SSD showing as IDE in boot menu

[3si]

Hi,

I just installed a Samsung 830 256GB SSD. This is supposed to be my boot drive. In BIOS I set the SATA controllers to AHCI and did a clean installaltion of windows. Now I am using the Asus P7P55D-E Pro Motherboard. This board has only got two 6Gb/s Sata ports and they are under control of a Marvell chip.

So...because I had not set the BIOS setting on-board-devices -> Marvell -> AHCI but instead left it in IDE (which was default) my SSD shows up in th eboot priority as IDE: SAMSUNG etc.

I checked online and since I did an installation of windows in AHCI mode (regedit shows value 0 in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci)
I figured I might as well just try and change the setting of the above mentioned marvell controller.

Windows boots fine and the " experience index " increased from 7.5 to 7.8. however, the drive still shows up as IDE: SAMSUNG ... in the boot priority menu.

My Questions are:

1) Why is that? Is the drive controlled by AHCI or IDE (how to test)?

2) I read on this board in a very similar thread that people advised not to use the Marvell Sata ports as boot ports. But these are the only 6GBs ports on my motherboard - What is your opinion? Accept (not further specified) stability issues with the Marvel ports or go with 3GBs Intel Sata ports?

Thanks a million.
3

 

[txus.palacios]

1) Maybe the board calls everything "IDE". No worry, if you're using the msahci controller, it's surely AHCI.
2) Go Intel. Third party controllers (excluding LSI) are usually a pretty bad thing.

 

[3si]

1) Maybe the board calls everything "IDE". No worry, if you're using the msahci controller, it's surely AHCI.
2) Go Intel. Third party controllers (excluding LSI) are usually a pretty bad thing.

Thanks for your reply. I gues re: 1) that's solved.

I am still not sure about 2) what are these 'instability issues' that are 'not a good thing'? Also, isn't it worth trying out how it goes with the marvell sata port and if it's rubbish switch to a (slower) intel port?

Cheers!

 

[Nittenti]

You could get and run "AS SSD" - it will show if your SSD is running in IDE or AHCI ?

AS SSD also show id your alignment is ok (post the result/screenshot here and we will explain)

Lots of people had problems, disappearing disk, stutter and such on the Marvel 9128 SATA3 port and to be honest, the Intel SATA2 is not that slower - but way more stable.

 

[3si]

You could get and run "AS SSD" - it will show if your SSD is running in IDE or AHCI ?

AS SSD also show id your alignment is ok (post the result/screenshot here and we will explain)

Lots of people had problems, disappearing disk, stutter and such on the Marvel 9128 SATA3 port and to be honest, the Intel SATA2 is not that slower - but way more stable.

cool will do so. thanks for your help. so i guess i could just plug it into the main intel sata port and that's it right? What I mean is this is not somehow connected with my installation of windows or anything so i dont need to re-install?

Will post screens later.

Thanks

 

[Nittenti]

If everything is running ok with it connected to the Marvel port - I would let it be there, if you experience problems, move it to a Intel port

 

[3si]

You could get and run "AS SSD" - it will show if your SSD is running in IDE or AHCI ?

AS SSD also show id your alignment is ok (post the result/screenshot here and we will explain)

Lots of people had problems, disappearing disk, stutter and such on the Marvel 9128 SATA3 port and to be honest, the Intel SATA2 is not that slower - but way more stable.

Ok sorry for delay. I had someone come over and couldn't do it straight away.

So I ran AS SSD and attached the screenshot. msahci seems OK which is what I thought, so I guess it is running in AHCI as txus.palacios pointed out already. The speeds don't look particularly stunning though

What to make of it?

EDIT: reply to other post of Nittenti

If everything is running ok with it connected to the Marvel port - I would let it be there, if you experience problems, move it to a Intel port

Thanks, that is some solid advice. I hoped it would be that simple!

 

[Janus67]

The speeds are slower than rated because of the Marvell controller. That's about as good ad you will get other than using an Intel sata3 port which your mobo doesn't have.

 

[3si]

The speeds are slower than rated because of the Marvell controller. That's about as good ad you will get other than using an Intel sata3 port which your mobo doesn't have.

Cheers, good to know. One other thing I hear is that using the marvel port increases electricity consumption. Now I can see that activating another chip on the mobo will increase the power consumption but I wonder by how much/whether this is something to consider at all...does anyone have further information regarding that?
Thanks
(this forum is really nice )

 

[Janus67]

The power increase may be a watt or two, I can't imaging anything worth losing sleep over.

 

[Nittenti]

As others allready said - the Marvel 9128 is not a speedmonster, but still slightly faster than Intel SATA2.

