Mobo doesn't support AHCI, would this help? Thanks.

[quixoticduck]

Hello, I have done a search and can't find this (specifically for me to understand) on the forums already.

I was about to install W764-bit on my new SSD, I thought I had checked everything. Then I discovered that my motherboard (Asus A8N-SLI) does not support AHCI which is necessary for TRIM? and vital for SSDs?

Firstly, can anybody tell me if the above info correct (I am a beginner with all of this stuff), secondly I read somewhere that one of these could help because it has built in AHCI. Also will boost to SATA3 (though my SSD is only SATA2 3Gb/s).

I don't actually know what the above thing is, I shall have to research it more. Sadly it takes possibly a month to ship here and I was so ready to install, been putting it off for a month, thought I'd researched everything, everything was backed up and had all of my guides ready. >.<

My SSD is the Sandisk Ultra SDSSDH-120G-G25 SATA II SSD, I'm not actually 100% sure it supports TRIM, couldn't find out with google, but I just bought it new so it can't be too dated?

If this is true then maybe everything will be okay.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[willard]

I was about to install W764-bit on my new SSD, I thought I had checked everything. Then I discovered that my motherboard (Asus A8N-SLI) does not support AHCI which is necessary for TRIM? and vital for SSDs?

Instead of buying a bunch of hardware to make something work on your ten year old motherboard, why don't you just replace the ten year old motherboard that's the problem?

 

[quixoticduck]

Instead of buying a bunch of hardware to make something work on your ten year old motherboard, why don't you just replace the ten year old motherboard that's the problem?

Because I don't know anything about replacing motherboards. :S It sounds quite daunting and I'm not sure if my Windows copy is tied to it. I know someone who said he ruined a motherboard when trying to attach something himself (I think it was the processor, not sure), and wouldn't I have to make sure that the rest of the hardware was compatible, or is that not a thing?

I'm really not sure that I'll ever build a computer from scratch so unless a motherboard is easy to replace it would mean buying an entirely new PC and this one is working fine at the moment.

The graphics card is fairly new as well but the guy who put it in (who I no longer know) said it might not be transferrable, I'm not sure exactly why, I'd have to research that more. :|

I get your point, and it's true for RAM as well (as DDR is so expensive) but I really don't need anything amazing, I only got this PC from someone a year ago so it's very powerful for me it runs all the games I want, I just needed some more storage space and thought putting my OS onto a SSD would speed things up and give me an extra 110GB as well. The SSD will be transferrable if I ever do get a new computer so aside from me planning to buy a bit more RAM I'm not putting extra money specifically into this old computer unless the PCI card is a good idea in which case it's only £10 and probably way easier to install compared to a new motherboard.

So I guess what I need to know is will the SSD still work at all/work better than a HDD and is the card thing easy to put in/worth it if I'm not buying a new moboard or go w/o?

Sorry that this was a bit tl;dr I do appreciate your advice I just don't know if I can apply it. Feel free to reply if you think I should reconsider (based upon what I've written). Thanks.

 

[quixoticduck]

Also Is it really 10 years old or were you exaggerating? I knew it was old but... :O

also any idea how to tell which exact mobo it is because I have googled and seems there's a standard version, a deluxe and a premium and I'm worried that any research I do might get messed up if I read up on the wrong one (I found out the asus a8n-sli part from the Crucial scanner. Not sure if this means it's the standard version or if the scanner is just not specific).

 

[geofelt]

download and run cpu-z. It will tell you exactly what motherboard you have, it's revision number and bios update level.
Use that info to see if there are any bios updates available that might give you ahci if you don't have it.

One way to see what you have is to start up the pc and enter the bios. Look for any sata mode choices(AHCI, IDE, raid)

Regardless, your new ssd will work just fine without trim.
each ssd has different firmware that will clean up unused blocks on it's own. Trim just makes that job much easier.

Just a caveat, do not let a ssd without trim support get too full. 80% max. Otherwise, updates will take longer, and the resulting nand I/o will reduce your longevity.

You will also probably be limited to 3gb sata.

Regardless, you will still enjoy the benefits of a ssd compared to any hard drive.

