Intel G2 80GB MLC SSD Can't find firmware update

[blackhawk1928]

Hi, for some reason i can't find anywhere on how to the actual firmware to update my Intel 80GB SSD G2 MLC. Can anybody give me a link, on the intel website it just gives that download no longer available. I need to update to make sure i have trim. Also does anybody know how to check which firmware i have using Win7? In addition are there any apps you can run every now and then to make sure to earase the blocks kind of like trim except run only when you want them to. Thanks for the help, because now that i am starting to get into my SSD a bit more, i want to find out all the information since I heard the firmware updates improve performance and fix issues. Thank you

Blackhawk1928

 

[pathasse]

I would like to see where this question goes. When you go to device manager and your drive properties your driver version should be under there.

 

[blackhawk1928]

It just says 6.1.7600.16385 nothing about the Intel Firmware...I want to know which firmware from Intel I have so i know if i need to update it incase i don't have trim. Also for some reason when I bench the drive, the max transfers are around 195mbps, while Intel says it supports up to 250mbps. I was thinking this could be a connection bottleneck, i went to BIOS and look and there are only two options of connection, IDE and ACPI...i think (I dont think i spelled it right but its something like that). My drive is connected through SATA II. Why is it doing this?. Should I update my BIOS to the latest version or is there something else. Plus why does Intel not offer anymore downloads of firmware updates or anything?...I am lost.

 

[sminlal]

You want to find out the firmware in the drive itself, not the Windows driver revision level. You'd have to use a utility to read the information from the disk, such as DiskCheckup.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Can anybody tell me why the SSD isn't giving full speed. Transfer were rated at 250mbps while mine is giving me between 180mbps-210mpbs at max. It never went to full speed. Can anybody tell me why? I am using an ASUS P6T, my SSD is connect into a SATA port on the south bridge. I do have a JMicron controller. Can anybody tell me how to fix this. Oh and I looked, the drive can be set to AHCI and IDE. Currently its IDE, with AHCI, it crashes and doesn't boot. Is it normal for the SSD to get lower speeds then Intel says?...do i have a defective drive? Please help me, and also can i get links to where intel releases firmware updates because no matter where i go it says Download Unavailable anymore. Has trim been released at all because there is no download that provides it anywhere.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Actually, I just download a program called ATTO disk benchmark, I am not sure how to post pictures into the forum, but according to this program, my max read speed was 252mbps and max write was around 90mbps. How come HDTUNE said otherwise....however I am still unsure about the trim, firmware and etc...

 

[sminlal]

Now you're starting to understand why benchmarking is not an exact science.

 

[RetiredChief]

Here is the link for the new SSD fireware update
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18363&lang=eng

Looks like the Intel toolbox has not been updated yet, Should be out next day or so (My guess)

 

[blackhawk1928]

It says "Download not found and an error has occured"...i'll just try downloading it from another computer and putting on a flash drive

 

[blackhawk1928]

Ah, I just went to a different link on their website and finally found the firmware update ! HURRAY! However, i open thier PDF on release notes and it says that the firmware update previous to this one support trim. In the chart, under the latest one, it doesn't say it supports trim, so do i need to download that specific update for trim or can i just download the latest one and it will have it?...

 

[RetiredChief]

Fixed the link
Downloaded and updated and installed win 7 - Need to verify that trim is working.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Hey, I also had another couple questions. At first, i never realized but my drive was connected with IDE in Bios. I tried changing to AHCI but win7 bluescreen and crashed. I then saw online that you there is a driver called msahci and you need to go to registry and click on the start value and change it to 0. Then restart, go into Bios and set AHCI mode. I did that and win7 booted fine and installed the driver automatically. Now my read speeds are 270mbps vs the 249-252mbps...I call that impressive. However do I need to go back and renable the "Start" value after doing this to the msahci or leave it at 0? Also, I heard trim only works with AHCI, so now that have it will trim work even though I installed win7 using IDE but now switched and am working on AHCI? Thanks for any help and I apologize for keeping this thread up so long

 

[mmcgregor]

Leave the start value as is; set to 0. It needs to be set so that the driver loads early in the boot sequence. [strike]Once enabled (set to 0), you can change the BIOS back to ATA mode and you will still boot.[/strike] Whether you can boot in either may be BIOS depenent. My Dell T110 had a BIOS update that now crashes Windows 7 boot wih AHCI enabled if BIOS is set to ATA mode. This was not the case in the previous version. The setting changed only allows the AHCI driver to attempt to find an AHCI device on your system. [strike]I'm really not sure why W7 did not leave this enabled by default.[/strike] This was learned recently; no boot in ATA mode. I guess that they assumed that you would install the OS on a machine that had it enabled; then it is enabeld by default. Oh well.

One thing that I noticed in ATA vs. AHCI, this with a spinning platter HD, is that ATA benchmarks are better on the same drive/system for sequential access read/write (~20MBps). Only random access showed improvement with AHCI enabled; I assume due to the command queuing, but I'm not a an expert on that. I have not had a chance to becnhmark my SSD to see if it makes a differnece. Currently, I only have two laptops with Intel SSDs to improve performance, and these do not have an AHCI native interface in BIOS.

I doubt trim only works in AHCI. I have never heard that and cannot see why it would other than Intel limiting it for performance reasons; again command queuing feature of AHCI could help that.