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On December 18 2013 15:54 Ropid wrote:
Perhaps what's happening is that you might need to install some sort of driver for the chipset on your board? I'm guessing Windows 8 simply does not come with AHCI drivers that work for your board.
The performance will not go up for the max speeds from what I've seen in screenshots other people have shown about this. What will increase are the "4K" and "4K-64Thrd" numbers which are about a lot of tiny reads and writes to the drive.
What's actually important about AHCI is the "TRIM" command. That's something to tell the drive that blocks are empty after files got deleted. The SSD needs that information or its performance will degrade over time. That speed degradation is nothing permanent that happens to the drive. It is fixed the moment you run those TRIM commands over empty space.
For some drives, there's tools from the manufacturer to do that manually if it's used through IDE.
There are no drivers I can find on the ASrock website that I do not already have installed that will help my AHCI problem I'm afraid.  I might try and find that setting in the bios though(mav451), thanks for the advice. I'll report back.
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So! I managed to find an option in the BIOS that I previously overlooked, called 'IDE combine' or something like that, which, , if I read it right, makes sure AHCI won't ACTUALLY be turned on. (I can post a screenshot later on if wanted.) After I did disable that setting and put it to AHCI I got the wonderful error that something was wrong with my windows and that it pretty much couldn't boot. That's a good thing, right? I'm just waiting for confirmations from people that this is actually a good sign and I might reformat and reinstall windows all together again.
If it is the case that this is good and should be done, would I be okay in leaving my 1TB 7200rpm HDD as-is? I've got a couple of games and programs on it as of now.
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This is the last quick bump I'll give it because I have got some new info. I reinstalled Windows 8 on my SSD with AHCI enabled, and a ran some tests:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lNMC5jg.png) (It seems you need to run Kingston SSD's with this benchmarker apparently.)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yNeHeoj.png) That's the original benchmark I re-ran. As you can see, 4K-64Thrd has improved a LOT and also my reading speed is up a bit, but not by much. Something has to still be holding it back, and I can't figure out what. Even though the first picture suggests I've got really good read, my Starcraft II still boots up really really slow. (Takes atleast 10 seconds to get to log-in screen.)
One last benchmark using HD tune Pro: http://i.imgur.com/B25vlRV.png
It's really weird. All reviews and such I come across can all benchmark this thing up to 400MB/s reading at LEAST, yet I can't even seem to breach 200 with the AHCI set-up, the right SATAIII ports etc.
Any tips left? Thanks in advance.
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
What does Crystaldiskmark say? That's the bench i usually used before (not that it will probably change anything)
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/keXuIsF.png)
There you go. Shows slightly improved writing and reading. I did just reformat every disk currently in my PC just to get a quick clean slate and start over, this time with AHCI enabled from the getgo.
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I tried to time how long it takes me to start SC2. From clicking on that "play" button in the launcher to the login screen inside SC2, it took 15 sec on the first start, 11 sec on the second try, and again 11 sec on the third try. This is using this SSD: + Show Spoiler +
My CPU is an overclocked i5-3570k and it's on Windows 8.1.
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
Took me ~14-15 seconds then ~10 too (wow that's longer than i thought)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uRKfGHK.png) (should really delete some stuff)
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I would check with intel RST to be sure that sata port is running in sata III mode.
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Alright, what ive discovered after 2 long evenings of research, is that the 5.0.6 firmware for kingstons simply made it so that my sequential reading speed is terribly low. Other manufacturors have already switched to 5.0.7 but Kingston still hasn't even given an ETA. My options are:
-RMA the product in the hopes that they send me a replacement with the 5.0.5 firmware installed on it, or..
-keep it in the hope 5.0.7 comes out anytime soon.
Any of you guy's thoughts? Thanks so far!
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I'd RMA and buy something else in the meantime.
Obviously you'd be selling the RMA-replacement (once it arrives) to offset costs - assuming you're comfortable handling that.
The longer term concern is that you're probably still not going the get optimal performance while you are still on SB850.
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I'd be too lazy to move and I also wouldn't care about changing anything about the board and CPU and just stay with it.
EDIT: After some more thinking, if you could be sure to definitely get that 5.0.5 drive if you send yours to Kingston, I'd do that. You could also ask your retailer what they think, if they would take the drive back and let you buy something else?
I still would not change anything about the board using SB850, would stay with it.
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On December 19 2013 23:55 mav451 wrote:
I'd RMA and buy something else in the meantime.
Obviously you'd be selling the RMA-replacement (once it arrives) to offset costs - assuming you're comfortable handling that.
The longer term concern is that you're probably still not going the get optimal performance while you are still on SB850.
I am planning to get a new processor - and with that a new motherboard, obviously. I was looking at intel actually, haven't had the most smooth experience with AMD (except my Graphics card, which is great.)
My ''retailer'' would be Amazon.com and that's going to be quite hard to reach because I do live in the Netherlands. 
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Honestly your speeds are more than fine and I really doubt you're being I/O bottlenecked. There's already an order of magnitude improvement over a HDD. Ignore the benchmarks and enjoy your speed.
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On December 20 2013 01:42 R1CH wrote:
Honestly your speeds are more than fine and I really doubt you're being I/O bottlenecked. There's already an order of magnitude improvement over a HDD. Ignore the benchmarks and enjoy your speed.
Thanks, I will. I kind of decided this an hour ago, and if the faster sequential reading speed comes along, that's great.  Windows boots fast as it should, that's basically priority #1. Thanks for all the help guys, really appreciated. :D
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
On December 20 2013 02:02 Thalandros wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2013 01:42 R1CH wrote:
Honestly your speeds are more than fine and I really doubt you're being I/O bottlenecked. There's already an order of magnitude improvement over a HDD. Ignore the benchmarks and enjoy your speed. Thanks, I will. I kind of decided this an hour ago, and if the faster sequential reading speed comes along, that's great. Windows boots fast as it should, that's basically priority #1. Thanks for all the help guys, really appreciated. :D
Windows 8 loaded up pretty quick (25 seconds until it was on desktop)
I don't think that's as fast as it should, if you want to accept it is another question
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Yeah the difficulty of return/downtime makes this a more difficult decision. I've made my recommendations, as seen above, and still think the long term implications (within budget of course) is to address this now, rather than later.
My Win8 boot time is 10-12s compared to your quoted figure of 25s on page 1. Is this still accurate for you? I would not procrastinate or settle if I were in your shoes. I just can't agree with that sentiment, but I recognize that hardware proficiency is a factor here.
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It now boots faster, around 15 seconds I'd say, I haven't exactly measured. Starcraft II still boots ''slow'', as in around 15 seconds but hey, that's liveable. It's definately a good improvement over my old HDD, but not what I actually expected. I've yet to try other games/many other programs though, so not 100% sure what to do yet, considering Kingston hasn't given an ETA.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RoYywpu.png)
