SSD Rating from 7.9 to 7.4

[casshern09]

I got a Crucial 512GB SSD the other day. had a few problems installing, but now everything runs fine. Thing is, I ran the system rating thingy when I first got it and my system overall had 7.7
Now when I do it, it has 7.4 and it's the SSD that has the lowest score.
has anyone ever encountered this? Surely it can't have degraded in the past few days? Have I damaged it in some way?

System spec

Intel i7 970
16GB DDR3
2 x GTX 580 SLI
Win 7

Cheers for any help.

 

[RealBeast]

If you transferred an OS image, as opposed to doing a clean installation, take a look at the SSD alignment with diskpart. Here is a detailed explanation: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html

 

[buzznut]

Are you running in AHCI mode?

 

[buzznut]

Oh yeah, WIN8 Beta was just released which has a slightly different rating (can go above 8.0) which may have an effect on current WEI ratings. I'm guessing, but its an educated guess!

 

[casshern09]

It was a clean install. I actually reinstalled again after as Win 7 wasn't updating properly and wouldn't install service pack one.

Yes I changed from IDE to ACHI when I first tried to install as I was having a lot of BSOD's.

But yeah, it went from 7.9 to 7.4 which was very odd. Not really sure what to do, or if anything needs doing?

 

[RealBeast]

I would probably just run some Crystal Disk Mark benches to see that the read/write speeds are reasonable for your Crucial compared to some review benchmarks, otherwise I wouldn't really worry about it.

 

[casshern09]

Thanks for the advice. I used the CDM bench and compared it with one a website had done. it was significantly worse than theirs. by up to 100mb/s in some cases. In fact in the last part of the test it was well over that.
Also used another tool to see if it was damaged. Says not. So that means somewhere along the line. Something is making it run much slower than normal.
My flatmate suggested maybe my mobo doesn't make as much use of it as it could.

I use a Asus rampage extreme 3.

Any ideas anyone?

 

[RealBeast]

Do you have it attached to a red SATA 6gb/s (SATA III) port? Did you use a SATA III cable?

Your motherboard only has Marvell SATA III ports, which are not as fast as the integrated Intel SATA III ports on later Intel chipsets, but you should still get extremely good performance, just not quite as fast as the Intel ports.

 

[casshern09]

Right, it's definitely in the red SATA port. As for a SATA 3 cable. I have to confess I have no clue if it is or not. They are just blue ones I have had for a while. So possibly not.
Might see if I can buy one on Ebuyer.

Thanks again.

 

[RealBeast]

While a good quality SATA II cable is adequate for 6gbps, a cheap one is potentially not, so I would consider it as a possible issue. That said, good quality SATA II cables meet the 6gbps specifications.

I would also check to see if their are updated Marvell SATA III drivers, which could help.

 

[jaquith]

It's not your cables, it's more than likely changing from IDE-> AHCI and the registry entries. BTW - if doing a NEW install then ALWAYS set your desired BIOS environment first.

Run Regedit and set the Start values, both of them, to 0 (zero):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV

...otherwise run 'Fix It' - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

Reboot, and run WEI again.

 

[casshern09]

Again thanks for the help people. Really appreciate it.

Ok so, I installed a couple of extra things from the mobo boot disk. Something called EVO Turbo. Not sure what it does.
Also went to the Asus site and downloaded the SATA controller thing.

Ran the system rating thing again and the rating for the drive is 7.9 again
Also ran Crystal Disk Mark check and it's very close to the benchmark. Within 20-30.
So not sure which sorted it but it seems much better. Yay.

I also did the regedit thing and they were already at zero.

Anyway thanks everyone.

 

[jaquith]

The the problem was the drivers. The newest (SATA2) drivers are listed on Intel's website -> http://downloadcenter.intel.com/default.aspx?lang=eng otherwise for Marvell go to your MOBO's/OEM website and use the latest listed, you can pooch the rig using incorrect Marvell drivers (firmware).

You can use Intel's Driver Update Utility from the link above.

The problem you'll run into most SATA3 ports on X58/LGA 1366 are the slower and shared PCIe x1 Marvell 9128 and not the newer for X58/LGA 1366 PCIe x2 lanes offered from the Marvell 9182.

I take no stock in WEI, it's meaningless. I recommend you use ATTO and look at the R/W speeds in particular the 4KB R/W. Other benches are available AS SSD or CrystalDiskMark. Tom's HW often uses Iometer and PCMark7. Nice explanation of 4KB -> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110-4.html

 

[RealBeast]

Again thanks for the help people. Really appreciate it.

Ok so, I installed a couple of extra things from the mobo boot disk. Something called EVO Turbo. Not sure what it does.
Also went to the Asus site and downloaded the SATA controller thing.

Ran the system rating thing again and the rating for the drive is 7.9 again
Also ran Crystal Disk Mark check and it's very close to the benchmark. Within 20-30.
So not sure which sorted it but it seems much better. Yay.

I also did the regedit thing and they were already at zero.

Anyway thanks everyone.

Great, it was the driver. If you ever use the SSD on another motherboard that has the choice of Intel or Marvell SATA III, use the Intel. Those benchmarks indicate that your drive is now running optimally, and trust the Crystal Disk Mark over the WEI, although it was useful in your case since it alerted you to the problem.

 

[jaquith]

The WEI did show a 'gross error', but a full set of benches is the only way to know if there's problems and the performance is all up to spec.

I always thoroughly test:
CPU - Prime95 + Blend or AIDA64 or IntelBurnTest
GPU - 3DMark11
SSD/HDD - ATTO or others listed
System - PCMark7
RAM - Memtest86+

Plus more benches but the ones above are the most documented to 'compare' to verify nothing is wrong and the system is running properly. Today, WEI is easy to peg to 7.9, many are pre-sets, CPU even a 6-core SB-E @ 5GHz is 7.8, so the only way to know the expected performance is present is to use comparative tests.