Vista - "good" SATA2 drivers for PCIe JMB360 controller?

Hello,

I have a board with an onboard SATA2 connector. I put a SATA2 disk on it,
and when I installed vista (with the controller in SATA mode in the bios
(asrock 939Dual-SATA2 board)), Vista detected the controller and loaded a
default driver, and the install took about 3 hours. The windows experience
disk performance rating was 2.2.

I changed the controller mode to IDE in the bios (which required a reinstall
of Vista), but it was way way faster. Now I have a disk performance rating
of 5, but the disk is running in IDE UDMA-6 mode (equiv to SATA150).

I suppose the question is, does anyone know if a suitable SATA2 controller
driver exists for Vista that doesnt suck the way the controller driver that
is bundled with Vista does?

I would like to be able to harness the full speed of the SATA2 disk that is
in my system.

Thanks,

- NuTs

Nut Cracker wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a board with an onboard SATA2 connector. I put a SATA2 disk on it,
> and when I installed vista (with the controller in SATA mode in the bios
> (asrock 939Dual-SATA2 board)), Vista detected the controller and loaded a
> default driver, and the install took about 3 hours. The windows experience
> disk performance rating was 2.2.
>
> I changed the controller mode to IDE in the bios (which required a reinstall
> of Vista), but it was way way faster. Now I have a disk performance rating
> of 5, but the disk is running in IDE UDMA-6 mode (equiv to SATA150).
>
> I suppose the question is, does anyone know if a suitable SATA2 controller
> driver exists for Vista that doesnt suck the way the controller driver that
> is bundled with Vista does?
>
> I would like to be able to harness the full speed of the SATA2 disk that is
> in my system.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - NuTs
>
>

JMicron has a driver for the JMB36x that's dated 2/2007 and is supposed
to be for Vista -- http://www.jmicron.com/Driver.htm

If the drive is already running in UDMA 6, though, is it likely that
you'll see any improvement in disk performance? Please post your before
and after results.

"Ron Miller" <millerDOT90@osu.edu> wrote in message
news:uu%23JCvEXHHA.4240@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Nut Cracker wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a board with an onboard SATA2 connector. I put a SATA2 disk on it,
>> and when I installed vista (with the controller in SATA mode in the bios
>> (asrock 939Dual-SATA2 board)), Vista detected the controller and loaded a
>> default driver, and the install took about 3 hours. The windows
>> experience disk performance rating was 2.2.
>>
>> I changed the controller mode to IDE in the bios (which required a
>> reinstall of Vista), but it was way way faster. Now I have a disk
>> performance rating of 5, but the disk is running in IDE UDMA-6 mode
>> (equiv to SATA150).
>>
>> I suppose the question is, does anyone know if a suitable SATA2
>> controller driver exists for Vista that doesnt suck the way the
>> controller driver that is bundled with Vista does?
>>
>> I would like to be able to harness the full speed of the SATA2 disk that
>> is in my system.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> - NuTs
>
> JMicron has a driver for the JMB36x that's dated 2/2007 and is supposed to
> be for Vista -- http://www.jmicron.com/Driver.htm
>
> If the drive is already running in UDMA 6, though, is it likely that
> you'll see any improvement in disk performance? Please post your before
> and after results.



It should just be an update to the disk controller driver, reboot, and
change the setting in the bios, and then let the machine come up .... I put
a lot of time into setting up vista already and dont want to lose that
investment of time.

so ... I might, I might not.

if I DO, I will do some performance before and after, just to see if there
is a significant difference.

- NuTs

One interesting thing in terms of performance -- hard drives (aside
from WD Raptor drives and virtually any SCSI drive) for desktops run at
7200 RPM. The newer SATA and IDE drives might have a 16M onboard
cache, but in terms of sustained performance data transfer, you are not
likely to see much better performance than an ATA 100 (let alone 133 or
Sata 150) than you already are getting.

About the only place where Sata 300 might show up in real performance
gains if you are running a RAID 5 SATA array with 4 or more drives in
the array -- and that's with an add in controller which includes
onboard cache of its own.


