965 chip

[iJAC]

Hello to all,

Is there any compatibility issues with the Intel G965 Express Chipset?
Looking at the 2.5" 32g sata pro but have read that webmaster said that there maybe some speed caps with all Intel mobo's..

Here's my mobo info http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/dg965pz/index.htm I been running two of these with the WD rap 10k drives on XP.

[webmaster]

If your speed is capped at 80MB/s, that is still FASTER than ANY LAPTOP HARD DISK. So that is a non-issue. If there is a cap, you still have a straight line read speed of 80MB/s across the disk. A 10,000 RPM Raptor desktop hard disk is considered the fastest consumer hard drive on the planet...And it only averages 78MB/S!! And it has an 8ms access time.

http://www.dvnation.com/benchmark-6.html

If you choose a Memoright or MTRON SSD, the access time will be .1ms. If you laptop has two drive bays and Intel Matrix RAID, you can break the speed cap, even without RAIDing drives together. A great example of this is the Clevo D901C that we use at http://www.dvnation.com/ssd-pc-computers.html .

[iJAC]

Will this drive also improve boot-up? I currently timed my computer and the boot-ups were consistant @ 29-secs.
I can lower it if I turn off (USB,LAN,windows splash screen etc..) to about 22-secs. Ofcourse I am talking from the moment when I push the power button to when I see the welcome screen. :cool:

Also is this drive "power-up to data ready"?

[iJAC]

:confused:Anyone know?

[flopper]

if you use and install raid even as you use a single disk then the Mtron SSD might not be capped to 80mb.

SSD will improve boot times by how much is hard to say but improvement will be made versus mechanical drives even raptor.

[iJAC]

I've made my purchase (2.5" 32g sata pro) this morning and will definitely get back to you all on my boot times and any incompatibilities issues w/G965 express chipset (ich8). Thank you flopper and webmaster for your help. I will experiment with different installs and see which if I even have any speed caps. Honestly I can't wait to use it hope it's worth every dollar and that I notice the difference between my Raptor drive substantially. Later!

[webmaster]

If you have the Intel Matrix RAID controller on your board, ENABLE it in BIOS. On our X38 test board, this broke the speed barrier. Even when we had just ONE drive connect, and had NOT set up RAID! Anandtech.com has a much longer explanation for what they did, but it is not on their first page of reviews anymore. We enabled MATRIX RAID BEFORE installing the OS. We have no idea if enabling the RAID controller will destroy existing data, so be careful!

[iJAC]

Gee whiz it's been awhile since I looked at the bios on this board. But I do remember this option because when I opened the box there it was a 3.5" floppy labeled "RAID" driver on it. That reminds me where did I put it? Anyway I will try and dig up as much info on Anandtech.com as I can. Again thank you very much..

[iJAC]

Hello everybody,

Good news I recieved my drive (aka SSD) on saturday 12th that was fast shipping for the price, anyways I've been really busy digging for info just about everywhere. I will be installing the drive this weekend and anticipating problems but sure I will get it to work on my mobo(ich8). A couple of members here have just posted problems with (ich9r) using two drives on ACHI and RAID. Anandtech.com mentions installing the latest BIOS driver but before I do I will do the install without it and change my settings in the BIOS. I wish I could help everybody here with their drive problems but this is new territory for me sort of like falling into the MATRIX..:cool:

Cross my fingers..

[iJAC]

I was looking forward to this weekend as I mentioned before, could not wait to test this baby out! Sunday was my only real chance..OK here's the low down I have two of these motherboards (DG965PZ) running with identical hardware (mem,cpu and hard-drives oh and monitors). So I replace the drive (raptor) on one of the mobo's with the new one (2.5" 32g sata pro) and it was recognized and identified immediately by the bios as a IDE hard-drive correctly nonetheless. Now I thought this was wierd as to hearing so many imcompatibility issues. I changed the bios settings to RAID as webmaster suggested just to see if it would work but it was a no go.. Anyways I proceeded with the install under IDE and WAH-LAH! :D XP Pro installed without a glitch. It only took 29min's to install versus the RAPTOR which was still running @ a little over 46min's. Boot-up was @ 16sec's where the Raptor was at 29sec's with nothing turned off (with USB,LAN etc. turned off I can get the raptor to 22sec's). As I installed other programs I noticed boot time increased to almost 27sec's..:( what's up with that? Did a benchmark on the drive and it was speed capped at 79.5mb/s read, 69mb/s write under IDE.

Well here I go again did another fresh install this time I tried changing the bios to read the drive in (ACHI) mode the mobo locked up and would only let me do a bios jumper refresh in order to break free. ACHI in my bios settings said it can only be activated if using with VISTA:confused:.. I don't have that so let's move to the third contender RAID.. Which I've left for last because Intel says that there are two way's to install.
1st. -By installing RAID before the software is installed.
2nd.-By installing while your software is pre-installed and operational. (all because of the Express chipset)
You can read more here under SIMPLIFIED UPGRADE - http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm

I will be attempting the second choice tonight and if that dose'nt work than then I'll try the first. Later..:cool:

[iJAC]

Well it's been almost two weeks and I've finally overcome the speed cap on this mobo. I tried a bios update and the latest drivers and still could'nt overcome the speed barrier at 80mb/s. So I decided to try it on the other mobo with no bios update or drivers (remmember I have two of these DG965PZ boards) the only thing I did here was install the F6 raid drivers keeping the bios set at IDE (NOT RAID) because I am only installing one drive. Then after a little while (while still installing) you'll see a screen prompt you to press "S" to load the storage drivers then continue with a fresh install of XP. After the install I searched my device manager and found that the raid drivers had installed the ICH8 2/4 port sata storage controller. So I did another bench test and got much better results.. much better..:D Please take a look at the before and after results.. I hope this can help anyone doing a single drive install and if anyone has any questions please ask incase I forgot anything. It seems that I've unlocked the sata ports connections potential.