Vista 64-bit on XPS M1330

[MrDeeds]

Has anybody been able to get mediadirect to work right with this setup?

I get blue screened when it trys to initialize.
Also has anybody been able to do away with the media direct partition completely or resize it to a much smaller size without issues.

I just want to be able to use the eject and media buttons within vista.

[Les]

My mediadirect works fine. As for getting rid of it, there would be no problems. Relating to BSOD...have you installed Intel Matrix Storage Manager as of yet?

If worse comes to worse...I think you can reinstall mediaDirect 3.3 without having to redo your whole system.

[DoubleBlack]

Originally Posted by flamenko

Answer to your first question is because Trebuin has prob already checked this out.

The concern with not uninstalling your original driver to install this one never has immediate effect but, in more cases than none, has caused something down the road more than once in the past.

And you answered what i was wondering about...if it enables write caching.

As for peoples rep...it can be deceiving at the best of times so Ide even have sought out the experience I know in Treb over a moderator here.

Its nothing personal. Both myself and trebuin have tackled alot of the 64Bit issues that come up...oh by the way...are you running 64Bit?

Believe me, I tackled more issues than you and trebuin combined...and yes, I am running x64. As previously mentioned, however, those drivers work for x86 and x64 and don't have too much to do with this thread, but I know much of this thread has been discussing AHCI drivers so I thought I'd share.

[trebuin]

Speaking from my experience, I generally start with computer supported drivers, eg Dell's provided chipset drivers, ect; then I move over to to better drives as the computer vendor fails to update. My rule of thumb is 1) if it isn't broke, don't update it, and 2) if it makes things faster, time to upgrade.

As for uninstalling vs installing over...depends on the drivers and the writers of them. 1) if the driver install commands and overwrite all files and registry values, then I just do an install over. These are chipset type of drivers, not video card...it's a bit hard to determine what falls into this category. 2) If the driver is from a company that I know does a good job, then I would update.

In the end, it won't hurt to uninstall and reinstall in this case. It's usually recommended, but from intel's documents, you can just update these drivers. I'll personally use these as well.

With the older chipset drivers, it didn't make any sense to update as the drivers did not fix anything with even generational updates, since your chipset is probably not even looked at anymore.

Thanks for posting the link to the drivers Doubleback. I'll build a non-vendor provided update section to the first post when I get a little more time.

[DoubleBlack]

Well with something like AHCI drivers, then you can't just uninstall them because that requires a reboot, and Windows will fail on restart. Yes, generally it's "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but it's still technically broken, I updated to try to see if this version allowed for write caching, but it did not...however personally I did see a performance increase, therefore I decided to recommend it to others.

[trebuin]

I checked the drivers and the performance change was within standard dev. There's nothing wrong with the older stuff as I have seen no crashes caused by them.

You can uninstall the older drivers with Vista, probably not XP, but Vista has the built in AHCI system...the registry change that I posted...that will keep it functioning without the AHCI drivers.


I am researching if Intel takes over that function or if it is indeed broken as many have stated. I will post again when/if I find a solution.

[trebuin]

Here's what I have found so far:
1) There's much talk about the caching being disabled because the nature of these drivers along with SATA is that the drive is supposed to be hot-swappable; to prevent corruption, the write caching has been flat-out disabled.
2) you can see this in my first post with those drive benchmarks...the burst rate will drop...for me by about 10 MB/S
3) People and vendors have said that the AHCI functions have excessive cpu overhead (1% for me, negligible) and it induces lag...not seen in my benchmarks.

***even with the registry change and no drivers...this still happens***

I'm looking for a way to enable this for you guys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Command_Queuing

[omario]

Originally Posted by woodwarp

Great post trebuin, thanks for the info and links to drivers.
I am still running ATA as the ATA/AHCI fix did not work for me (the key was already set to 0) and the machine BSOD when I enable AHCI in the bios.

what version of the bios do you have? A05

I'm havingthis same issue - any ideas people? And thanks to all of you for this wonderful guide.

Problem is that I can't reinstall the AHCI thing as suggested because when I even try to install it I get the following message: "This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing this software. Steup will exit."

[trebuin]

Originally Posted by omario

I'm havingthis same issue - any ideas people? And thanks to all of you for this wonderful guide.

Problem is that I can't reinstall the AHCI thing as suggested because when I even try to install it I get the following message: "This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing this software. Steup will exit."

Check the bios settings and then make sure that your AHCI is enabled through the registry (it should be).

Also, I changed some things around in my registry to see if I could force the drive to cache and now I'm getting a ridiculous burst rate of anywhere from 100-150 mb/s. The device manager shows the device is not caching still.

[omario]

its disabled in the bios but it seems enabled in the registry (how do I check for sure? is it the directions you posted on the first page?

Its disabledin the bios because else it gives the blue screen

Thanks for the help

- Shoeb