Can I improve performance of my laptop? Windows 7/Acer 7520

[alex_ncfc]

Hi Fernando,

I have successfully flashed the BIOS, which has indeed enabled the AHCI option as showing up "Enable or Disable" and was disabled by default. I have enabled the option and saved the settings, then restarted Windows 7.

Windows has started fine (as I made the registry change prior to the BIOS change, as you suggested) and I expected Windows to detect new hardware, but nothing has happened. It also still reads Standard Dual PCI IDE controller in Device Manager, and I removed my devices and then re-installed but Windows again detected the Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller.

So then I thought maybe I need to use your driver pack for Windows 7, the one to which you sent me a link, but when running Setup, it only offers to update the SMBus drivers and the Network LAN driver.

Has the option in the BIOS done nothing at all?? Is there anything I need to do?

Thanks,

Alex

[Fernando 1]

Hello Alex,

obviously the new BIOS version is still not able to set the nForce SATA Controllers to AHCI mode.
If it would work, you would see a device named "Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller" within the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section of the Device Manager.
Furthermore the missing AHCI support of your mainboard is the reason why you are not able to get the nForce SATA_IDE drivers of my "Special MCP65-67 nForce Driverpack" installed.

I have no idea what you can do to change this misery.
The nForce chipsets 560/520 (MCP65) and 630a (MCP67) are the worst supported ones NVIDIA ever has released.

Greetings
Fernando

[alex_ncfc]

Hi Fernando,

That's a shame I guess I may as well revert to my old BIOS then (seeing as the modded BIOS also unlocked loads of other options which I am unsure about - I only wanted the AHCI SATA option!) I can't believe that Nvidia hardware and drivers is so shoddy that I have to use generic Microsoft drivers! I don't suppose you know if there's a major drawback in using the Standard PCI Dual IDE Controller?

Also whilst I am here...might as well hijack my own thread rather than start a new one: I also have a desktop based PC running Windows 7 and is on an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard, nforce4. This is also using generic standard IDE drivers. Is there anything I can do on this machine to change this as I am sure when I used to run Windows XP 5 or 6 years ago, it used to detect them as SATA drives, not IDE.

Many thanks for all your help today,

Alex

[Fernando 1]

I also have a desktop based PC running Windows 7 and is on an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard, nforce4. This is also using generic standard IDE drivers. Is there anything I can do on this machine to change this as I am sure when I used to run Windows XP 5 or 6 years ago, it used to detect them as SATA drives, not IDE.

Download my "Non-AHCI nForce Performance Pack for Win7Vista" from >this< site, unzip it, run the installer and choose the offered "Storage Driver".
After the reboot you will see the "NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller" within the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section of your Device Manager.

[alex_ncfc]

Hello,

Me again. I went on to my Desktop PC and downloaded your Non-AHCI driver pack, and the drivers installed fine, but I had a few more questions with an issue that has me confused. My main boot drive is a 320GB SATA-II Seagate drive and I also have two other SATA drives, both Maxtors, which I believe are SATA 1.5G.

When I run a benchmark on the two Maxtors, the speeds are generally around 30MB/Sec. On the Seagate, which is the newest drive in the machine, I get an appalling 1.6MB/Sec at best. Could this be a driver issue?

Many thanks,

Alex

[Fernando 1]

When I run a benchmark on the two Maxtors, the speeds are generally around 30MB/Sec. On the Seagate, which is the newest drive in the machine, I get an appalling 1.6MB/Sec at best. Could this be a driver issue?

How should it be a driver issue, if all hdd's are using the same driver and 2 of them are running fine?
You may connect the hdd's to other SATA ports. This way you can find out, if this issue is caused by the related Controller resp. SATA port.
If the performance of the Seagate hdd should remain bad at other SATA ports, I recommend a diagnostic hdd test by using the SeaTools (>LINK<).

[alex_ncfc]

Thanks for this Fernando.

I ran SeaTools For DOS and for Windows and it reported 100% health on my SeaGate drive (my 160GB and 80GB Maxtors didn't report so well though...the 160GB model showed 13% health! )

So now I am stumped as I am sure the transfer speed should be higher on the 320GB SeaGate. I'll run a 'long' diagnostic on it and see what happens.