Intel Turbo Memory: User Pinning

hi,I have followed the flow and I found the ready boost is disabled, is that ok?

 

If you have a 4GB model, ReadyBoost is disabled by the Matrix Storage Controller. The Pinning UI is used instead to "manually" cache the ReadyBoost. It is impossible to turn on the normal readyboost.

 

thank you...

I'm using a thinkpad W500 with 2g turbo mem.

some other questions:
1) the above mentioned "pinning", did you mean dragging a application into dashboard?
2)if I install the invm_cd.exe without the "-up" parameter, what's the difference?
3)I have used the turbo mem up to 93%, is there any optimized usage of the space? I have tried up to 99%, but it seemed the system runing very laggy,and the hdd running as crazy...
4)do you think manually pinning better than automatically readyboost?

 

@Leohart - The question aren't directed at me, but I might be able to help with some of them.

1. Pinning is dragging applications to the dashboard, yes.

2. With the 4GB module, there is no difference because the Intel Turbo Memory driver detects the 4GB card and installs User Pinning anyway, disabling ReadyBoost. If you have the 2GB module and you run it without the -UP switch, then it installs the regular Turbo Memory driver without installing the Dashboard or disabling ReadyBoost.

3. That I'm not so sure about. It seems like filling up the module shouldn't be able to lag out performance. Do you have ReadyDrive enabled? I want to say that the 2.0 modules started making all the available memory common between ReadyDrive and ReadyBoost/User Pinning, so potentially you could see slowdown if you have ReadyDrive on and it's got very little room left on the module to use.

4. Manually adding things to the Turbo Memory should be better because you can immediately tell Windows Vista what you want to boost, insead of relying on Windows to figure it out for you over time. You can also switch what's being boosted on the fly, instead of having to run an application a few times to show Vista you are using it frequently and want it loaded onto the module. I'd think that Intel wouldn't disable ReadyBoost altogether and use User Pinning exclusively unless they really thought their method was the better one. A caveat to that, though, is the buggy software problem. If you look through the whole thread you'll see several people talking about the Dashboard crashing, not being able to get applications out of the list, not being able to add some in, etc. ReadyBoost shouldn't have those problems, so you can see where your trade off might be if you're trying to decide which one to go with.

 

hi,Joe,thanks for the clarification...

3)I had enabled ReadyDrive.I'm using a 2gb module,but if you try to find out the total space available for user pinning(through tray icon of dashboard),you will find it is about 1.4g.I think the other 0.6g is allocated for readydrive?

So I concluded that the problem was not sourcing from readydrive...Maybe there should be some swapping space on the module for user pinning?Or that's not the user pinning problem at all...maybe occasionally system laggy caused by other startup processes(because I havent tried again)...

btw:what's the difference between readyboost/user pinning and readydrive?

 

ReadyDrive has 512MB dedicated to it, and then any other space on the module you don't use for pinning is also given to ReadyDrive. According to this.

In the simplest of terms, ReadyBoost and User Pinning speed up applications by having all the important files an application loads stored in faster flash memory as opposed to the slower reading hard disk. With ReadyBoost, Vista manages what goes onto the Turbo Memory or other flash device. With Pinning, the user decides manually.

ReadyDrive is Vista managed and meant to speed up hard drive access in general. The hibernation and page files can be stored there for faster access, with SuperFetching Vista tries to anticipate what you would want put there before you ask for it. Here's a pretty good article on it: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/teched2006-fresh-demos-superfetch,2967.html

 

Umm...How do I add my game to this? Its over 6GB against my 2GB turbo memory. Or do i just add the executable file to the list?

 

You can only add up to 2GB, so putting your 6GB onto it would be impossible. Adding the executable is only possible of the item is listed in the programs menu. If there is no listing for it in all programs, you can try manually creating a listing, but I do not know if that works. TM Dashboard will cache as much as it can until it fills.

 

i thinks it because the game was not a regular installation....All the regular installations showed up fine

 

Games licensed under "Games for Windows" create a link for themselves in the Games folder of the Start Menu, and do not create a link inside the All Programs menu. Only apps that install a link into All Programs can be cached. Like I said, try manually creating a link inside the All Programs menu and see if that works.

