- Apr 7, 2012
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Gentlemen?
I had an extremely slow SSD and found the solution, which was that I had not properly enabled AHCI. If you have this problem, do not try and enable it in BIOS setup only- you will have BSOD because the drivers are not loaded. You will need to change registry entries first.
Background: Those in a hurry may skip down to How to enable AHCI... below:
I first setup a new HP z420 workstation (Xeon E5-1620, 24GB ECC 1600, Quadro 4000, Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit) with the 500GB Seagate HD that arrived in the system.
After a month I added a Samsung 840 250GB SSD on CH0 of the two SATA III MB connectors and a WD Black SATAIII 1TB on CH1. Looking in BIOS > Storage , the Samsung was set to "RAID + AHCI", which I thought was the correct setting.
Soon after installing the SSD, in Passmark Performance Test, the disc score was very good- 2986, but the system never seemed to be especially fast booting, opening applications and file transfers between the various SATA III drives- the Samsung 840, WD Black 1TB, and Adata 16GB flash drive were not too impressive.
After 8 months use, the 840 is using 169GB with 56GB free and the performance is noiceably poor, scoring 2000 in Passmark. Applications open faster on my old Dell Precision T5400 with SATA II HD's. The Read speeds are not too bad at 385- they should be higher, but the write speeds are terrible- 83, and only 35 for 4KB and random. The Passmark disc score is now 1150. The problem is I never tested the disk except in Passmark so I don;t know the exact original read / write figures.
I've seen posts that show SSD performance degrading- especially when getting full- mine has 25% free, but as mentioned, it seems quite slow to boot and applications don't open any faster than than my elderly Dell Precision T5400 with an SATA II WD RE4 drive.
How to enable AHCI when Windows 7 is already installed:
In reading various forum posts, it appeared the problem was that the registry settings :
HKEY_Local_MACHINE > System> Current ControlSet > Services> msahci (=3), iaStorA (=0) and iaStorV (=3)
-were incorrect. I learned that it to enable AHCI and have the full speed of the SSD, that regedit should be used to set: pciide, iaStorA, and iaStorV to 0. When all these values are 0, it allows you to enable AHCI and set up RAIDs. Working very carefully, in the Start button window, type in regedit, click yes to allow changes, and navigate in the sequence :
HKEY_Local_MACHINE > System> Current ControlSet > Services> File name > right click to Modify values > enter 0 for each.
Reboot and enter setup. Navigate to storage options and set the drive to AHCI. Reboot and the AHCI drivers will automatically load.
I did this and the Passmark disc score went from 1150 to 2685 with 454 Sequential write and 183 seq read- better than 385 /83 and obviously worth the effort.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro 4000 (2GB)> Samsung 840 SSD 250GB /Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > AE3000 USB WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 > Windows 7 Ultimate 64 >[Passmark system rating = 3923, 2D= 839 / 3D=2048]
Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys 600N WiFi > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit >[Passmark system rating = 1859, CPU = 8528 / 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]
2D, 3D CAD, Image Processing, Rendering, Text
I had an extremely slow SSD and found the solution, which was that I had not properly enabled AHCI. If you have this problem, do not try and enable it in BIOS setup only- you will have BSOD because the drivers are not loaded. You will need to change registry entries first.
Background: Those in a hurry may skip down to How to enable AHCI... below:
I first setup a new HP z420 workstation (Xeon E5-1620, 24GB ECC 1600, Quadro 4000, Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit) with the 500GB Seagate HD that arrived in the system.
After a month I added a Samsung 840 250GB SSD on CH0 of the two SATA III MB connectors and a WD Black SATAIII 1TB on CH1. Looking in BIOS > Storage , the Samsung was set to "RAID + AHCI", which I thought was the correct setting.
Soon after installing the SSD, in Passmark Performance Test, the disc score was very good- 2986, but the system never seemed to be especially fast booting, opening applications and file transfers between the various SATA III drives- the Samsung 840, WD Black 1TB, and Adata 16GB flash drive were not too impressive.
After 8 months use, the 840 is using 169GB with 56GB free and the performance is noiceably poor, scoring 2000 in Passmark. Applications open faster on my old Dell Precision T5400 with SATA II HD's. The Read speeds are not too bad at 385- they should be higher, but the write speeds are terrible- 83, and only 35 for 4KB and random. The Passmark disc score is now 1150. The problem is I never tested the disk except in Passmark so I don;t know the exact original read / write figures.
I've seen posts that show SSD performance degrading- especially when getting full- mine has 25% free, but as mentioned, it seems quite slow to boot and applications don't open any faster than than my elderly Dell Precision T5400 with an SATA II WD RE4 drive.
How to enable AHCI when Windows 7 is already installed:
In reading various forum posts, it appeared the problem was that the registry settings :
HKEY_Local_MACHINE > System> Current ControlSet > Services> msahci (=3), iaStorA (=0) and iaStorV (=3)
-were incorrect. I learned that it to enable AHCI and have the full speed of the SSD, that regedit should be used to set: pciide, iaStorA, and iaStorV to 0. When all these values are 0, it allows you to enable AHCI and set up RAIDs. Working very carefully, in the Start button window, type in regedit, click yes to allow changes, and navigate in the sequence :
HKEY_Local_MACHINE > System> Current ControlSet > Services> File name > right click to Modify values > enter 0 for each.
Reboot and enter setup. Navigate to storage options and set the drive to AHCI. Reboot and the AHCI drivers will automatically load.
I did this and the Passmark disc score went from 1150 to 2685 with 454 Sequential write and 183 seq read- better than 385 /83 and obviously worth the effort.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro 4000 (2GB)> Samsung 840 SSD 250GB /Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > AE3000 USB WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 > Windows 7 Ultimate 64 >[Passmark system rating = 3923, 2D= 839 / 3D=2048]
Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys 600N WiFi > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit >[Passmark system rating = 1859, CPU = 8528 / 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]
2D, 3D CAD, Image Processing, Rendering, Text
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