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buddhaseeking

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I have spent hours on benchmarking my current system and scoured the net for hours on this topic. But, before i proceed i would like the opinion of people who have seen upgrade efforts fail. I bought a new Samsung EVO 850 SSD (SATA iii) to upgrade my system. Current Specs are given below:

    ■ Samsung PM 810 SSD ( which is the same as their 470 line) - a Sata II drive ■ Dell E6420 with intel i5 running Windows xp and 4 GB RAM
    ■ Nvidia NVS 4200 display adapter
    ■ BIOS version A06 (current BIOS available is version A23 !!)

I have spent hours on benchmarking this system and found that SSD are not optimized. Probably because my drivers are not upto date and AHCI is not enabled in BIOS. But, before i attempt all this, i want to give some data here, hoping for feedback. I used Passmark, CrystalDiskMark and NovaBench and all were in consensus that both SSDs were not yielding expected results i saw from several others on the internet. For a sample, here are the links to images of results of both SSDs :

The new Samsung EVO 850 performance
The original PM810 that came with the laptop

Following are my questions:


    ■ System was never updated in about 5 years, and dell website only lists BIOS versions starting from A12. So, i am not sure if it would be safe for me to jump from BIOS A06 to A23 directly, since i do not have all the details about versions until A12.
    ■ For various reasons, it is not possible to upgrade the current Windows XP Pro and it is not possible to reinstall and start from scratch. The only option i am thinking about is to update everything - in the order prescribed by DELL here. I would like to know if i am safe, by updating the chipset drivers, followed by Intel storage (RST ?) driver to deal with the SSD. I would like to do all this prior to enabling AHCI in BIOS.
    ■ I have made a disk image of the current SSD (onto the new Samsung EVO 850). I need step by step instruction on how best to optimize everything without crashing or burning this system, which is critical to me (for another 6 months, when i will be able to migrate everything onto a newer platform).



FYI - i am not a newbie, and have built barebone systems from scratch, but that was before 15 years. The one thing i remember from those days is that the order of chipset driver installation could be important. (Separately, i also need to start another thread to find out what exactly are the chipsets used in E6420 - if you know a link, that would save me some time spent on the net to find this info).

Thanks for all replies.


 
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bambiboom
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Paul NZ

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You would need some kind of registry hack. If you enable AHCI after.

Otherwise it'll crash with a 0x0000007b stop error. Which means it cant find the hdd

Since it was on IDE when windows was installed. And installing the sata drivers wont fix this

Shouldn't be a prob updating the BIOS. You dont have to flash every single BIOS update

And Samsung Magician would probably optimise it.



 
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bambiboom

bambiboom

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buddhaseeking,

Given the circumstances, my inclination is to start from the beginning- a clean slate.

For the drivers and firmware for the E6420 visit Dell Support at:

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/latitude-e6420/drivers/advanced

Click on Drivers and Downloads > Guide Me or Find It Myself and select for > XP. There must be at least 50 files listed. You select all the ones you want to a list and they are all downloaded at once.

1. I'm curious as to why you can't reinstall XP? If the system hasn't substantially updated in five years, the performance from the error-filled system image will compromise a lot of the hardware improvements. It's possible to obtain a Dell reinstallation disk for your version and activate from the product key on the COA on the case. I've done this three or four times with Dells, most recently with a Dell T3500, T5500, and E520. With the Precision T5500, I rang up Dell and they sent the reinstallation disk free of charge and that even included the driver for the PERC RAID controller.

2. Update the chipset and Rapid Storage drivers, which you can obtain from Dell. Check the version carefully.

3. Update the BIOS to the latest version. This will allow it to recognize later hardware.

4. Configure BIOS to enable hyperthreading if your CPU supports it. Set the disk mode to AHCI / RAID autodetect. Paul NZ is correct that if you install to the disk and then change the disk mode, the system will not run. It's quite possible that if your system image was made in the non-AHCI mode, that it will not run when reinstalled.

5. Install Windows and programmes and update. MS does not support XP in some ways, but I think you can still obtain the Service Packs.

