SSD solid-state drive questions:
The Skyrim modders STEP guide states:
" SATA 6GB/s is the fastest available [for skyrim]. However, make sure your motherboard supports it natively through AHCI.
Set it up to use AHCI in BIOS and it must be done before OS installation, otherwise you will find your SSD running in emulated IDE mode with diminished speeds.
If your motherboard doesn't support the 6GB/s transfer speeds, 3GB/s is the next best option. "
I do not understand some of the nitty-gritty here. Researching it now. Question: is the statement that AHCI in BIOS must be set up before Win 7 is installed accurate? I must uninstall Win 7, then set up AHCI in BIOS, and reinstall win7 (or default to ID emulation mode)? Is STEP guide accurate here? Or, is there a way to install an SSD without un and re installing windows 7? (hope there is.) Appreciate any gurus helping me on this. Thanks all.
This comp came with the SSD all set up already.
When I installed 7 on another computer that had a SSD it installed with no problem.
elanaAhova, what I understand the instructions regarding the bios mode to mean is after setting the bios sata mode to ahci windows (vista and later, do NOT try it with xp as xp does not support ahci) needs to be re-installed or installed on the drive.
the reason for using the ahci mode on a sata3(6gb/slimit) motherboard connector is the fastest performance of the drive, sata2 (3gb/s limit) results in a better than hdd performance but not what the ssd can deliver with sata3, and using the ide mode (which is compatable with all windows releases) results in slower performace again than sata2 ahci(I think it is mostly from ahci command queueing).
if your computer is set up in ide mode you should use the easy transfer wizard to backup the settings and data to an external drive (just in case the mode change causes problems OR so that you can install windows on the ssd and get back the settings and data) THEN go into the BIOS and alter the sata mode then save the BIOS changes and try booting.
if it works then you should see windows load new device drivers due to the changed bios mode for the drives and possibly request a re-boot to set the drivers into operation
if it does NOT work the you will see THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH and rebootiteis(repeatedly booting flashing the BSOD and booting again .if this happens then you will need to boot from your windows dvd and repair install the windows, this might not work in which case you will need to re-install windows and programs then use the easy transfer wizard's backup to restore your data and settings.
OR you could just install the windows onto the SSD after chaning the bios setting and install the programs and restore the transfer wizarddata back into the newssd install and be good to go after a day or so of fiddle
hope this helps
harpo
Thank you harpo, you explained it as I understood it. Its new to me so I am feeling insecure. Never did anything with BIOS. I was hoping that if I purchased a SSD and installed it into my PC, as a third HD for data, not as a boot up drive, I would not have to reinstall win7 to get haci support for the new SSD.
I have to locate the win7 boot CD before I attempt any of this, yes? Since I have never had an SSD, my PC is most likely in ide mode, yes? How can I determine this? Could I use an 8 gig flash drive to backup the win settings onto? I have never done anything to the BIOS, so I have some research to do. If I get BSD / reboot-itis, I have to reinstall win7, on c: drive. DO I also have to reinstall all my other programs/data on the D drive? Easy transfer wizard is a win 7 thingy? Never used it before. Lots to learn. Thanks Harpo for confirming what the other site said. Guess I'm off to see the wizard (of data...)
I would suggest using the ssd as a boot drive as it DOES help with both the boot speed and responsiveness of the operating system.
the easy transfer wizard is a standard windows 7/8 (installed with the os) program (and there was a similar utility in vista called transfer wizard), BUT the win hate.1 version only will work with files collected from win7 and later, but the win7/8 version will work with data collected from all the OS's I have tried (xp,vista,7 & 8).
it is possible to check the bios mode inside bios without changing it by NOT saveing any changes when you exit the bios.
if you want it as a data drive, just plug it in, format it and use it, and do NOT ever defrag the ssd as defraging ssd's causes a huge amount of write wear on the drives and do not worry about the bios mode or sata interface as the OS drive is the main use one.
regarding the flash drive to use for easy transfer, it depends upon the total data quantity that you want to 'transfer' and the easy transfer wizard does use file compression during the transfer, so your 8gb stcik might get 9 or 10gb of data before it fills up.
Hey Harpo: Personal question: you choose your moniker based on the Marx brothers? Anyway, would SSD be better used for win7 OS, or for the graphics intensive heavily modded Skyrim?
