange attachments. I don't update along the way between builds (for the most part, on rare occasion you hear about good ones), I disable Windows Media Player/DVD Maker/Media Center Components, Internet Explorer, and Internet Games at first chance on a clean install; UAC can KMA. I'm now on a Beta (RC) of x64 Firefox 4.0 called Minefield (with an x64 Adobe Flash Beta called Square) and fully running all English subscriptions for Adblock Plus, I don't have a Pr0n addiction, and I still remember most of MS-DOS. I don't (like to) pay for software, but I do donate (anonymously, of course) to torrent sites. I think anyone can give anything to anybody as many times as they like, and if the soft companies really care they can hire me to poison torrents all day long and I'll still give my friends the sweet ones.

That equates to having a passion (borderline psychotic OCD) for nothing running that isn't totally necessary, eating up my precious resources. I pay attention and invest into learning before blindly galloping forward. I'm a member of Demonoid, H33t, and a few other torrent sites. I've never had a virus, well at least no symptoms of anything. Hash Checks and Comments rule! Tech Savvy, Gadget Addicted; one would say, and all...

In this Great Masterpiece, I'm attempting to be very specifically generalized for the most part, for to give explanation as to my personal preferences, for you, gentle and casual reader, for to create a quasi-pseudo-best-efforts type guide for those with a lonely mPCIe slot begging to be filled with another gloriously unsupported, must-have, dead, and (truly) terminally unique gadget, turning as many stones as possible, and dropping bread crumbs too.

Overkill is key, as it gets into those nooks and wonderances that create threads with 33k views and less than 1% replying.

Everyone has the same question, with no answers, thus nothing to add.

This frustrates my complemented mind and since I'm [sic] arrogant and can do anything perfectly I'm going to fix this. Well, that and I've got Tech Lust 1up-manship on my back.

First, here were my problems, stated as clear as possible for those of the Search Defunkt.

******************************

Intel Turbo Memory 2.0 4Gb not functioning after restart Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit (SP1)

Intel Turbo Memory 2.0 4Gb ReadyDrive and ReadyBoost both greyed out after restart Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit (SP1)

Intel Turbo Memory Console 1.10 Disk Cache Location: -1

******************************
For Your Consideration:

Dell e6400 "LabWerks"
Win7 Ultimate x64 (SP1)
Intel T9550@~2.8GHz (10.5x266Mhz) 1066Mhz FSB, 6Mb L2, 1.050 VID, ThrottleStop v2.89, Diamond Base Thermal Paste
2x2Gb DDR2 800MHz
1280x800 WXGA Non-Glossy
nVidia Quadro NVS 160m (8.17.12.6099) @GPU: 800MHz, Mem: 595MHz, Shader: 1700MHz (Native nVidia Overclock)
Seagate ST9500420AS 500GB, 16Mb Cache, NCQ
Intel Turbo Memory 2.0 4Gb
Dell Wireless 410 Bluetooth/UltraWideBand (Wireless USB)
Intel 5100AGN WiFi

Preface:

Intel: No longer publicly supporting ITM or building new drivers, MSM is now dubbed Rapid Storage Technology (RST). NAND Flash Cache may start showing up on Motherboards, an in-built ITM, if you will. Makes me feel like ITM is like Vista was to Win 7, an immaculate middle finger.

Dell: Regardless of the 2 mPCIe slots, both clearly labeled FCM (Dell defines ITM as Flash Cache Module) Dell seemingly has nothing to say about ITM, officially, anymore, for most products forward the Latitude D-Series. About 1/4 of the e6400 7x64 Drivers are not even on the Dell Website, namely ITM/MSM and nVidia, among others. The correct answer is Nobody Knows. Dell is staring at the ground while running full steam ahead, purposefully and with intent (watch out for that treeeeee!).

Microsoft: Fat, Dumb, and Happily creating scripts for ideas and features regardless of actual hardware integration, usefulness, or uselessness due to the fact that they don't make the hardware, and the drivers are the OEM's problem. Brilliance.In.Motion, for reals.

The not so definitive Order of Batter pertaining to (the not quite as dead as Intel, Microsoft, and, personally, Dell would like to see it be):

Intel Turbo Memory 2.0, 4Gb (Fully working As Advertised, ReadyDrive still enabled after restart!)