Regarding the AS SSD screenshot

"CXM03B1Q" is the firmware your SSD is running on - the newest
"msahci - OK" means your SSD is running on Microsoft AHCI driver, also ok
"103424K - OK" is the alignment filler - also ok

Looks good, enjoy your SSD

 

[shadowdr]

While the AS SSD looks ok in some regards it is lacking in others. I would look to see if the marvel controller has it's own AHCI drivers, if not I would go ahead and try the Intel controller. Whiler it may limit your read speeds, you may get a large enough boost in write speeds and 4k that it could easily surpass the Marvel's limits. Topping out the sata II limits of the Intel controller could raise performance enough to actually feel much faster.

I had a similar situation when I first installed my SSD, I had a raid0 array as a secondary drive. With AMD you can have raid or AHCI but not both on the same controller so I was forced to use the AMD raid drivers. My AS SSD scores were very similar to yours and I was very unimpressed with the actual feel of the SSD. Long story short, I imaged the array to a single drive and used the AHCI drivers and my scores doubled. Not just the scores but the feel was much, much faster. It couldn't hurt to at least try the intel controller as you won't have to reinstall or anything just move the sata cable and install the intel driver. The MSAHCI driver is ok but just ok and not good for an SSD.

 

[3si]

As others allready said - the Marvel 9128 is not a speedmonster, but still slightly faster than Intel SATA2.

Regarding the AS SSD screenshot

"CXM03B1Q" is the firmware your SSD is running on - the newest
"msahci - OK" means your SSD is running on Microsoft AHCI driver, also ok
"103424K - OK" is the alignment filler - also ok

Looks good, enjoy your SSD

Great, thanks for the breakdown!

The power increase may be a watt or two, I can't imaging anything worth losing sleep over.

Oh good, anything else would have been borderline ridiculous!

While the AS SSD looks ok in some regards it is lacking in others. I would look to see if the marvel controller has it's own AHCI drivers, if not I would go ahead and try the Intel controller. Whiler it may limit your read speeds, you may get a large enough boost in write speeds and 4k that it could easily surpass the Marvel's limits. Topping out the sata II limits of the Intel controller could raise performance enough to actually feel much faster.

I had a similar situation when I first installed my SSD, I had a raid0 array as a secondary drive. With AMD you can have raid or AHCI but not both on the same controller so I was forced to use the AMD raid drivers. My AS SSD scores were very similar to yours and I was very unimpressed with the actual feel of the SSD. Long story short, I imaged the array to a single drive and used the AHCI drivers and my scores doubled. Not just the scores but the feel was much, much faster. It couldn't hurt to at least try the intel controller as you won't have to reinstall or anything just move the sata cable and install the intel driver. The MSAHCI driver is ok but just ok and not good for an SSD.

Awesome, this pretty much reflects my experience (happy but not too impressed). I shall switch to the intel port and look at the results of AS SSD again! Thanks guys


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Wow, so I just used the main intel port instead and I felt it was booting a bit faster already. Then I ran AS SSD again, and, without understanding the individual scores, it appears to be much better: (see screenshot)

So thank you all very much. I shall stick with the intel port then I guess. One thing clashes with my limited understanding though: How can it boot faster with the intel port if the "read" score is better with the marvell controller? Surely booting is a read only process?
Alternatively, my quwstion probably means I don't know what the 4k read score as well as the 4k-64 read score means (which are all better with the intel port)

Cheers!

 

[Nittenti]

Your boot is propably faster because of the almost doubled speed on 4K-64K read

When you run on the Intel SATA2 port, you should install Intel RST (Intel's AHCI driver)

I'm not sure which version of Intel RST you can install on a Intel P55 chipset, but try RST 11.2.0.1006

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...Rapid+Storage+Technology+(Intel+RST)&lang=eng

Get the file "STOR_Win7_XP_11.2.0.1006.exe" - install and reboot

If you cant install it, try RST 10.8.0.1003 (not on Intel site anymore) from station drivers

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/intel raid.htm

 

[3si]

Your boot is propably faster because of the almost doubled speed on 4K-64K read

When you run on the Intel SATA2 port, you should install Intel RST (Intel's AHCI driver)

I'm not sure which version of Intel RST you can install on a Intel P55 chipset, but try RST 11.2.0.1006

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...Rapid+Storage+Technology+(Intel+RST)&lang=eng

Get the file "STOR_Win7_XP_11.2.0.1006.exe" - install and reboot

If you cant install it, try RST 10.8.0.1003 (not on Intel site anymore) from station drivers

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/intel raid.htm

You are a resourceful man or woman Nittenti! Thanks a lot, the new driver has further improved performance!

Edit: For future reference (?) Yes, the P55 chipset seems to be working with RST 11.2.0.1006