Almost done!

Niall · Sep 08, 2011, 23:25:33

I've backed everything up, even itunes (for a change), downloaded all software I'll need to install. The only thing left is to download the service pack, hopefully lessening the pain when I get home tomorrow with 2 hours of downloads (well, more like 7 with my connection being as shite as it is).

Is there anything different I need to do with an install on an SSD drive other than changing the bios to AHCI. I've read that I can either set it to RAID or AHCI as it won't matter with a single device. Once installed I can check the firmware, but as it's a refurb I'd imagine it's the latest.

I've got my Windows 7 ultimate disk now, from S4S for £61 thankyouverymuch

Hopefully it'll all work, oh and I've got oodles of ram too as there was a deal on at Scan, 8gb for £39! So now I have 16gb

.Griff. · Sep 08, 2011, 23:45:07

I can only suggest you take a few minutes and have a good read - http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?72945-Advanced-User-Windows-7-Complete-Installation-Guide-For-SSD-s-%28for-normal-use-most-of-these-tweaks-are-NOT-needed.

Niall · Sep 10, 2011, 01:02:40

Well, what should have been a quick install turned a bit pear shaped! Typical luck on my part!

I installed the OS only to find the Win7 ultimate product key didn't work, so I assume I misread something and it's literally an upgrade from this pro version (I shall test this theory tomorrow). So, started again and put Win7 pro on the SSD and then SP1. I think I made a mistake doing that, as I forgot to install the mobo drivers (mainly the network drivers), and after SP1 I couldn't get the DVD drive to read a disk (was taking 10 minutes to read anything, and that was a single file!). I decided to go to my mums PC and copy the files to my Flash drive and install them from there. This took about 30 minutes as her 10 year old PC only has USB 1.0

Anway, I've now finished updating everything and am currently installing my Steam game backups with no problems so far. The only thing left to do is install Office 2010 now. Oh yeah, and itunes was problem free due to this being the same PC with the same o/s install, I could just drop the old folder in and it picked it all up, thank god! I'm curious to see what itunes will do if I upgrade the product key to ultimate.

The one issue I had is that Creative have stopped supporting the Xfi card in the PCI format. I had to scour their site, which is a task in itself, find the driver and install it manually. Thankfully they now bundle the driver as an all in one package with the auto update, so that allowed me to install all software related to this card, with minimal fuss.

Lightroom now loads in about half a second, as opposed to the 10-20 seconds it took before. Now that's fast! Restarting the PC is silly fast too. I used to think it was fast rebooting in about 30 seconds, but this shuts down and reboots in half that!

One problem I'm still having, and I don't know why or what is causing it, is the windows scoring system. I can never finish it as it's telling me there's a problem with a drive. I know it's got to be the backup drive I'm using, but I can't for the life of me figure out why. With my new MSI frozr gfx card I now have room to connect the drives to a seperate bank of sata connectors which allows two types of drives to be used with no boot issues at all. I'm totally stumped!

Niall · Sep 10, 2011, 18:51:48

Argh damn it, the problem I was hoping to avoid has reared it's ugly head. My old SATA drives can't be seen. I can set AHCI on sata1-4 and 5&6 can be set to SATA, which I've done. The problem is that this motherboard has ONE setting for SATA, so it's either 3gb/s or 6gb/s. Setting it at 6 is needed for the SSD drive, and my older SATA drives are only SATAII so they're not being seen. They were, but now the bios has decided to ignore them

I suppose I could try crippling the SSD by using 3gb/s to pull the info off the drive, then stick it all on my external drive, until I buy a SATAIII drive.

pctech · Sep 10, 2011, 19:00:22

I'm sssuming you've set everything to auto detect where possible in the BIOS Niall?

What mobo and BIOS do you have anyway?

Steve · Sep 10, 2011, 20:33:12

I'm surprised SATA 11 is not been seeing on SATA 111 port, Have you tried clearing CMOS.

Niall · Sep 11, 2011, 00:49:19

It's a lovely little problem this motherboard has. I'd forgotten the specifics from my last install.

Basically if you're running SATAIII (or above, ie SSD) drives, you're set. If you have SATAII or lower, then the board will not see (or only see now and then) the older drive.

It's only just dawned on me while I was talking to a mate, about an hour ago. I had the same issues last time. As soon as you switch the bios to 3gb/s from 6gb/s it happily sees all the drives. I don't actually have anything on that drive that I don't have on my external drive (which I've lost the power adapter for!) so it's not an issue. I'm currently using a power adapter for the cr*ppy IDE to USB converter that I bought, that doesn't work, so it had a use after all

One thing that keeps happening is me thinking a program has broken when it's just the program catching up with the speed of the drive. Lightroom loading time is just a total joke. I click the button and BOOM it's there! Processing a photo has more than halved, but because of the speed of the drive it seems like something is about to crash due to the 1 second pause

I love this SSD, it's awesome! I've just finished playing Tropico 4 and the odd access glitch you used to see has totally gone. There's just nothing there, it just runs at max settings, and smooth as silk!

Technical Ben · Sep 12, 2011, 11:05:52

Quote from: Niall on Sep 10, 2011, 18:51:48
Argh damn it, the problem I was hoping to avoid has reared it's ugly head. My old SATA drives can't be seen. I can set AHCI on sata1-4 and 5&6 can be set to SATA, which I've done. The problem is that this motherboard has ONE setting for SATA, so it's either 3gb/s or 6gb/s. Setting it at 6 is needed for the SSD drive, and my older SATA drives are only SATAII so they're not being seen. They were, but now the bios has decided to ignore them I suppose I could try crippling the SSD by using 3gb/s to pull the info off the drive, then stick it all on my external drive, until I buy a SATAIII drive.

Do you have an e-sata port on the back? I don't know if it helps, but it might be a quick fix. Any discussion on the MB providers forums? There must be users with 2 drive speeds needing both types?

Lance · Sep 12, 2011, 14:21:16

Indeed you would have thought a firmware update would address the issue.

pctech · Sep 12, 2011, 22:55:42

It might be worth looking to see if there's a BIOS update available, if you are feeling brave (motherboards are the only devices I hate updating firmware on, I've not had an issue you but doing it still makes my blood run cold)

Niall · Sep 12, 2011, 22:59:30

As far as I'm aware there isn't a way of doing it. All the motherboard can do is have ACHI on ports 1-4 and IDE on 5-6 but there isn't an option to change the speed. I THINK this SSD can be used at 3gb/s so I may try that, just to get my files off. I can put these drives in my mums PC when I build it, and buy myself some SATAIII ones. They're only about £23 for a decent size now.

pctech · Sep 14, 2011, 14:55:46

Gernally updating BIOS firmware involves creating a boot disk with the firmware image on and booting from that.

The bootloader then starts the process.

Niall · Sep 14, 2011, 15:52:11

It's quite simple these days. Most motherboards have dual bios so it falls back on the old one if there's an issue with the new one. Think I'm already using the newest anyway. If I remember I'll have a nose later.