 

[dextermat]

+1 willard, even if you try your best, your asking for trouble.
If windows is tied to the mobo, it means you have an OEM computer, witch means it's time to get rid of it anyways

 

[quixoticduck]

+1 willard, even if you try your best, your asking for trouble.
If windows is tied to the mobo, it means you have an OEM computer, witch means it's time to get rid of it anyways

Hi. I don't actually know that it is OEM/tied to the computer. I'm not in contact with the person I got the computer from and I didn't check this before I did an upgrade to W7. Maybe since the upgrade was retail I'm safe either way and I do also have a spare XP product key as backup, I was just being cautious.

When you say asking for trouble do you mean me trying to get TRIM support with the controller or using the SSD at all? Thanks.

 

[quixoticduck]

download and run cpu-z. It will tell you exactly what motherboard you have, it's revision number and bios update level.
Use that info to see if there are any bios updates available that might give you ahci if you don't have it.

One way to see what you have is to start up the pc and enter the bios. Look for any sata mode choices(AHCI, IDE, raid)

Regardless, your new ssd will work just fine without trim.
each ssd has different firmware that will clean up unused blocks on it's own. Trim just makes that job much easier.

Just a caveat, do not let a ssd without trim support get too full. 80% max. Otherwise, updates will take longer, and the resulting nand I/o will reduce your longevity.

You will also probably be limited to 3gb sata.

Regardless, you will still enjoy the benefits of a ssd compared to any hard drive.

Ok, thank you.

edit: I actually already had CPU-Z installed xD so foolish of me. I remember using it ages ago now.
I have the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium apparently ^.^

I'm learning so much.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Bad news. You have a very old AMD Socket 939 motherboard that was introduced in 2005. It was developed several years before consumer oriented solid state drives were introduced. It has an old NVIDIA chipset and does not support modern solid state drives. The motherboard is no longer in production. There is no system BIOS update or any other kind of update for it that would help you.

 

[willard]

Also Is it really 10 years old or were you exaggerating? I knew it was old but... :O

8, close enough to make no difference. You're well past the point of needing to replace things. As a rule, unless you're working with an extremely tight budget and can't save up for a couple months, I'd never upgrade something this old.

The problem is that when you're dealing with hardware this old, you just keep running into things it doesn't support. You just found your first one, and yes this is something you can fix. But what about the next thing, and the next, and the next? It's a never ending stream of things you need to fix. The older it gets, the worse it gets, and eventually you won't even be able to do these band aids anymore.

If you can swing it, it's time for a new build.

 

[quixoticduck]

Also Is it really 10 years old or were you exaggerating? I knew it was old but... :O

8, close enough to make no difference. You're well past the point of needing to replace things. As a rule, unless you're working with an extremely tight budget and can't save up for a couple months, I'd never upgrade something this old.

The problem is that when you're dealing with hardware this old, you just keep running into things it doesn't support. You just found your first one, and yes this is something you can fix. But what about the next thing, and the next, and the next? It's a never ending stream of things you need to fix. The older it gets, the worse it gets, and eventually you won't even be able to do these band aids anymore.

If you can swing it, it's time for a new build.

I do see your point. I think if the SSD couldn't be transferred later I wouldn't have thought of putting it in this old machine, same reason as why I was only going to spend £20-30 on boosting my RAM. I think that because I got this computer from somebody only a year or so ago and it's much better than my olldddd non-gaming previous computer it still seems good to me. Plus it still works fine (just needs more RAM), so while I do have money saved up I'm cautious to spend it on something I don't need. :| Also because my computer has a NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 in it which I think is fairly new.

But I will think about it. For the time being though can anything bad happen from me attempting to put this SSD in my machine?

 

[quixoticduck]

Bad news. You have a very old AMD Socket 939 motherboard that was introduced in 2005. It was developed several years before consumer oriented solid state drives were introduced. It has an old NVIDIA chipset and does not support modern solid state drives. The motherboard is no longer in production. There is no system BIOS update or any other kind of update for it that would help you.

Oh. That does sound bad. Just to clarify are you saying that a) My SSD won't work in my machine at all, b) It will but I won't get all of the benefits or c) It will work but negatively affect the PC or SSD (like wearing out the SSD quickly), d) It will work but I may run into problems for which there will be no patches/fixes because it's so old, e) something else?

