joew Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I am unable to set W7 to disable write caching. I uncheck the box in the SSD properties however after rebooting it is checked again. I am using an ASRock Marvell sata III controller and the properties for the controller show the write caching as disabled permanently. Any ideas why this is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parsec Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 I've seen and experienced that. Seems the Marvell Option ROM or driver resets Write Caching it on every boot, that is when it is reset as you noticed. You can use the Windows 7 msahci driver with the Marvell chipsets, which might also stop that from happening, I can't recall now if it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joew Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 You can use the Windows 7 msahci driver with the Marvell chipsets, which might also stop that from happening, I can't recall now if it does. How can I try this? I've found the msahci driver in the 'Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller' should I be changing the driver in Marvell Storage Controller section? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parsec Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 How can I try this? I've found the msahci driver in the 'Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller' should I be changing the driver in Marvell Storage Controller section? Thanks Yes, I've done it from Device Manager, choosing the Marvell Storage Controller in the Storage Controllers section, then select the Driver tab. Click the Update Driver button, and then "Browse my computer for driver software". Next choose "Let me pick...", which will finally bring you to the list of drivers, where msahci is listed. Select that and finish the process. After all that the Marvell controller will no longer be listed under Storage Controllers (as a SCSI device), but in the "ATAPI..." or whatever it is section, I don't have that PC on at the moment. It won't be referred to as a Marvell device anymore, but as a SATA device, which can be confusing, but it's still there. You can change back to the Marvell driver with the "Rollback driver" option anytime you want to. Some users feel the msahci driver improves the stability of the Marvell interface, which I tend to agree with. If your Marvell chipset has RAID capability, that will be lost when using the msahci driver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joew Posted January 9, 2012 Author Share Posted January 9, 2012 Worked great thanks. In fact it seems to have speeded up booting applications, or this could be just my imagination! Not sure if there is a way to thank on this forum? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 "Thanks" works just fine :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parsec Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 You're welcome joew. Yes, the msachi driver is very good and certainly better than some out there. Rather ironic that is works better than Marvell's own driver in many cases. Considering that msahci is a "generic" driver that works with multiple chipsets, it's actually exceptional (I believe Intel developed it.) In the testing I've done, the Marvell driver seems to provide lower IOPs than other drivers, as if it doesn't allow the NCQ queue depth (amount) to be as high as the drive allows. That is why it may perform worse than other drivers, and why you seem to see better performance. Personally, I always use msachi on the Marvell 91XX chipsets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.