Let us know how it goes.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) > 32GB DDR3 1866 ECC RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Revised) > 2X Xeon X5680 (6 -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz), 48GB DDR3 1333 ECC Reg. > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > PERC H310 / Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (27", 1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3844 / CPU = 15047 / 2D= 662 / 3D= 3500 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)

 
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bambiboom

bambiboom

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PaulNZ,

That was a transitional period but I had four systems with Windows XP all using SATA drives. As so many people still used (E)IDE XP came with autility that would transfer IDE format data to SATA drives..

If you look at the Dell.com drivers link you'll see there are a number of SATA drivers at for Windows XP:



Dell Advanced Format HDD Detection Tool Utility View details

DELL_ADVANCED-FORMAT-HDD-DET_A00_R306204.exe | Hard-Drive (158 KB)
Serial ATA
|
Release date 09 Jun 2011
|
Last Updated 22 Apr 2014
|
Recommended
Version v1.6,A00
Download File
Add to download list

Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Pre-OS Install) Driver View details
INTEL_RAPID-STORAGE-TECHNOLO_A07_R291720.exe | Hard-Drive (346 KB)
Serial ATA
|
Release date 19 May 2011
|
Last Updated 30 Dec 2015
|
Recommended
Version 10.1.0.1008,A07
This file will automatically self-install after downloading.
Restart required
Download File
Add to download list

Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver View details
SATA_DRVR_WIN_R291722.EXE | Update Package for Microsoft® Windows® (15 MB)
Serial ATA
|
Release date 14 Mar 2011
|
Last Updated 01 Dec 2015
|
Recommended
Version 10.0.0.1046,A07
This file will automatically self-install after downloading.
Restart required
Download File
Add to download list

Cheers,

BambiBoom
 
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Paul NZ

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I didnt say there were no sata drivers for XP

I said unless you slipstreamed them into an XP ISO, you can't enable AHCI in the BIOS when you install it.

Otherwise it'll crash. And the only way to fix the above is they'll have to find the hack run it so it adds the info to the registry, then install the SATA drivers.

Then enable AHCI in the BIOS
 
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bambiboom

bambiboom

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PaulNZ,

As it happens so often, with hard drives and USB especially, there are files that accomplish what you mentioned:

Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Pre-OS Install) Driver

> can be loaded in the way RAID controller drivers are loaded. The installation disk- or the system image restore disk prompts loading of "Pre-OS" drivers before installing the OS or the system image. I used a file of this kind a couple of months ago when restoring a system image to a Precision T5500 to which I added a PERC H310 controller. The EaseUs recovery program (WinPE-based) prompts adding the RAID controller driver, which is a self-extracting *.EXE.

In any event, the OP intends to restore from a system image as - for some reason- he can not obtain the proper ISO. This surprises me as I installed the OEM OS for the T5500 from an ISO downloaded from MS and the Dell reinstallation disk arrived later.

Also, the OP wrote., ",..AHCI is not enabled in BIOS", and " I would like to do all this [load new drivers] prior to enabling AHCI in BIOS" that he is seeing the option to enable AHCI in BIOS anyway.


Cheers,

BambiBoom
 
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buddhaseeking

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Paul and BambiBoom,

Thanks for your answers. I should have mentioned more clearly in my OP that this system was running XP/SP3 on the PM810 SSD. So, no HDD is involved here. I bought the new Samsung EVO 850 in the hope of taking advantage of the SATA -iii capability of this hardware. Right now the system is not giving expected Sequential write even on the PM810 - i am hoping this is because AHCI is not enabled in BIOS. I have shared an image of the storage section of BIOS. As you can see, BIOS is set to ATA mode. I suspect this is probably a mistake i did years ago by resetting BIOS or some such stupidity. I don't remember much from 5 years ago.

Below are couple of shots that show Win XP device manager, SATA/Raid controller:
Device manager
SCSI/RAID driver
Currently, system is only using ATA drivers from MS, which is seen in Device Manager -> ATA/ATAPI controller section.