--
Barry Schnur

"BSchnur" <BSchnur@cox.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.205144ab7a07ec48989858@msnews.microsoft.com...
> One interesting thing in terms of performance -- hard drives (aside
> from WD Raptor drives and virtually any SCSI drive) for desktops run at
> 7200 RPM. The newer SATA and IDE drives might have a 16M onboard
> cache, but in terms of sustained performance data transfer, you are not
> likely to see much better performance than an ATA 100 (let alone 133 or
> Sata 150) than you already are getting.
>
> About the only place where Sata 300 might show up in real performance
> gains if you are running a RAID 5 SATA array with 4 or more drives in
> the array -- and that's with an add in controller which includes
> onboard cache of its own.
>
>
> --
> Barry Schnur


for sustained I/O, I agree. And yes, my drive has a 16MB cache, and I know
that the SATA 300 (2.0) is really what the max buffer I/O is rated at, not
the sustained I/O of the drive. But Im a geek, and I want to know if there
is any real difference, and if there IS a difference i want to know 'why'. I
also am curious as to why SATA mode for my controller was soooo much slower
than IDE when I installed vista the first time.

Using HDTach, my disk is peaking at about 130M/s (burst), and I know it
should be way higher. the sustained I/O isnt terrible, and averages about
65M/s.

I know lots and lots about Raid, as I work with it every single day. Mostly
SCSI U320 arrays on HP and Dell servers, with an odd IBM box tossed in for
variety. A fair amount of EMC DMX and Clariion stuff over Fibre Channel as
well.

I will probably do a local C: and system state backup before i start
changing the controller drivers and switching the controller mode in the
bios. At least that way, it should be a quick recovery back to where I was
before I made any changes.

Thanks for the input ...

- NuTs

Hello!

"Nut Cracker" <nutcracker@internationalhacker.org> wrote in message news:uhIoTtCXHHA.3332@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Hello,
>
> I have a board with an onboard SATA2 connector. I put a SATA2 disk on it, and when I installed vista (with the controller in SATA
> mode in the bios (asrock 939Dual-SATA2 board)), Vista detected the controller and loaded a default driver, and the install took
> about 3 hours. The windows experience disk performance rating was 2.2.
>
> I changed the controller mode to IDE in the bios (which required a reinstall of Vista), but it was way way faster. Now I have a
> disk performance rating of 5, but the disk is running in IDE UDMA-6 mode (equiv to SATA150).
>
> I suppose the question is, does anyone know if a suitable SATA2 controller driver exists for Vista that doesnt suck the way the
> controller driver that is bundled with Vista does?
>
> I would like to be able to harness the full speed of the SATA2 disk that is in my system.

Here is a KB with an interesting description (6.0.6000.20518)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/KB931369
And here are new IDE/ATAPI/AHCI drivers (build 6.0.6000.20523)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932079

It seems that they are available from:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...IGR-67393.html

Maybe it will help ...


Regards, Roman

>> I would like to be able to harness the full speed of the SATA2 disk that
>> is in my system.
>
> Here is a KB with an interesting description (6.0.6000.20518)
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/KB931369
>

Quote:

> When you try to install Windows Vista on a portable computer that uses
> an ATI SB600 Series chipset, each driver may take a long time to install.
> Therefore, the Windows Vista installation process may take several hours.
>
> This problem occurs only on a computer that uses a Serial Advanced
> Technology Attachment (SATA) device that is operating in Advanced
> Host Controller Interface (AHCI) mode. This problem does not occur if
> the SATA device uses SATA Combined mode or Parallel Advanced
> Technology Attachment (PATA) mode.
>

>
> And here are new IDE/ATAPI/AHCI drivers (build 6.0.6000.20523)
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932079
>
> It seems that they are available from:
> http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...IGR-67393.html
>
> Maybe it will help ...
>
>
> Regards, Roman

Excellent post Roman, thank you very much !

- NuTs

OK -- fair enough, this newsgroup does get folks who are shall we say
less than expert on RAID array stuff -- clearly you have the hands on
for this.


--
Barry Schnur

"BSchnur" <BSchnur@cox.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.2053b596f11310dc989864@msnews.microsoft.com...
> OK -- fair enough, this newsgroup does get folks who are shall we say
> less than expert on RAID array stuff -- clearly you have the hands on
> for this.
>
>
> --
> Barry Schnur

Thanks for that, Barry. I didnt always know about RAID, though, and realize
that everyone needs to start someplace.

> Thanks for that, Barry. I didnt always know about RAID, though, and realize
> that everyone needs to start someplace.
>
Understood...


--
Barry Schnur
Novell Support Connection Volunteer Sysop