How big is your ssd? If it is at least 120 gb you can have both. 60 might be a little tight. I would say windows is probably the most important. Do you have a 7200 rpm hdd right now?
elanaAhova, the moiker is partly for the marx brothers(that I enjoy watching and relaxing to), but is also a play on my initials and offical first name(that I do not use),
regarding the ssd for os/program question, (as I have 240gb ssd's in several of my computers) I use them as OS and main use program drives, and the main benifit of the ssd is the lack of waiting time for the locating of data from the drive, so if the skyrim has large numbers of files that are being accessed frequently then yes it would help, but I have no experience with skyrim so can not answer regarding the program.
Hi Umbraa
Hi! Actually, don't have any SSD right now. Researching before purchasing is part of the process I'm going through (along with skyrim S.T.E.P scheme). I dug out system data (below). Would not let me rt click to copy, or paste! Found out I have one core. Very frustrating because the person I hired to put system together was directed to get a 4 core processor, i5 or i7, whichever was better for gaming (like skyrim). Discovering I have an i7 with one core, three years later, well, I'm a tad miffed. (Should I be -or was this a good decision / tradeoff?) Anyway, what would you recommend? Get a new core processor say i5 multi core? Get what size SSD to put OS and sky?
Explanation: STEP uses the new mod organizer program - and MO uses a virtual game data folder so vanilla is never actually touched (unlike wyre smash). Also means the modded files/graphics, etc can be on any drive as they get imported to the 'virtual skyrim build' when playing. So putting the modded assets of sky on the SSD along with OS now seems totally OK, as you said.
............... system data .............................
Sabertooth x58 Motherboard
Win 7 home prem 6.1.7601 serv Pak 1 build 7601 x64 based
IntelCore i7 cpu 960 @3.20GHz, 3207 Mhz, 1 Core(s) logical
11.99 GB usable RAM
1920 x 1080, 60 Hz
GTX 670, driver = 335.23
Hardware abstraction layer ver=”6.1.7601.17514”
BIOS American Megatreands 0902 3/1/2011
SMBIOS version 2.5
Boot \device\harddiskvolumn1
Phys memory 12GB, available 10.3GB
Virtual memory 24GB, available 21.8GB
Pagefile space 12.0GB
Creative x-fi audio processor (WDM)
Storage
C: NTFS 465.61GB (OS here), NTFS 1.82TB, 1.61TB free
D: NTFS 1.82TB 1.61 free
SCSI, marvell RAID console, JMicron JMB36X controller, Marvel 91xx SATA 6G controller
Intel.. ICH10R SATA AHCI controller
............... end system data .............................
Did i miss anything important? What would you recommend I do with this sys to upgrade it?
something confusing, the i7 960 IS a quadcore with hyperthreading(and I have a i7 930 overclocked to 4ghz in one of my BEAST boxes)(you can quickly see how many cores win7 thinks is in the cpu(includes the hyperthreaddding) by opening taskmanager and clicking on the performance tab), the sabertooth mobo supports sata3 on the two grey ports, the other six (black ports are only sata 2).
assuming you want all the data and programs that are currently on your c on the ssd you would NEED atleast 250gb(btw ssd's tend to work better with MORE free space( I think it is in relation to the garbage collection processes (called trim) that the drive has to do so that it knows where the free space is inrelation to the worn out blocks)
on the specs you posted the only areas that I would suggest are
1 make sure that the ram contacts are clean(ie unplug the memory and using a PLASTIC eraser erase the contacts till they are shiny metal then plug the ram back in to the same slot it came from
2 make sure the video card contacts are clean (same eraser and method)
3 search through all installed programs (in programs and features of control panel) and un-install ALL not vital toolbars and browser addons(these are usually loading several times during startup and also running all the time the computer is operating so that they can report back to the poeple that created the toolbar what YOU do on your computer and where you co on the internet while YOU pay for their data collection in both power consumed and disk space used to store the information THEY want)(this might even get the computer back to new or (if you had a lot of junkbars in the machine when you got it) better than new
the only other thing to consider (but has no effect on the speed of operation is the wattage and age of the power supply (when the supply degrades (from use over time) the computer will become less reliable till it eventiually will not start up at all (earler states of power supply failure are the system crashing when using programs that heavily load the CPU AND video card(s), and later stages are when it crashes or even switches off during bootup
this is usually what I suggest to my paying customers and even do onsite for them, so it usually works
hopew this helps
[quote who="harpo99999" reply="9" id="3455847"] the sabertooth mobo supports sata3 on the two grey ports, the other six (black ports are only sata 2).
