ACHI Mode for SSD

[Liam Joyce]

hey guys this is covered all over the place i know. but after hours of reading i feel like I've gotten nowhere!

i have just bought this PC, i chose the components but it was built for me
here's my specs

fx8350
ga-970a-ud3
samsung 840 ssd (120gb) (OS Drive)
1tb Seagate hdd

pretty sure any other info is irrelevant

currently it takes around 25 seconds to boot to desktop, but i have seen videos of the same ssd boot up in like 10 sec!

so apparently before even heading down this road of "optimising my ssd" i need to enable achi to get the best out of it
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911-2.html

trim is enabled.

there is a link to the Microsoft page in the above tomshardware link which is used to enable achi drivers (which i used the Microsoft fixit download to do for me)

one page i went to told me to check my IDE/ATA/ATAPI controllers in device manager and if i couldn't find achi in there(which i couldn't), this means its disabled. it then continued to tell me that i needed to right click ide controller and update the drivers manually to achi (which i started to do until windows threw a pop at me saying i could do harm because i doesnt know if the drivers are compatible) so i stopped that immediately

next i checked the bios, and it is saying that sata ports 0 - 3 are achi and 4/5 are ide my ssd is plugged into number 2

so does this mean achi is already enabled or do i need to force a driver update in device manager?? (and is that all i need to do?)

thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[Liam Joyce]

perhaps this information will mean something to someone?

AS SSD Benchmark 1.7.4739.38088
------------------------------
Name: Samsung SSD 840 Series SATA Disk Device
Firmware: DXT0
Controller: amd_sata
Offset: 103424 K - OK
Size: 111.79 GB
Date: 1/09/2013 1:08:49 a.m.
------------------------------
Sequential:
------------------------------
Read: 496.71 MB/s
Write: 130.23 MB/s
------------------------------
4K:
------------------------------
Read: 25.37 MB/s
Write: 79.44 MB/s
------------------------------
4K-64Threads:
------------------------------
Read: 226.79 MB/s
Write: 92.90 MB/s
------------------------------
Access Times:
------------------------------
Read: 0.107 ms
Write: 0.045 ms
------------------------------
Score:
------------------------------
Read: 302
Write: 185
Total: 632
------------------------------

 

[Som3one]

Do you have the Samsung Magician software installed.
It tells you pretty much everything you need to know, including AHCI mode, SATA connection and benchmark speeds.

A word of caution: Lot of people seem to don´t like this software. I however, never had a problem with it.

 

[Liam Joyce]

no i dont.. what dont they like about it??? i may get it

 

[Liam Joyce]

i have determined that it is running in achi , but under device manager it says "AMD SATA controller" but i did find a thread somehwere that said the MS achi drivers work better then AMD ones im benchmarking again to find out

 

[Liam Joyce]

AS SSD Benchmark 1.7.4739.38088
------------------------------
Name: Samsung SSD 840 Series ATA Device
Firmware: DXT08B0Q
Controller: msahci
Offset: 103424 K - OK
Size: 111.79 GB
Date: 1/09/2013 1:58:15 a.m.
------------------------------
Sequential:
------------------------------
Read: 487.20 MB/s
Write: 130.81 MB/s
------------------------------
4K:
------------------------------
Read: 21.77 MB/s
Write: 46.47 MB/s
------------------------------
4K-64Threads:
------------------------------
Read: 224.44 MB/s
Write: 95.57 MB/s
------------------------------
Access Times:
------------------------------
Read: 0.124 ms
Write: 0.066 ms
------------------------------
Score:
------------------------------
Read: 295
Write: 155
Total: 591
------------------------------

 

[Liam Joyce]

nope amd drivers are better lol

 

[Som3one]

no i dont.. what dont they like about it??? i may get it

Not sure exactly. I think I´ve read that it slows down the boot time a bit. But don´t nail me on that.
IMO I find it pretty handy.

 

[Liam Joyce]

oh well it turns out i had achi enabled all along, it just called amd_sata in device manager which threw me off, its called achi 1.0 if you are using microsoft achi drivers.. either way the amd ones turn out to be slightly faster.. but i still have a terribly shocking boot time on my ssd.. ive managed to get it to 18 seconds which is still pretty slow considering the circumstances.. maybe im just being fussy ! but ive seen people with 10.. hmm

 

[Dereck47]

Connect your SSD to port SATA3_0 and re-test.
See pages 7 & 23 of your motherboard manual for the location of the port.

Also, make sure you have the latest AMD Chipset drivers installed:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx#2

 

[Liam Joyce]

awesome thanks ill try that... i was actually downloading the gigabyte chipset drivers as i read your comment but should i go with amd instead

 

[Liam Joyce]

gigabytes are 233mb amds are 26 mb lol

 

[Liam Joyce]

Connect your SSD to port SATA3_0 and re-test.
See pages 7 & 23 of your motherboard manual for the location of the port.