The reason i don't want to start from scratch is two fold :

    ■ This is a hand me down system, and there is only a tag on the laptop that shows it came with a Windows 7 (not XP). I am not the original owner and hence i do not have XP or Win-7 installation CDs. When i checked with dell support, they told me that they can not give any CD or support because this is over their warranty period now.
    ■ There is ton of applications that i have installed on this over years and they have all been customized and happily running on XP. It would take me substantial time investment, to move all these apps and make sure their settings are right again. Even if i buy a software tool that helps in migration to newer version of Windows, i simply can not do this now. I have another system that is running Windows-7 and i am slowly attempting to install all these apps onto that, as time permits and when that process is complete, i can recycle this Dell.

So, for now, i was hoping that i could

    ■ simply install the intel Rapid Storage Tech (RST) driver (maybe even avoid the chipset drivers, if they are a problem)
    ■ and then SATA drivers on top of the running Win-XP, and restart the system
    ■ Once all the drivers are installed, i would do a BIOS upgrade from A06 to A23 and enable AHCI at that point.

I am not clear minded now at night, after a long day. So, i did not try to understand why you guys are saying that the system would become brick, if i try to enable AHCI. Please exlpain. If this is totally impossible without reinstall of OS, then i would have to live with this slow system. Sometimes my browser takes too long to load pages even though I have 36 Mbps. That is why i attempted the benchmarks and found the SSDs to be the main issue.

How would i find out if SATA drivers are currently installed on this system ?
 
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bambiboom

bambiboom

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buddhaseeking,

If you change the disk format to AHCI, the OS can no longer read the disk and you have to reinstall everything with the setting as AHCI.

If you are seeing the AHCI options in BIOS, then it means that XP Service Pack 3 has already added SATA / AHCI capability, which it apparently did in 2011. In that case you can reset to AHCI in BIOS, install the new SSD, set it as primary, active and then load the system image to it. The chipset and Rapid Storage drivers can be updated later. As you are not changing the disk format, it will not affect the installation.

> If the system is still running, I would update the BIOS first.

If you are not seeing the AHCI option in BIOS, use the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Pre-OS Install) Driver program. Try this:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-windows_install/sata-ahci-support-in-windows-xp-professional-sp3/4a351251-1896-4a51-bad7-07eccd182190

1. Load the 3 files listed in the earlier post on a USB drive.
2. Install the new SSD, and disconnect any other drive
3. Format and set it as the primary, active partition.
4. Start the system and repeatedly press F6. It will go to a screen that prompts you to select and load drivers. Select and run the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Pre-OS Install) Driver program
5. You should then be able to restore the system image you made earlier.

The disk speed should be much better, but keep in mind that the disk controller in the E6420 is Serial ATA300 3GB/s so the Samsung 850 will not run at it's full speed. I added a Samsung 840 to a Dell Precision T5500 which has an SATAII controller. On Passmark Performance Test, the disk score was 1940. I then added a PERC H310 PCIe 6GB/s RAID controller and the disk score changed to 2649 or +36%. The Samsung 840 was used originally in an HP z420 with SATA III and in that system the 840 scored 2559 so I know that with the 6GB/s controller I'm having the proper performance. If your original SSD is still running, you might run the free trial of Passmark Performance Test and then compare results after adding the Samsung 850.

Let us know how it goes.

Cheers,

BambiBoom



 
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buddhaseeking

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Jan 25, 2016
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Thanks for the instructions. It took me couple of days to read up more on other related stuff on net, before i attempted it today. Result = BSOD !!! Here is what i did.