 

Finally found the 4GB module that will fit the Dell XPS, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=220296764272

It is a full mini PCIe size.

 

It's confirmed. Dell XPS supports turbo memory II. I just installed 4GB module and the dashboard was automatically loaded during the installation. Everything works great.

 

My program crashes even with the newest version - 1.8
It shows :

"intel_ITM has stopped working

windows can check online for a solution to the problem

==> check online for a solution and close the program

==> close the program

PS: Description:
Stopped working

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: ITMDashboard.exe
Application Version: 0.8.8289.1
Application Timestamp: 48f5a22f
Fault Module Name: KERNEL32.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.0.6000.16386
Fault Module Timestamp: 4549be94
Exception Code: e0434f4d
Exception Offset: 00023843
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 3076

and I have a yellow "!" beside it, saying that its' hardware unconfigured.

 

You already posted about this in another thread. Please use the other thread for info on this. Double posting is confusing and against rules.

 

Hope this is a good spot to ask this, anyone try installing 2 Intel Turbo Memory cards? Here's my experience so far. I got the 1GB when it was around 30 bucks and recently got the 4GB. Dell XPS 1530 has three slots for PCI-E, one has the wireless card but theoretically if we want to there's three spots for Turbo Memory, which right now three 4 gig cards would give us 12 GB Turbo Memory (the 8GB Turbo Memory card seems to have never come into existence). I thought I seen somewhere it supports RAID. So far I've opened the Intel Turbo Memory console and it shows only 1gb, and the option to enable readyboost. When I first did this the User Pinning was working, a reboot later and it was gone. I'm going to tinker with this to see what happens. Just wondering if anyone else has tried more than one at a time and what you can do to make it recognize two cards in RAID.

 

Anyone home? OK, looking at this, you can use the 4gb ITM chip which disables readyboost from on the chip, but enables user pinning. Go ahead and try using an sd card for ready boost. It works. So when I had a 1gb ITM chip installed along side the 4gb, the "Intel turbo memory Console" allowed me to enable readyboost, yet still allowed the user pinning to be enabled as well. My guess is that the user pinning can only use the 4gb chip, and vista is only using the 1gb (or 2gb whatever doesn't support user pinning) for readyboost. I tend to notice that in resource monitor, ready boost is being used all the time. With user pinning it's only accelerating certain programs. I think Vista does more with ready boost than just accelerate programs, perhaps it caches services as well? I always thought it worked along side the page file, which handles more than just open programs anyways. So has anyone found a good way to test how much this chip works? I'm interested in benchmarking performance with 2 vs 1 ITM chips installed.

 

Nobody knows if 2 cards will work. My only suggestion there woujld be to get two cards and just try it. The software is pretty limiting, so unless it automatically supports and configures RAID, I don't think its possible. Readyboost does cache apps, but it also caches startup files, page files, and other system resources. You are right that running both ReadyBoost and UP gives a good boost in performance. Its upsetting that Readyboost is disabled for 4GB models.

 

I've got screenshots of this thing working along side eachother, and some of the cards installed side by side. I have to post 15 times in order to post screenshots as this forum won't let me insert html code yet. Going to give this a week and see how it pans out. So far after only a night I've got times where the User Pinning Dashboard shows 0%, then reboot and it's back again. Wonder how much difference it would make if I put a 2gb or another 4gb card in there instead of the first version 1gb. I'll have a full report in a week.

I'm taking a c++ class right now, wonder if I can get a program to access the ITM. It's also interesting that we technically have a 4gb solid state drive in there that could be used to load windows. Who knows what the 8GB version has in store for us, thought I read somewhere that it would be out by now.

 

What if instead of using the -UP switch for user pinning, use -RB for readyboost? Anyone try to get this to not install user pinning on the 4GB?