Intel Matrix Storage Manager 8.9.0.1023
Intel Turbo Memory 1.10.0.1012

You must prepare the meat for the oven.

That means backing up everything on your precious laptop worth keeping, which is also a great time to delete *(read: hide better)* all those Ex-pics, etc.

Or at least rename them so that when innocently wondering what dsc180.mpg is and opening it within sight with the volume on...

Ya, you get the idea'r.

Now, I've got partitioned HDD's. Keeping the OS+installed progs separate is something I learned a long time ago. Keeps me sane when I suddenly realize I've got way too many useless programs, and clean installs are like brand new socks. Mmmmm Clean!

Crossroads.

I had 2 candidate HDD's, a 320Gb 5400RPM with about 280Gb full, and a 500Gb 7200RPM with about 420Gb full. My 2 externals of 750Gb and 500Gb were also full so I was facing a full on Junk Overload. Goal being to find the way to make it work, and end up with the Big Dog. Nothing is a positive result if you can't repeat it, basic Scientific Theory.

My thinking was along the lines of a temperamental Disk Management + Cache type (unsupported) software would be happier with everything at ground zero. Less variables to isolate and eradicate.

Being the best possible chance for everything to get done, by my book. IE, EG, Ergo - My extensive, collective wisdom, as well as that of everyone whom has ever written on this subject, readers inclusive (thank you all!!!).

Thus began my great re-orginization, consisting of hooking everything up to my dock (eSATA Rocks!) and doing searches for *.mp3, etc, and saving everything to one location folder. Kudos to the programmer of the Win7 Search blah blah blah.

PITA. That I've been putting off in hopes of winning a prize for procrastination. Blue Ribbon, Best of Show.

I didn't think the 'Time Remaining:' could go that high.

Progress, a mental check mark long overdue.

Good things.

Meat prepared, I began installing Win7 Ultimate x64 SP1 (RC) to the 320Gb Fujitsu. Being good and smart I had already unpacked the Matrix driver and placed the files onto the root of a freshly formatted USB drive. I had also created another USB drive with 7 ready to rock on it (20 min install!).

Thus began the Greatfull Dead Tech Revival, Future Later Edition.

1st Plan of Attempt:

BIOS Configured to IRRT, F6-type Pre-OS Driver Install, to the letter Dell Driver Install Order Guide.

Dell e6400's come out of the box with Intel Rapid Restore Technology enabled from the BIOS. Essentially, it's RAID as opposed to ACHI. With IRRT enabled there is a splash screen directly after the BIOS load screen. It reads the IMSM oROM Version, in my case 8.0.0.1039 = Matrix Driver of the same Version Number.

Right off the bat I notice that the 8.0.x IMSM is loading Pre-Pre-OS. Hmmmm... OK. So the Gods say that CTRL-I is the command, that, when input at those sparring moments of splash brings up the MSM oROM control panel (thing).

CTRL-I... w*t*F??? Windows Startup Repair pops up. Hmmmmm...

Head Scratching.

Missed the sparring moment?

Restart... Same conclusion.

Research, Discovery, Dell Support Chat, Idioticrity.

Findings:

RAID is unsupported on e6400's (and I'm guessing most if not all other Dell lappy's), as such CTRL-I is disabled.

IRRT is more of an AMT thing, as it turns out.

In Theory:

Dell makes a Dell Branded Hard Drive Caddy for the Media Bay (and no longer makes batteries for the E-Series Media Bay... Lame). This being a Biz-Class-Type, One would most likely love to have a RAID 0 (scary... if 1 of the 2 logs rolls over we'll both be dead, but really fast), a RAID 1 (Failsafe), or RAID 10 (Best of Both Worlds) setup onboard. Dell hates actual Sense, as it turns out.

I mean, who would ever want data-redundancy on a laptop when you can stuff in things like SLI and Crossfire Dual-GPU's. Desktops trying to invade LappyTurf.

Silly.

Dell BIOS locks out any drivers that are not properly Dell Flagged for each specific platform, regardless of any inclination of a possible 100% Install, in the MSM/Rapid Storage Technology (new name for MSM) drivers for a Dell sporting IRRT.