    ■ Please note that i had previously been running XP on ATA mode using a SSD. Then, i made an exact replica of that SSD onto my new Samsung EVO (data 3) SSD. So, i have 2 identical disks, both boot fine in ATA mode. I am conducting all my experiments using the new SSD, keeping the other as backup.
    ■ I stumbled on another discussion here, where many had success in loading AHCI onto a running XP system (IDE), without having to start from scratch. Some of them did not do any registry hacks either.... (Bambi - i mentioned before the reasons why i can not load the XP fresh onto this system). But, now i have hope since many others have done this onto a live XP system to covert to AHCI. When that discussion was combined with your instructions here, i was able to understand what exactly that i am attempting at hardware/driver level.
    ■ That discussion was based on the instructions found at another website HERE.
    ■ Here is example of another person following simple/no registry-hack method to get AHCI working for the same chipset as mine in this HP laptop.
    ■ My laptop is Latitude E6420. I confirmed (from CNET.com as well as using the utility called CPU-Z) that I have the Intel Sandybridge chipset with QM67 as south bridge. Looking up on intel site, i see this listed as Mobile Intel QM67 Express chipset. But, when i install AHCI or RAID driver for this chipset (using the method described in the discussion i pointed to, i get BSOD when driver is getting installed.
    ■ I downloaded and unpacked the RST package from dell website (under what is listed for my laptop). Before i installed this driver, i had actually updated the BIOS to the latest version provided by DELL. I also installed the latest chipset driver provided by dell, once i made sure that BIOS update was successful and did not degrade the system. The laptop runs with latest bios & chipset driver without any problems.
    ■ Here is couple of images what i see & choose during the AHCI driver installation:
    The 2 SATA controllers i am trying to update in Device manager
    Screen just before getting BSOD shows i chose the "Intel Mobile Express Chipset" because I don't see ICH6 listed as a choice to choose for me. Based on intel website saying QM67 is Mobile express chipset, i chose this option during AHCI installation.
    ■ As i write this, i am noticing that my USB wireless keyboard/mouse are not working properly. Hopefully, BIOS is not the cause of this, and this is related to my current issue with chipset/RST.
    ■ CPU-Z shows that my motherboard is DELL model 032T9K - A02. (not relevant, but wanted to add info here)


I have already spent hours on this, and don't know where i am going wrong.
 
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buddhaseeking

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OK, i found the problem by reviewing the steps carefully as given in the link i posted in step #4. I noticed that i had 2 entries in Device manager -> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers with the name of my chipset (in my case, Intel 6 series / C200 chipset Family).

    ■ 2 port Serial ATA storage controller
    ■ 4 port Serial ATA storage controller


I was updating the driver for the 2 port, as described in some of the web links i posted in prior posts. But i noticed that the discussion in step #4 of prior post (about a HP notebook) was describing the update of the 4 port SATA. So, i tried that now. (perhaps 2 port was already updated in my BSOD efforts yesterday ?). And upon SATA driver update as described, i did not get a BSOD and was able to see the "restart now" option given by Windows. During reboot, i chose AHCI and i am getting SATA - 3 speeds after successful boot into Windows XP Professional. Click here to see my current CrystalDiskMark (version 5.x) results.

Now, my problem is the following two:

    ■ I am not getting the average results seen when i do google image search for Samsung EVO 850 SSD. I also compared against the averages for this SSD seen at UserBenchmark. I tried selecting "RAID on" mode in BIOS instead of AHCI, because i remember reading somewhere that this gave better results than simply AHCI mode. I am not sure what is causing the reduction in speeds (obviously my system is capable of SATA 3).
    ■ My wireless keyboard has stopped functioning. Also, my external monitor is not getting woken up, when windows XP starts up - i have to manually power it off and ON (even though it is in Standby mode). I am planning to update all drivers now (keyboard, mouse, video ....) and hope that this gets fixed.


If you think of something else that i am missing, let me know. Thanks to both of you for help so far.
 
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bambiboom

bambiboom

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buddhaseeking,

Very encouraging progress. Well done.

I'm a bit vague on the power options in XP, but I think there is a "Performance" option in the power schemes similar to Windows 7. Try it. In disk performance, did you have the option when restoring the system image to optimize the installation for SSD. In the system image software I use- (EaseUs ToDo Workstation), that control set the starting point in the SSD sector to a different point than a mech.'l drive and this is supposed to make noticeable difference in performance.

Can you post results for a new test in Passmark? I am more familiar with these and can do Advanced Searches to compare.

