There's No Way This Is SATA 1.5!

I have been living in misery ever since the day I realized my Toughbook's are limited at SATA 1.5 for heat due to being fanless. Even though they are throttled back I still enjoy alot of the benefits of an SSD. I was running some benchmarks this morning, as I do every once in awhile to just see how consistant they are running. To say I was shocked when I saw these scores is an understatement. I have never seen these numbers on any of my Toughbooks. Even my 470 has never hit these numbers. This test here is with my Intel 80GB Gen 2 model. Now I just have to remember what the heck I did to make this work as well. I have noticed over the last month or so that it seems to be very snappy, or more so than normal. Now I know why

 

Have you tried the crystal disk benchmark in the review below.

Samsung 470 Series 256GB SSD - Long Term Test Results - CrystalDiskMark - Then and Now - Legit Reviews

 

I will run it in a little bit. In my vehicle now on my other TB. I need to find my older CDM tests for comparisons.

 

I had made a change to the registry for the DIPM setting awhile back. That's gotta be what made it change the SATA. If I can figure out exactly what I did this will be a huge help to alot of people in this situation.

 

Here is the CDM test. I was correct, there is no way it is running SATA 150.

 

I don't understand why your writes are so low.
I had a 128 GB Samsung 470 in a HP 8530w(SATA II).
With CDM my Read scores are similar to yours, but the Write scores are much better.

 

This is with my Intel G2.

 

Well the read speeds are certainly SATA II.

 

Sorry, my bad.
But as Meaker said, the read speeds are SATA II.

 

I am getting absolutely the same figures with my X25-M 80GB (see the screenshot after a clean install).. Looks like there is not much we can do about that - the smaller a drive, the lower write speed they provide.

 

@BlackLion

I assume the W510 is SATA II.
If yes, then Toyo has a problem with his

TOUGHBOOK CF-30 MK3 CF30KCKEQAM/SAMSUNG 470 256GB SSD

 

Yes, it's SATA II

 

Here is my AS SSD run. I had a copy of the results from April and this new test blows it away. I am still trying to figure out how or what I did exactly to get these speeds out of my SATA 1.5 setup. I really don't know where to start since there are so many tweaks here and there that can change things. I have a gut feeling it was something with the power settings related to the mobile power savings crap.

 

can you please explain how on Sata I, which is limited to 150 megabytes/sec,
250 MB/s Seq. Read are possible?

 

I not 100% sure, but if Your Toughbook have ICH8M than it is able to do SATA 3.0, but I don't know if it's enabled in BIOS.
I know that ThinkPad T61 have ICH8M and with custom BIOS it can run on SATA 3.0.

 

Not so bad.. the max AS SSD score I was getting was something about 349. Not sure what tweaks you're talking about but as far as I know most of them have primarily to do with reducing wearing out the SSD. But if you're willing you could try out the JJB's tweak (which frankly said did almost nothing in my instance).
Also, did you try to install the latest Intel RST driver instead of the generic MSAHCI ?

 

This is the basis of me starting this thread. I'm as confused as you are.

 

I did perform JJB's tweak awhile back. I did some benchmarks afterwards and it did not improve my scores all that much.

I do have the ICH8M on this model. Panasonic has confirmed with me that they are throttled back to SATA 1.5 at the factory. HOW they did this is the million dollar question. A part of me says they did it in the BIOS, but I only have enable/disable ACHI. That is really the only thing in the BIOS that would relate to this.
I wonder if I contacted them back and tell them what it is doing and that I want it set back to 1.5 maybe they would tell me how to do it. Then I would know how they are throttling it back. Thoughts?

These scores are blowing my other Toughbook away in regards to benchmarks. It has the Samsung 470 in it. I am boggled to say the least. Like I stated earlier, if we can figure out how the manufactures are throttling these laptops back then it would help a lot of others out.

 

Hmm.. your benchmarks clearly indicate that your SSD is operating at SATA 2.0 (please run HWiINFO to confirm). Like I mentioned before, I have the same figures on my ThinkPad that supports SATA 2.0 too. Unless I'm missing something, I would say you have nothing to worry about. It's also not correct to directly compare the Samsung drive which is 256GB with the Intel one - I bet if you placed the Samsung drive into the machine CF30FDGEKAM you would get better benchmarks.

 

BlackLion; Please allow me to explain my situation so we can all understand where I'm coming from.

I have 2 Panasonic Toughbooks. They both have the hardware to run SATA 2.0 but ever since I started using SSD's I realized that they are throttled back. I got in touch with Panasonic and it was confirmed. I was kinda ticked at the start but was explained the reason why. These are of course fully rugged laptops which are designed to operate in extreme conditions. All this with no fan, it is fully enclosed. In order for them to do this they had to throttle the CPU down in order to keep the internal heat down. The newest models have a fan and it is not throttled back, however, the fan is strong, rugged enough to suck mud thru it so it's not a weak spot.

I have used many SSD's in these, tried god knows how many tweaks to try and figure out how they did this so I may change it to SATA 2.0. I do use them in rugged situations but not in extreme hot conditions.

Over the last few weeks I have noticed that the TB in discussion here has been working like a light switch in regards to it's operation. I ran a benchmark on Sunday and was shocked when I saw the readings. You gotta understand that I have been trying to figure out this SATA 1.5 situation for awhile so I knew that when I saw those scores I was onto something. I just don't know what I did to get them.

I ran the same test this morning on my faster Toughbook with the 470 in it and am getting 1.5 scores for sure.

What I could do is take the SSD's and swap the caddies and see what happens. If the 470 runs in SATA 2.0 then it is for sure the BIOS that is doing the throttling. The only headache with this is that use different hardware and therefore different drivers. I would have to go back and delete all the drivers after I swap them back.

I hope this helps explain where I am at with this. Thanks for your thoughts!

 

I see now what you mean, thanks for the explanation and sorry for misunderstanding. Well, it could definitely be some tweak you did in the past that could do this trick. Why not to perform a clean OS install and OEM drivers afterwards to see if you get the scores back.