As for my e6400, 8.0.0.1039 is the prior signed, flagged driver, 9.6.x is the next signed, flagged driver, and when installed and booting IRRT-style the splash screen reflects that. Furthermore, even if you install the 9.6.x driver, restart, etc, then uninstall 9.6.x and restart, 8.0.x driver magically appears, logic, pride, and sportsmanship conduct remain hidden.

My rig being a Pleasure Boat as opposed to a Water Taxi, I could care less about IRRT and concluded that ITM and IRRT are 100% Incompat for all intents and purposes. If you MUST run IRRT, good luck writing something like this, cuz I'm over this mute point.

The ITM Driver is matched with a specific Build of MSM, 8.0.x will just not do, no it will not do at all, and all. More on such, ITM is a laptop gig, and not to absolute the rule of Dell, RAID is more of a not-likely scenario.

First Omnipotent Absolute Rule: BIOS enabled ACHI is a must for ITM, as it does not load the drivers Pre-OS (no Splash at least) and all indications

Moving on.

2nd Feeble Attempt, all future attempts will consist of the following as well, until noted otherwise: BIOS enabled ACHI, F6-style Pre-OS SATA Driver Install, Deleted All Partitions on HDD to 100% Unallocated Space, Installed 7x64 (SP1)

Installed Drivers (per Dell Recco): Notebook System Software, Chipset (xINFx911x), RICOH (SD), MSM/ITM...

Doctor Recommended Breathing Techniques. Install restart and...

Working, for now, and the fun begins.

My thoughts drift...

All things equal, thinking of the variables...

Installing SATA Drivers prior to deleting partitions? Or last thing prior to install?

Continuing on the path of the righteous, I dutifully install all of the Dell Driver, and the others.

Figuring by some magic power that be all of the boxes checked would check all of my boxes.

Fail.

Above detailed reinstall, SATA drivers last step.

FAIL.

Enlightenment, perhaps it's something to do with the HDD. Never heard of that possibility. The 500 is still full of lots of stuff. My first experience of installing to a partitioned HDD being the same as the more recent non-solutions rules out the matterance of partitioning to the process.

Out with the 320, in goes the 500, and I even swapped the plastic caddy thing so you know i'm serious...

3rd Extenuating Circumstances: ACHI enabled w7.U.x64.SP1 install. Deleted the Win Inst'd Part and the System sub-Part (100mb). Left a Primary and 2 Logical Part's intact. Created a New Part (along with the sys/sub part). Installed Matrix 8.9.0.1023, then clicked NEXT.

So far, So GOOD...

No updates, not even an internet connection.

Drivers, etc, to the MSM/ITM. Biz as usual, it's working.

Logic creates a thought. It works when the driver is installed, and has done so every time it's been first installed. Keeping it working has been the issue. This combined with the last few comments about letting it run for a bit got me thinking.

So I started installing programs, well a few, as a test, along with the rest of the pertinent drivers, in the right order. There were a few restarts but everything was in it's place.

Noted there was never a ! on the tray icon.

So I then re-installed the ITM/MSM drivers. No uninstall. Raw Dog.

Restart required, and it's working after, same as usual.

All avenues, I go for a trick of sorts. I create a custom pin file, pin some programs. I then create a second profile, and delete the first.

History.

I noticed that there was a recurring pinning issue happening. When I re-installed the drivers the same progs would remain pinned even though in theory they should have been overwritten by the re-install.

Right?

So what else was still sticking to the ITM?

Considering most users seem to be having a problem, perhaps it was/is due to a 'default' profile that never gets overwritten, per say.

Looking to the other NAND Flash market in SSDland, TRIM is the new Pink. Essentially, when you delete on an SSD it simply flags the area and moves onto the next task, just like it's Spinner Cuz'ns. But when an SSD goes to write to the same section it must clear the area then write, and drive gets slower and slower. TRIM deletes the info right away and keeps a tidier bedroom.

Correlating this to the Flash on the ITM I'm guessing there is some kind of a 'Ghosting' problem.

A few more things come to mind.