Also, make sure you have the latest AMD Chipset drivers installed:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx#2

changing to port 0 did nothing .. it feel like the 2 places where it is slow are loading the win7 spash screen and the duration of the spash screen itself, because once it hits the welcome screen its lightning fast, shut down is around 5 seconds... just this boot up thats got me stumped.. i can even boot it with 26 different programs in the start up folder and it handles them with ease

so would you recommend amd drivers over gigbyte?

 

[Som3one]

IMO 18 seconds is pretty damn fast.
Here´s a boot time vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iJkKvYXOp4
He needs 15 seconds after POST. Which usually takes about 3-5 seconds, so you are fine.

 

[Liam Joyce]

IMO 18 seconds is pretty damn fast.
Here´s a boot time vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iJkKvYXOp4
He needs 15 seconds after POST. Which usually takes about 3-5 seconds, so you are fine.

well i have notice my bios/post takes about 4 seconds so if i dont count that in my timer its now around 12 seconds .. im not complainging this is the fats computer ive ever had and i understand its still a very quick speed but when i see videos like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5yL1adXsOU

it just makes me wonder what i could possibly be wrong

is there some stupid off chance that my 5 year old, 512mb geforce 9500gt is causing a bottle neck?? ... i didnt realise till after the purchase that a 970a-UD3 doesnt have ANY onboard graphics and ive still gotta wait another week for a gtx 760 ! so i had to make do

 

[Som3one]

So? He needs 19 seconds to boot.

 

[Liam Joyce]

if you start from post its like 11 secs???

 

[spooky2th]

Turn off the gigabyte splash screen in BIOS.

I have a kingston hyperX ssd in my second comp, an AMD ga-880GA-UD3H and the boots are super fast. Probably faster than 10 secs. The desktop just flashes up fast and it is on-line and all icons are ready clickable. Get all you drivers from the gigabyte web site. They are updated every so often too. The Bios is a snap to update too.

 

[Liam Joyce]

Turn off the gigabyte splash screen in BIOS.

I have a kingston hyperX ssd in my second comp, an AMD ga-880GA-UD3H and the boots are super fast. Probably faster than 10 secs. The desktop just flashes up fast and it is on-line and all icons are ready clickable. Get all you drivers from the gigabyte web site. They are updated every so often too. The Bios is a snap to update too.

i tried turning off the gigabyte sign and it just replaced with a screen that took the same amount of time but it said american trends or something like that. if i compare my one to a lot of the other videos, the windows splash screen doesnt even get to join the logo, where as mine joins and stays complete for a few seconds.. i feel like something is loading in this region that is slowing the boot up.. but ive checked in the windows events and it hasnt logged anything taking an unusually long time to startup, but ill install the gigabyte drivers now as i downloaded them the other day but installed the amd ones instead

 

[Liam Joyce]

and now after trying to install it appears the amd and gigabyte drivers are identical, only reason for size difference was the gigabyte file included the amd catalyst software.. bugga!

 

[jhirales]

I could have sworn when researching about buying an SSD drive that it won't be used to its fullest potential unless its running on an Intel Board. For some reason on AMD Boards SSD's seem to be slow and not work as well.

 

[Y0GI]

Turn off the gigabyte splash screen in BIOS.

I have a kingston hyperX ssd in my second comp, an AMD ga-880GA-UD3H and the boots are super fast. Probably faster than 10 secs. The desktop just flashes up fast and it is on-line and all icons are ready clickable. Get all you drivers from the gigabyte web site. They are updated every so often too. The Bios is a snap to update too.

i tried turning off the gigabyte sign and it just replaced with a screen that took the same amount of time but it said american trends or something like that. if i compare my one to a lot of the other videos, the windows splash screen doesnt even get to join the logo, where as mine joins and stays complete for a few seconds.. i feel like something is loading in this region that is slowing the boot up.. but ive checked in the windows events and it hasnt logged anything taking an unusually long time to startup, but ill install the gigabyte drivers now as i downloaded them the other day but installed the amd ones instead

If you are running Windows 7 (and maybe 8) here is a trick that can cut "a few seconds" off your boot time by disabling the Windows logo: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/248361-gui-boot-enable-disable-windows.html

 

[Y0GI]

Here is another good tip for speeding up your start-up: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1401-startup-programs-change.html

Yogi

 

[jhirales]

This seems like an interesting read for you kind of seems similar to your problem>
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282701-32-samsung-128gb-slow-speeds-concerns

http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds

http://forums.hexus.net/help-quick-relief-tech-headaches/261653-slow-ssd-boot-time.html

 

[spooky2th]

In Bios, check to see if you have floppy in the boot order sequence. Select "none" for floppy. Sometimes windows takes extra long time looking for a floppy drive when there is none. I select CD first so I can boot from a disk if I want, then HD second.

Also, you can look in administrative tools/ services and see if there are some odd apps running or not. If there is you can disable them or remove them all together in control panel.