Slow boot time- AHCI Mode

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freakwave · #1 Post by **freakwave** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 8:27 am

Hi all,

could you please do some timing when you startup windows.
I measured from switching on, until you have to log in.

on my T60p: 53 seconds
on my T40p: 24 seconds

very similar installations.

freakwave · #2 Post by **freakwave** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:07 am

some shocking benchmarks for the T60p 2500 processor and 100Gig 7200 SATA drive

I did a h2bench2w with AHCI Mode in BIOS and compatibility mode:

command: h2benchw -c0 0 -english

AHCI on:
sequ. read medium: 50MBytes/s
sequ. transfer rate read ahead: 55MBytes/s
sequ. read core test: 74MBytes/s

with Compatibility mode:
sequ. read medium: 50MBytes/s
sequ. transfer rate read ahead: 68MBytes/s
sequ. read core test: 95MBytes/s

So it is significant faster in Compatibility mode.
There seems to be a serious driver problem.

#3 Post by **Kyocera** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 12:24 pm

I got a second 80g 5400 hard drive (from brentpresley

) as a work/testing drive and loaded it with factory cd's and took out all the following software:

I removed , norton, google, diskeeper, bluetooth, fingerprint, productivity center, help center, access help, system migration assistant, system update (software installer works fine), rescue and recovery -client security solution, away manager, access connections,

The boot time on this HD is under 25 sec. It runs quite a bit faster also. I realize this is pretty radical, norton definately slows things down, and after removing the 150mb client security I noticed a slight increase in system performance, you could probably uncheck a lot of things from the startup menu to without removing the software, it ususally finds its way back though. I think compatibility mode is the default, thats where mine is.

freakwave · #4 Post by **freakwave** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:47 pm

Hi Kyocera,

I also removed lots of that stuff, after setting to compatibility mode it even boots a bit faster, but definitely no way in the 25 seconds area. More like 40 seconds. I have a completely reinstalled windows, with non of the IBM stuff on it. (except drivers of course)

I could live with the boot times, but I am really wondering about the performance with AHCI. I installed the latest chipset drivers from Intel and things do not improve.

In AHCI mode on, even my ultrabay 7K100 is faster which is connected to the standard IDE controler. So perhaps someone can test the h2benchw.exe as well? You just need to download. No installation required:

http://www.pctipp.ch/library/downloads/ ... benchw.zip

arnvid · #5 Post by **arnvid** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:47 pm

Mine was default to ACHI. Does anyone know if there's other drivers available to these controllers?

#6 Post by **RonS** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 7:20 pm

I just ran HDTune with SATA compatibility ON and OFF, and got almost the exact same number either way.

It sounds like disk I/O bandwidth may be limited downstream of the controller. Has anyone taken one of these drive and benchmarked it on outside the Thinkpad, on a desktop computer?

arnvid · #7 Post by **arnvid** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 9:28 pm

RonS wrote:I just ran HDTune with SATA compatibility ON and OFF, and got almost the exact same number either way.

It sounds like disk I/O bandwidth may be limited downstream of the controller. Has anyone taken one of these drive and benchmarked it on outside the Thinkpad, on a desktop computer?

As long as it's dont need any special cables or adapters then I can test this during the weekend..

Kamika007z · #8 Post by **Kamika007z** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:57 pm

That would be awesome if you could post the results back to us

Thank you!

freakwave · #9 Post by **freakwave** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:15 am

ok, I did some more research on the original topic why my boottime was so slow.

With my thinkpad I purchased the 7K100 drive from hitachi (not IBM).
I used this as the primary drive and I had the problems that I posted above.
Since IBM did not help me resolving this issue, I opened a ticket with hitachi. After some back and forth, they came up with the reason:

The IBM 7K100 drive has its own IBM firmware and that has NCQ disabled as factory default. Thats why there is basically no difference between your BIOS setting AHCI versus COMPATIBILITY.

The Hitachi has NCQ enabled, so there is a big difference between AHCI and COMPATIBILITY mode. In my day to day experience the NCQ only slows down the machine, which I guess is the reason IBM disabled it per default.

Thats bleeding edge technology.

Regards,

Wolfgang

whakojacko · #10 Post by **whakojacko** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:20 am

I set it to compatability mode to install linux, and have not since switched it back. It does seem to boot a bit faste

claudeo · #11 Post by **claudeo** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 1:32 pm

I won't mess with that. Not worth it. But removing Symantec Client Security and replacing with NOD32 antivirus + generic Windows firewall (carefully tuned) did cut the boot time by what feels like 90% and seems to also improve general performance.

hoya · #12 Post by **hoya** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 6:51 pm

how do I disable NCQ on my Seagate Momentus 7200.1 SATA drive?

Kamika007z · #13 Post by **Kamika007z** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 7:47 pm

Native Command Queueing? Isn't that supposed to make the hard drive work more efficiently? And also supposed to increase performance?

hoya · #14 Post by **hoya** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:04 pm

I received the following response when I asked Hitachi how to disable NCQ on the 7K100:

John,

Native command queuing requires a controller capable of using the feature.
To disable the feature simply requires you to turn the feature off in the controller or system BIOS. The feature is not disabled at the drive end, but rather within the controller. If the controller does not support the feature, the drive does not use it.

I am also aware that you can disable queuing through the operating system.
In XP the feature is found under device management... ATA/Atapi/IDE controllers... select the appropriate Serial ATA controller...
within the channel tab(s) should be a check option to 'Enable command queuing'. You need to uncheck the option to disable the function. One again, if the controller does not support the feature this option is greyed out.

I hope this clarifies the situation.

Good luck and have a nice day!

Regards,
Paul H
Hitachi GST technical support team

_______________________________
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
US toll-free: 888.426.5214
Fax: 507.322.2419
support_usa@hitachigst.com
www.hitachigst.com

hoya · #15 Post by **hoya** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:05 pm

Seagate's response was less elaborate:

Hello:

You can only disable NCQ if the controller supported that functions and therefore enables you to disable NCQ in the SATA controller's BIOS.

Best regards.

Kamel A.
Seagate Technical Support

Slow boot time- AHCI Mode

Slow boot time- AHCI Mode

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