Deleting the first default profile would cause a real deletion of the file. Creating the 2nd profile creates a fresh and clean set of instructions. Mmmmmmm Clean!!!

Acid Test...

All good.

Set out to duplicate my results, and here's my pathway:

ACHI Enabled from BIOS.

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit, SP1 installed from USB

Intel Matrix Storage Manager 8.9.0.1023 Pre-OS Install (Unpacked from .exe, files placed ini root of freshly formatted USB)

Skipped Activation, No Updates, No Internet.

Dell Notebook System Software Installer (DELL)

Restart.

Intel Chipset Inf Installer (INTEL)

Restart.

RICOH SD Drivers (DELL)

Restart.

ITM/MSM Driver (INTEL) Installed from an Elevated CMD line with the -UP flag. Just in case.

Restart.

Pin a few programs.

Audio Drivers (DELL)

Restart.

Video Drivers (nVidia)

Restart.

LAN (INTEL)

Restart.

***** I skipped Dell Control Point. I don't have a Fingerprint reader, nor any use at all for smartcards but i may install them just to get rid of those pesky Device Manager flags*****

Wireless (INTEL)

Restart.

Dell 410 Bluetooth/UWB (DELL) another problematic mPCIe device.

Restart.

Re-install ITM/MSM. Installed from an Elevated CMD line with the -UP flag. Just in case.

Restart.

Create a 2nd Profile.

Select the 2nd profile, and delete the 1st profile. A message will tell you it's going to take a minute or 10 to switch profiles. When it's done a deletion of #1 will be allowed, and whatever was preventing proper operation, at least from This Man's skewed perspective, will vanish along with it.

I pinned just over 2.1Gb of Progs to it, from Windows Explorer to Ableton Live (music prod app).

I left the comp running overnight, for good hopes. Restarted in the AM and everything worked as advertised.

Wrote a novel, then wrote this... LOL...

Enjoy, I'm sure you are all as stoked to finish reading this as I am stoked to be finished writing it.

I hope it's helpful...

Yawn.

 

And...

I play House music, for about the last 15 years, all in the So-Cal Underground scene.

I also run call centers numbering 100+ employees and am considered a Master Communicator or something like that.

soundcloud.com/djvincecarter

waxdj.com/djvincecarter

facebook.com/djvincecarter

=)

 

Dude, that is hardcore. I'm glad you seem to have it working, but unless you enjoy tinkering with the OS, it couldn't have been possibly worth the effort (the performance boost is fairly small).

 

Bottom line is that I got it to work.

I'm guessing that when it's all up and running for a little while things will be better. I've already got amazing performance out of my rig, with close to 4 hours of battery.

I knew I was not going to stop messing with it till i got it to go so I may as well have it documented, at a minimum I can always return here or point others here.

Like i said, I WIN... lol...

 

i guess i'm in for reinstalling the os i just recived my module yesterdayand it's saying disk cahe location -1 i just don,t wann reinstal with 500gb of data on my hdd including 45 games ......

 

You shouldn't need to reinstall the OS for the ITM module. I've had extensive experience with Intel Turbo Memory since the 1gb module, I also used the 2gb and currently have the 4gb. It actually does help both performnace and battery life although the difference isn't night and day.

If anyone is interested, I'm parting out my Dell Precision and would be willing to selll my 4gb module for $45 shipping included.

 

how many mini pci-e slots does latitude e6500 have? can i put itm into any of them? i already have bluetooth, wifi and 3g cards in the notebook..

 

The E6500 has two mini pci-e slots, so you should be able to use an ITM module if one slot is open (one slot will be used by your wifi, the other might be used for WWAN if you have that. Take the bottom cover off to make sure the slot is vacant). The chipset in the E6500 was the last to come from the factory with ITM 2.0 which came in 2 and 4gb sizes. I've used ITM and it can help in some cases albeit very few. The hybrid HDD power saving mode doesnt work too well and as a whole, ITM wasnt well implemented.

 

I have an Asus G50, and a 2Gb ITM was optional, so I wouldn't mind getting one, maybe a 4Gb, but does anyone know if it is a Full or Half sized ITM card?

Got a 4Gb, full sized fits. Now I have to get it to work.