[quote who="harpo99999" reply="9" id="3455847"] ... is the wattage and age of the power supply ...
Yes, yes, a big help Harpo. I greatly appreciate it. Now I see why you have so much (good) karma here. BTW, I love the Marx bros shows. Their family history is an interesting study, as well. Second generation USA, in NYC, with a matriarchal family structure.
Yeah the cpu is a quad-core. Either it is faulty or you have the other cores turned off in windows. In any case, 3 years may still be under warranty from Intel.
I just bought a 480 gb ssd for $230 because I want everything on my computer to be snappy. Hdds get slow over time from my experience. You can get a 240 gb for as little as $100, that would be the best compromise.
Are you happy with SSD?
Didn't install it yet, waiting for the rest of my parts to come in (no point in installing it on my 5 year old machine really)My work computer has an SSD and I am very happy with it so far. Really nice when dealing with thousands of little files as a software developer. So here are things to try:
Boot into your bios and make sure it is set to 8 cpus (4 + 4 hyper threads)... thats what I just read anyways
Reinstall windows (which you will do anyways with your new SSD)
Update your bios (which you should probably do anyways to make sure it has TRIM support)
elahaAhova, the number of graphs for the 'cpu usage history' on the performance tab IS the clue that I was hinting at.
the number of threads is the number of active (or wanting to be active) processes in the computer at the time.
just out of curiosity, which program reported the single core for the cpu, so I can check it out and figure out if it is a false positive or a real report
regarding the power supply, my estimate for your system power use (at full load would be approx 430w (220w gpu ,120w cpu 10w/hdd, 10w /optical drive, approx 30w mobo, 10w sound card) and the common theory regarding power supply degridation is approx 10% of capacity per year of operation so a 600w 3 year old supply would still be able to supply around (600-((600/10)) 420 watts, so the power supply might be beginning to cause any system instability that happens, but that is based upon my guesses for the power demands of the components.
on my systems that I d o not want to have any stability issues with over the next few years, I tend to use 700w-800w platinum class supplies with single midrange video cards, so yes the power supply is GROSSLY over specified, but then I should not have to replace it for several years (probably have to replace the rest of the guts first especially the hdds, optos and fans first)
@ harpo re: looking: " IntelCore i7 cpu 960 @3.20GHz, 3207 Mhz, 1 Core(s) logical "
device manager, processor lists 8 identical " intel (TM) i7 CPU 960 3.20GHz " (did not see this before).
"Ran windows experience index assessment", it says 4 cores. control panel system doesn't state how many cores.
Ran getforce experience and checked nvidia control panel, neither reported back about "i7 yada."
windows task manager, peformace tab, shows c "830 threads" , and c "66 processes" (these numbers change a bit, but not more then 2 or 3 plus - )
CPU usage history, bar on left moves between 0% and 2% as i view it right now. double pane window to right has one line, spikes occasionally, graph is 9 boxes high. Line stays almost always at bottom, spike goes up two boxes in height. Physical memory readouts are below ...
FOUND IT: PERFORMANCE INFORMATION TOOLS > ADVANCED TOOLS > VIEW ADVANCED SYSTEM DETAILS IN SYSTEM INFORMATION... when I open the slider box to widen the window, I get "... 1 Core(s) logical 2 logical processors." (last part was hidden because I did not widen the view column).
Hope this helps with your work...
as both task manager(the 8 windows of cpu load history) and device manager(the 8 cpu's) both indicate 8(4 with hyperthreading that fakes a second core for each actual core) cores while your system information tool indicates a single core, in this case I would suggest that the system info is wrong ,but I do not have any idea how to fix other than the google fu.
other system identification tools like cpuz, sisoft's sandra, should also indicate the 8 (4 real & 4 fake) cores sot it must be a glitch with the system information tool(but on reading the link you posted earlier it appears that home premium 7 might have a cores lock in it.
also and from memory my i7 930 oc'd to 4ghz got a cpu score of approx 7.6 in the system performace tool(might have been 7.9 but it was a couple of years ago that I checked it out last).
May I ask, how can i tell if the win 7 running on my PC has the core lock set to 'on'? I mention this because the task manager had only one line across the graphic display. -e
How many cores do you see when you do this?http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-set-processor-affinity-to-an-application-in-windows/
Yes, nice tool. I checked several processes. Dialog box had three check boxes with each process checked.
X ... <all processors>
X ... PCU 0
X ... PCU 1
Is good. The doc said win default to using all processors, and I haven't made any changes to the tool. -e
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