SSD Upgrade on old-gen motherboard?

Tigjaw · 14 Jul 2012 at 20:07

Hi guys,

My brother has a Core2Duo system based on the Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L (Rev.2001) motherboard and he recently bought a new SSD.

He followed the first instruction you would probably give: he made a fresh install of Windows 7 64bit on the SSD after upgrading the board to the latest BIOS version.
First of all, he noticed the OS installation and subsequent software installations seemed to take much longer than with his old HDD. He also noted that the system seems quite 'jerky'.

He did some initial research and followed instructions to ensure AHCI mode was enabled in the BIOS but his BIOS does not contain that option.

I don't know which SSD but I will find out, if it is important.

The problem is very similar to this (I am allowed to post this link aren't I?)

We were hoping for some advice and hoping that you folks may know what the problem might be with this motherboard,

Thanks in advance,
Tig

olivier renault · 14 Jul 2012 at 20:20

Well, I would try IDE. You will loose some performance, and I think TRIM, but it's worth a shot.

EDIT : TRIM will probably work.

There are things peculiar to SSDs, such as partition alignment. I've never had to bother but it's worth double checking the SSD health status.

Tigjaw · 15 Jul 2012 at 19:13

Thanks olivier,

Am I right in thinking that Trim is provided by Windows 7 itself even if the BIOS does not provide the feature?

eddyr · 15 Jul 2012 at 22:21

TRIM commands are sent by the OS to help manage deleted data and the ssd's garbage collection system work efficiently, so that is not a prob.

Tigjaw · 17 Jul 2012 at 15:37

So there's no real reason that his system should be running slower with the SSD than with his Spinpoint?

Perhaps we need to run a proper HDD diagnostic to check SSD performance.

mikeo · 17 Jul 2012 at 15:59

Hi...

I ran an OCZ Vertex 2 with a Q9650 on a similar Gigabyte board, so it shouldn't really be an issue.

- What SSD by the way?
- Try running something like ATTO benchmark and uploading a piccy.
- Might also be worth checking the SMART data for the SSD. Depending on what drive it is, most manufacturers supply some sort of "toolbox" to allow you to do this sort of thing.

PS. ICH7R chipset supports AHCI but not the ICH7 unluckily. Sorry.

Tigjaw · 22 Jul 2012 at 20:05

mikeo said:
Hi...

I ran an OCZ Vertex 2 with a Q9650 on a similar Gigabyte board, so it shouldn't really be an issue.

- What SSD by the way?
- Try running something like ATTO benchmark and uploading a piccy.
- Might also be worth checking the SMART data for the SSD. Depending on what drive it is, most manufacturers supply some sort of "toolbox" to allow you to do this sort of thing.

PS. ICH7R chipset supports AHCI but not the ICH7 unluckily. Sorry.

Cheers for the info Mike, I've told my brother to do an ATTO so I'll get that pic uploaded asap.
One benchmark (crystal disc I think) described read speed at 280mbs and write speed at a much lower ~40mbs.

The main problem aside from the juttery performance is that attempting to multitask brings the system to a halt, whereas with his old spinpoint drive multitasking was not a problem.
The only improvement so far has been boot time and opening programs.

He realises that he may have to upgrade if he wants to take full advantage of his new drive but he wants to make sure that upgrading will solve this problem.

Kotu · 22 Jul 2012 at 20:09

did he install all the other drivers? motherboard/graphics/etc?

adrichardson81 · 23 Jul 2012 at 01:48

Have you installed the Intel RST drivers? If not, it's worth a shot. If they're not compatible, install the latest chipset update with the -overall switch.

For the most part, SSDs are compatible with older hardware - I'm running a 60gb Vertex 2 in an Inspiron 1720 (SATA 150, IDE mode). Other than the obvious read/write limits, it works fine.

Tigjaw · 24 Jul 2012 at 23:43

Kotu said:
did he install all the other drivers? motherboard/graphics/etc?

Yep he installed and updated all of the relevant drivers.

adrichardson81 said:
Have you installed the Intel RST drivers? If not, it's worth a shot. If they're not compatible, install the latest chipset update with the -overall switch.

For the most part, SSDs are compatible with older hardware - I'm running a 60gb Vertex 2 in an Inspiron 1720 (SATA 150, IDE mode). Other than the obvious read/write limits, it works fine.

I will ask him about the RST drivers, sounds like a good shout.

Here's the ATTO screenshot as requested (if you don't mind following a dropbox link):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/czm7ky7659r9ssy/atto.png

We also found something interesting yesterday; a similar discussion found online suggested the ethernet driver could be the problem. This sounded ridiculous but upon disabling his ethernet driver, the problems seemed to disappear. Remember though, this problem didn't exist with the previous HDD and he obviously needs the ethernet port enabled so another solution needs to be found.

So either; SSD + ethernet = bad, or SSD problems + ethernet = bad. Unfortunately I'm not as good at maths as I used to be.

Any ideas why either combination may produce badness (not the good kind)?

Tigjaw · 29 Jul 2012 at 22:24

This problem is still persisting so we're seriously considering upgrading the motherboard now.

Does anybody know of a micro-ATX mobo with AHCI & SSD support?

Virdi · 31 Jul 2012 at 01:24

Raise a support ticket with Gigabyte. They will confirm if your board can work with SSDs

Tigjaw · 5 Aug 2012 at 16:25

We've made some progress.

We managed to solve the stuttering issues by using secure erase, we found a similar problem on tomshardware which gave us the idea:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/281475-14-slower

However the performance is still not great, perhaps slightly faster than the old HDD. We still may look at a new socket 775 motherboard but I can't seem to find a micro-atx, or even a regular ATX that is explicitly compatible with SSD.