BIOS HD settings

[rockyjohn]

My new system- with P35 DS3L - has been working fine except that when I go to PC Pitstop I get abysmal scores for my hard drive; only 31 MB/sec compared to a normal reference score of 59 MB/sec. Now this is strange since in the rankings at Tom's Hardware my HD ranks near the top - on the workstation benchmark it beats ALL other HD's except the Raptors even though it is an older Seagate Model 7200.7 or ST3160827AS.

I noticed that the BIOS has a setting for SATA AHCI Mode and SATA Port0-1 Native Mode and that the default is "Disabled". Thinking this might be the problem, I changed both to "Enabled", but then my computer would not recognize the hard drives nor boot. So I reset to disabled and am back to normal with the slow drives.

Should not my drive work with the advanced features enabled? Are there any other bios settings that could be affecting drive speed?

I also ran the Seagate test tool and it reported no problems.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: BIOS HD settings

Ya, you have to Install your System with a driver to use AHCI, but you should be getting better then that without it anyway.

You should be using These settings for NON AHCI >>>
SATA AHCI MODE ...... Disabled
SATA Port0-1 Native Mode ...... Enabled

Try this benchmark, and see what it shows you >>>
HdTach

ALSO!!!

Some SATA drives ship with a TINY jumper on the back, please check and remove this if you have one on there. They are about 1/3 size of a normal IDE jumper and can be a Pain to get off. They limit the drive speeds to SATA I (1.5GB/s)

[mv2devnull]

Re: BIOS HD settings

It is possible to enable AHCI on existing OS install by installing the Intel ahci-driver, but it is not "trivial". See HOWTO: enable AHCI mode after installing Windows - PC Perspective Forums

[rockyjohn]

Re: BIOS HD settings

Hello again Lsdmeasap. You helped me resolve memory timing issues a couple of months ago when I set up my system. Regarding my current hard drive issues:

No jumper is installed – I checked that during assembly.

I could not use HDTach as it requires XP or 2000. I tried it anyway and received an error message to that effect. I did not see any Vista version on their site.

I changed the BIOS setting to enable SATA Port0-1 Native Mode and it slowed down my hard drive as reported on PCPitStop from about 30 to 23MB/s. I changed it back and restored the faster speed.

I ran SiSoftware Sandra Light benchmark and it reported an index 43.7MB/s – better but still well below the reference benchmarks of over 60MB/s.

Maybe I just have a weak hard drive.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: BIOS HD settings

Yeap, I remember ya!

HdTach will run in vista, you just have to right click the program exe or the shortcut and choose properties and then Compatibility Tab and choose XP2 then apply. Sorry for not mentioning that

You want native mode enabled for XP or vista see in your manual, Disabled is for older systems like 2000

Could be a bad cable? Did you try another? And yeah, Could be a bad drive as well, or just badly fragmented. Do you use a good defraging program? I recommend PerfectDisk

Your SURE no jumper? Seeing you mention half the speed advertised makes me think maybe there is one. Just FYI, it is not a IDE or Optical Jumper, but a Very Tiny one. Just trying to be sure incase you overlooked it

[BongWizard]

Re: BIOS HD settings

try using the ATTO Disk Benchmark or SiSoft's Sandra XI... they give a bit more accurate scores the PC Pitstop (in my experience)

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: BIOS HD settings

Ya, I also disapprove of online testing which is why I suggested HD tach

[rockyjohn]

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: BIOS HD settings

That is a Very old Drive, and you may be looking at a very old comparison of drives. I would say with the 8Mb cache and it being only SATA I then it is about average. You could call seagate and ask, but I think it is only a little slower. Which could be bad firmware or anything else such as badly fragmented drive or slow ram

In the Spec's I see only a 58MB/s sustained transfer rate, so you are about right on that >>>

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/sata/st3160827as.html

Time to upgrade! Seagate 250GB SATA II drives with 16MB cache are only $50-60 nowadays and get great speeds. >>>
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

Open Box $35
Newegg.com - Open Box: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Here is two in RAID, If I remember right by themselves they get about 80-100 Average Reads >>>

[rockyjohn]

Re: BIOS HD settings

Yes it is an old drive - I purchased it several years ago intending to put it in my old system then never needed it. I decided to use it on my new system because the performance score was so high. And it is not an old comparison - it is the current 3.5" HD chart on THG. Here is the link:

Charts, benchmarks 3.5" Hard Drive Charts, Workstation I/O Benchmark Pattern

On the workstation benchmark - the best measure of multiple use - my little old SATA 150 drive beat all the other Seagate drives - including the 7200.11 models - and every other drive except the raptors. You can see my drive 7th from top -after the 6 raptors.

If you select the average read speed benchmark then the results are very different - with my model getting only 45.5 MB/s compared to 80 MB/s for several of the 7200.11 models. So on sustained reads mine will be slower but on workstation type operations (however they define that) which I assume combines a mix of access time and read and write speeds, my model excells.

I checked the link for the open box sale on Newegg but the item was no longer offered on the link.

ACtually I was hoping to use my drive a little longer till prices drop a little more on the SSDs but I may have to re-think that if my drive is not up to snuff.

Thanks for all your help again.

[BongWizard]

Re: BIOS HD settings

you can get one of the Seagate models while you wait for SSDs to come down... the 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drives only set me back $95 a piece and in Sandra XI i get an average read of 82MB/s each, and almost 200 in RAID5. If you're really keen on SSDs, you should check out OCZ's new offering, the Core series 2.5" SATA SSDs come in 32, 64 and 128GB models and are only $350, $240 and $550 respectively

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: BIOS HD settings

Hmm, thanks for the link. Had not looked at those comparisons before. You would want the ones with faster read and writes over I/O throughput anyway right?


Yeap, you waited to long for the open box. They would be a great buy too because of the lifetime warranty no matter what

Only $49 at ZipZoomFly today >>>
SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.11 ST3250410AS 250GB SATA 7200 RPM 16MB Hard Drive Bulk at ZipZoomfly

Or $59 at the egg, with free shipping >>
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives