Poor performance Intel 320 SSD 80GB

[singingigo]

I'm wondering what might be awry with my setup.

Dell Vostro 1520
2.53GHZ P8700
3GB DDR2-800 (mixed dual channel mode)
256MB Geforce 9300M GS
80GB Intel 320 SSD

The sequential read/write speeds are spot on. The 4k read/write is quite low (<20MB). The access times are .15ms, whereas i'm seeing they should be .05 to .09.

I have run the Intel SSD toolbox. It says things are optomized.
I have followed the common tweak guides.

AS SSD says my alignment is OK.

I made sure teh power plan was on "High Performance". I loaded the latest Intel AHCI driver, and made sure te BIOS was set the AHCI.

Any clues on why the access times are so high?

 

[foscooter]

Try a different benchmark utility: ATTO or HDTune.

BUT DON'T RUN TOO MANY BENCHMARKS! They will hurt the SSD over time.

You might try this SSD Optimization Guide here. Not all tweaks are needed. 1-5 are most important, and I didn't use 6,8,10,14.

But they won't decrease your access time.

 

[singingigo]

As I mentioned, I followed several SSD optimization guides. Specifically, I did steps 1, 2, 5. I haven't disabled system restore or drive indexing yet. I have also run HD tune, which turns in very bad scores (sequential reads only ~150MB/s).

I'm more concerned about the high access times. It seems they should be at least .1 ms or lower. Any thoughts?

 

[foscooter]

Sorry, I'm not familiar with your system. A few questions:

SATA 2 or 3? i320 SSD is SATA 2, right?

Latest chipset drivers? What chipset?

Oh, okay, it's a laptop. I'm at a loss. I know not laptops.

 

[singingigo]

It's a Dell Vostro 1520, so that means it's an Intel 4 series chipset. I downloaded the latest driver updater utility from Intel, and things there seem to be fine. I also downloaded and updated the AHCI 10.1 driver from Intel. It's SATA 2.

I've also had some really quirky things start happening since I put the SSD in. The touchpad will only move the cursor left and right. The keyboard is posting, but not showing up 50% of the boots. Perhaps it's due to putting Win 7 64 bit on it. I have heard funky things. I've also read a number of comments on the video card causing issues with the touchpad and keyboard. Since it was a fresh install including all drivers, perhaps that is the issue with the quirky stuff. And maybe with the access times. I'm not. Have to read the log files some more.

Any other clues?

 

[jimmysmitty]

The issues may come from the chipset itself although it would be strange for a Intel 45 series chipset to give issues. It may be the GPU itself or anything.

I just installed a X25-M G2 and its fast as all get out, but mine is a desktop. I would run some diags on your hardware (not the SSD obviously but the mobo, RAM etc) to see if that might be causing issues.

 

[singingigo]

I'm pretty sure the issue is with the BIOS in the dell & Windows 7, not the SSD. I had upgraded the Bios from A05 to A08 right before reinstalling. Should have passed on that. On the other hand, I'm reading that a number of people have issues with the Vostro 1520, Windows 7 and the Nvidia GPU. So who knows...

 

[singingigo]

Best answer selected by singingigo.