Cheers,

BambiBoom
 
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buddhaseeking

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It turns out that my wireless keyboard went down because coincidentally, the battery ran out in it while i was doing all this stuff. So, battery replaced and its working again. I made sure all optimizations that i could find on internet have been applied, as below:

    ■ Used Samsung software (Magician) which reports the disk as being connected to a SATA-3 interface using AHCI
    ■ Samsung software also has an option to run the SSD for "best performance", which i have used.
    ■ This is brand new SSD, but i still ran TRIM manually by clicking on "Performance Optimization" of Samsung software tool (which runs TRIM and GC).
    ■ Under Device Manager of XP, i have enabled "Write caching on the disk" under Disk drives -> properties -> Policies.
    ■ I have confirmed that system is properly aligned on the SSD at 4K, as suggested.
    ■ Indexing of files has been disabled in the SSD (i doubt if this makes much difference in speeds)
    ■ Paging file has been reduced in size, in order to prevent too much writing to page file.
    ■ The only thing that is negative is the report from Samsung software which informs that Windows XP can not make use of the RAPID mode of this SSD, which seems to boost performance (i don't know how much this is a factor).


All drivers have been updated, and Samsung EVO 850 remains under average speeds reported on the internet. This is an image of the performance test done by Samsung Magician software, which is consistent with the speeds reported (in prior post) by CrystalDiskMark version 5.1. So, i am at a loss because there i can not ind anyone using this newer model SSD with an old OS (Windows xp). My suspicion is that the inability to use the "RAPID mode" of samsung under XP is causing some serious speed compromise.

Bambiboom - as you requested, i ran the Passmark, and compared it against 4 others (same CPU and SSD). Surprisingly my overall Passmark score came 1% lower than before !! (i.e.. before AHCI enabling). But, as you can see in this image, the Disk Mark score is much improved. In the image, the first sample has 8GB RAM, rest are all 4GB. The second sample (blue line) is my PC prior to AHCI enabling. The 3 other machines (other than 2 of mine) are all Windows - 7 machines. So, there is very strong evidence here to show that Samsung SSD performs about 40% better when it uses the RAPID mode (which is available in Win-7 but not in XP). I would dearly love to get confirmation of my research from someone authoritative on these topics. My PC remains near overall PassMark score of 1240- 1255 range. But i do see distinct speed difference in real world usage of PC, like browsing. So, PassMark score is not sensitive to Disk Mark, i guess.
 
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buddhaseeking

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Since you posted many replies, I picked one of your replies as the best solution, Bambiboo. I Want to close out this thread with couple of observations i made with several tests of PassMark benchmark test, after i had AHCI enabled. Even though i am not getting the best (or even average speeds as reported in Userbenchmarks website), i am convinced that it is not because of hardware, but possibly because of XP. Extensive searching on the net has not turned up any evidence to the contrary theory i am proposing below:


    ■ All other machines i could find as 'baselines' (using Passmark) that have same hardware as this machine are showing higher performance as seen in this image here. Even the machine that has an old SSD (PM830) with bad performance in DiskMark, shows a higher overall score at top. The only difference is that i am running XP as opposed to Win 7.
    ■ Samsung can enable RAPID mode for better performance, but this is not possible under Windows XP. I suspect lot of my performance degradation could be due to this fact.
    ■ I ran several other tests on PassMark, creating different baseline configurations for the comparisons (different CPUs, Intel/Nvidia video, OS, memory etc). After carefully looking at the results, i could see that the overall score of PassMark was highly influenced by the OS (in my case that is the bottleneck).
    ■ All passmark scores (Overall rating, memory, DiskMark, CPUmark etc) depend on each other. So, a change in memory or video would affect all other scores. They are interdependent. There is no other way i can see why my CPU would measure lower against exactly same CPU from 3 other machines.
    ■ At this point, i have to conclude that the results i posted above from CrystalDiskMark are the best i can get out of this SATA-3 SSD, given my constraints. The logical conclusion is that, one must have at least Windows 7 and 4GB RAM (preferably 8GB) and a good video card, to reach the maximum speed of the SSD.


I also found my biggest tip from this HP forum thread. I don't remember if i posted it before, but want to give the link, for the sake of completion of info in this thread.
 
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