Thank you for your response, it has been the most detailed so far and you do sound like you know what you're talking about, it is just unfortunate that it wasn't good news. >.<

 

[geofelt]

a) If you can install and run a normal sata hard drive, then I think you should be able to do so with a ssd.
b) You will not get the benefits of 6gb sata, your mobo has 1.3 and 3.0
c) Assuming it works, the endurance will be less without trim, and performance will not be optimal. That said, it will be a big improvement over a hard drive.
d) There may be problems. Who knows?
e) I think it is generally unwise to pour good money into any old technology. The newer parts are so much better, cheaper, faster, an more reliable. I imagine you can buy a more capable cpu/motherboard/ram for <$200

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Your motherboard does not support ACHI mode. You are restricted to IDE mode which was designed for hard disk drives. A solid state drive might work but the performance will be similar to that of a hard disk drive. There is no proper controller and no proper chipset on the motherboard for a modern 3rd generation ssd. In the event of problems there are no system BIOS updates, no chipset updates, no patches and no fixes.

You really should consider upgrading the motherboard first.

 

[quixoticduck]

a) If you can install and run a normal sata hard drive, then I think you should be able to do so with a ssd.
b) You will not get the benefits of 6gb sata, your mobo has 1.3 and 3.0
c) Assuming it works, the endurance will be less without trim, and performance will not be optimal. That said, it will be a big improvement over a hard drive.
d) There may be problems. Who knows?
e) I think it is generally unwise to pour good money into any old technology. The newer parts are so much better, cheaper, faster, an more reliable. I imagine you can buy a more capable cpu/motherboard/ram for <$200

I'm in the UK and tech seems to be more expensive here >.< when you say buy new cpu/mobo/ram do you mean a new computer or the parts and install myself? As for the endurance of the SSD, after I bought it I found out that a TON of people with the same drive had theirs fail after 1yr and since it comes with 3 yrs warranty (some people had theirs replaced with a better drive when it failed) I'm not too worried about how long it'll last as it may well do anyway and should be replaced (I assume they wouldn't blame me for not using TRIM?). Possibly its foolish of me to think this way...

Damn I really wish I knew how to install a new motherboard! Already in the past week I've learned a lot of stuff about computers but haven't had a chance to implement it and starting off my non-aided computer meddling with a motherboard exchange seems a bit out of my depth! And getting a new computer when mine works seems splurgey. Some people have recommended this but unless I replace the graphics card it would actually be worse than my current computer! So it'd be £330 or something. The longer I wait before this computer dies the cheaper parts will get. Or perhaps I'll meet someone who knows how to build computers.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[quixoticduck]

Welp, I installed my SSD and then Windows 64-bit onto that (clean install with an upgrade disc and then phonecall to Microsoft). Installed some RAM too. TRIM was enabled without me doing anything and stuff seems faster. It's only recognising 3GB of my memory though.

I know my machine is outdated but aside from the SSD which I'd have put in any machine, I've spent nothing so far so much better value than a new PC. I'll probably buy a stick of RAM for £10-15 but that's it!

 

[PE_Tihi]

You wrote and asked in a very likeable manner- now I see you are a girl, so it's no wonder.
You bought a quite nice system board, it 's old but venerable. You already know by now, I am sure, you can run your SSD in the system without problems; won't be as fast as in a sata-3, but still very fast. TRIM is not indispensible, for your SSD, either.
Regarding memory, it is difficult to equip the board with more than 4GB ( DDR 2 MB sticks almost impossible to find and exorbitant). To be able to use all 4 GB you got, you need to activate memory remapping options in the BIOS, ( there are two S/W and H/W; H/W is necessary, but you may activate both)
Depending on the processor, your rig is still able to deliver you some fun.

Greetings, Tihi

P.S. Avoid investing too much in memory or processors- DDRI or faster compatible processors can be expensive items on e-bay - cause you wont be able to transfer these to a newer system.
On the other hand, the board supports any contemporary HD drives, SSDs (with some performance limits) and graphics cards - and they can be transferred without problem.