Old laptop--> ICH4-M : Write Cap at 16MB/s ?

Hi all,

Again i hope someone out of the plenty members that this forum has, can enlighten me in the following matter :


DATA :

Acer Aspire 2003WLMi --> 855PM & ICH4-M

WinXP Home SP1 OEM Installed & SP3 Upgraded

Intel Chipset Drivers 6.3.0.1007 installed by "Have Disk" Method. These are the latest available for this chipset by Intel.

Write Cache Enabled
Ultra DMA Mode 5 for OS disk (only disk of system)


PROBLEM :

Well...See the following benchmark and tell me what you see (hint :write speed stuck @ ~16MB/s):


The third pic is from an SSD, that is also stuck at just over 15MB/s Write....


Well, i'm ready to read your opinions (and maybe questions for more info about my setup )....


Thank you...

 

try hdtune. i haven't used the one above before.

 

Some SSD has slow writes, predominantly jmicron controller based ones. Remedy is to use a Indilinx or Samsung SSD, or see if you can find the flashpoint driver (appears to have been pulled). It acted as a cache to speed up writes.

 

Thank you for your answers...

@dondadah88 : The write performance is the same in every benchmarking programm i've used, i just chose 2 for example.

@nando4 : The SSD is Indilinx-based with 64MB cache. The same drive on Thinkpad T40p ( same chipset with mine) has the following performance :



The above is the same performance when connected to my desktop (Ati SB600 storage controller )...When in my laptop the write rate drops @ 16MB/s...

 

Is it a photofast IDE/ZIF SSD? I know their V3 ZIF product uses an Indilinx controller AND a sunplus sata-to-pata bridge and has very similar crystalmark results as you posted.

If so, check if you get faster write performance using a HDD.

 

There is nothing wrong. This is what you get with SSDs. Very slow write speeds....what were you expecting???

 

I was expecting what i saw that this drive could do on a same generation laptop...I think it is not normal for my laptop capping the write performance....so i'm searching what could possibly be going wrong....

This 16MB/s write bandwidth cap exists on my old hdd too...it is a ST980825A Momentus 7200.1 ATA drive...it should have at least 20MB/s write...so , as you can see the problem is not the SSD...

Anyway...I am thinking of 2 reason's for that....

First is that the Acer eRecovery installation of Windows that came with my laptop is crappy...I'll try with my Win XP Pro SP2 installation that i have from my desktop...this at least is not OEM installation...maybe OEM's change something, or i don't know....

The other reason for that is maybe the outdated ICH4-M intel drivers...but at least they should work with my old HDD, giving same Write rate with the Read rate....

Again.... ---> my problem is not the SSD's performance....this laptop also cripples the write bandwidth on my HDD... The SSD is just an example benchmark

 

Well, in the case of your Acer you are talking about a 4+ year old intel chipset. You're also speaking as if it were a conspiracy or cheap design that is somehow cheating you out of performance.

Anything older than an ICH9 is pre-SSD. Even the newest rev of the ICH10 controller needs an upgraded driver package to get decent performance out of the current crop of SSDs.

And doesn't a Thinkpad T40p have an ICH5 or ICH6 controller, depending on the rev level of the mobo?

 

Suggestion:
1/ try a 80-pin UDMA cable which has alternative GND/signal lines for less interference. Ensure tested HDD/SSD is MASTER and remove the optical drive, which would likely be slave, just in case it's adding any interference to the testing.
2/ check/change transfer modes via registry and/or hdparm-for-windows as described here
3/ try testing under different OS like Linux to see if it's a driver/OS specific issue
4/ Try the optical connector instead using an optical bay caddy (see sig).

If still crippled, ask Intel if their ICH4M I/O chipset has any 16MB/s limits placed on it. Their answer likely to be NO, given it's ATA100/UDMA5 capable - the spec suggesting 100MB/s read 88.9MB/s write (at least for ICH8M anyway).

 

@newsposter :

Not really...i didn't even say these words...I'm only thinking of some mistake on automated installation procedure or missing part of OEM installation of XP or anything that someone would have not taken into account...

Maybe it's a wrong installation of drivers by the e-Recovery thing...

Anyway, i didn't say it's on purpose...

Again, i would be pleased if it could only reach the write levels of my previous disk... I know it's an outdated chipset, but seeing people around with the same generation laptops (with iCH4-M) having better performance makes me think that there's something wrong with mine...

Link ? Any source i've fast-checked in google search says ICH4-M


@nando4 :

Drive has no cable to connect. It has an adapter like this one :








Do you think that maybe this adapter is holding back the write bandwidth?

Transfer mode in Device Manager>Primary IDE Channel is "UDMA Mode 5". Is there any case that even if it is shown as UDMA 5 , not to work in UDMA 5 ? I'll check in registry as you advised me to do.

I'll try Windows Seven for start, then maybe an Ubuntu setup (in Ubuntu hdd performance is measured by "Bonnie", right ? )

Since the "optical caddy" way requires a part to be ordered, i'll try the other things first.




Thank you both for your support and time spent. I really appreciate it.

I'll come back with results from the above.

 

Well, i tried a different Windows Installation...It's a Win XP Pro SP3...

I didn't wipe/align or do anything else on the SSD and instantly i got an increase :




So, as you can see...the reason for the 16MB/s cap was something inside the e-Recovery Acer Windows installation CD's...either bad configuration of the automated installation procedure, or the Intel Chipset drivers....

I'll try to install the latest Intel Chipset Drivers for 855PM & ICH4-M, which is all included in Utility 6.3.0.1007...If performance drops, it means that the drivers were the problem....

That's all for now...I'll update shortly after the drivers' installation...

 

you mean after all this you are only just now updating the chipset drivers?

sheesh

 

I don't think you understood what really happened....I suggest you read carefully this post

Intel Chipset Install Utility (Intel's drivers) has stopped support for ICH4-M at version 6.3.0.1007. These were the "latest" drivers for my platform....

These drivers were Un-Installed....and used the Microsoft ones....

Microsoft Ultra ATA Storage Controller Drivers perform far better than the Intel ones....

It was the "updated" drivers of the manufacturer that caused the problem....

I had the newest drivers installed and had to uninstall them....