 

I have the exact same problem as Kiu00001. I just upgraded the laptop in my sig from a 2gb ITM module to a 4gb ITM module. The 2gb module was working just fine although I did not force user pinning - I just let the driver install as is. I tried both 1.7 and 1.8 drivers on the 2gb and it worked fine. With the 4gb module I get the exact error listed by kiu00001, whether using the 1.7 or 1.8 drivers. I tried fully uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers after several clean reboots etc without resolve. I am using Vista Ultimate x64. Any clues? 4gb modules have been confirmed working with other Santa Rosa machines with user pinning so I'm not sure what the problem with mine is. I also do not use Creative drivers/hardware as was mentioned by one person who also had the exact same problem, so that rules out the Creative driver conflict.

 

You would think the 4GB to be better with more room then the 2GB. I've found that in the resource monitor, the drive for user pinning doesn't do much unless you're opening programs. While readyboost is constantly being used to improve performance as a page file. I personally would rather have a nice and quiet pagefile on this laptop then to just load programs faster. Doing kind of an experiment where I'm using two physical ITM cards at the same time. One is being used for user pinning at 4GB and the other is only the 1GB which the ITM console shows only the 1GB being installed. Device manager shows only one being installed as IMD-0. I'm giving this a week to see how it pans out.
Sunday: Coming out of hibernate wants to find driver for pci device. Monday, only reads 52% in taskbar, open it is 92% full. Full cpu. Closed it and cpu stays full and task manager shows it’s ITM causing the cpu usage. Reboot to have it crash on screen load. Hard reboot. Takes forever to load windows. No longer sees device DR0 in resource monitor. Intel Turbo Memory console, shows readyboost and readydrive disabled. Reboot, then enabled both. Reboot. Readyboost and DR0 are back in the resource monitor. For leaving both on, pcwizard shows a IMD-0 drive with 538MB ram. But I reboot and now it’s gone.
Tuesday morning: itm console has readyboost unchecked. Ready drive checked and Pc wizard not reporting the itm as a drive. Reboot and itm console shows both checked. ITM dashboard taskbar shows 52% full (it was 98 at reboot) It’s back in pc wizard as 538 mb. Open dashboard and cpu load at about 70% with itm now showing 91% full. ITM causing full cpu usage after it’s closed. Not sure if this is from the two cards or just because it’s doing something. I called Intel and talked to a sales rep, he only knew that itm is supposed to only have one card used at a time.
Tuesday evening, coming out of hibernate, Vista freezes. Hard reboot. On load, “SCM not found error”, is installing isatap driver, freezes again. Hard reboot. Device manager shows a Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2 with Yellow alert. Deleting it. Got a second Turbo Memory Controller with Yellow Alert. Deleting it. Right click to select Scan for hardware changes and it’s installing a new PCI device, then fails with the ITM controller. It just doesn’t like having the two cards.
Wednesday. Removed the 1gb card to see the blue screen of death when it woke up from hibernate. Oops, forgot about where the load files are now being stored. DR0 is seen in resource monitor occasionally but not constantly like ready boost was. Wonder if any other companies are going to take a shot at a big flash PCI cache… AMD? Boot and it comes up in the dashboard 52% when it’s more like 98 when opened. Full CPU usage and I have to go into task manager to shut it off. Noon, ITM is showing about 19% full. I’m thinking it was reading the 1gb card only for all this. Nope, it’s about an hour later and it’s back to reading 94% full. Confusing as to why it changes back and forth. Any news on newer drivers for all this?
Saturday. ITM shows 52% from dashboard, run it and it shows 94% full. Not eating up CPU when it’s opened anymore. I’m guessing that’s only when it’s trying to configure.
I’ve been busy but had planned on trying different combinations of the settings. Test one, enable only readydrive and see reading in pcwizard. Test two, enable only readyboost and see reading in pcwizard. I left both on for this commentary, and it just wasn’t stable. Even now with just the 4GB card, reads 52% on the dashboard, and 98% when opened. I personally would rather be using the ITM flash card for the page file, and now have a SD card sticking out of my laptop again, which was the main reason for buying the ITM in the first place. I think readyboost vs userpinning, the readyboost gives more performance. But that may be a whole nother thread.

 

Readyboost it is then.