How To Improve SSD performance on Intel Series 4, 5, 965 Chipsets (JJB Tweak)

[JJB]

TWEAKS FOR IMPROVING SSD READ / WRITE SPEEDS

After many hours and of trial and error testing of 'hidden' advanced processor power plan settings the following tweaks appear solve the poor SSD read / write speeds that have plagued most notebooks that use the PM55 & HM55 chipsets (most others chipsets show improvements also). These tweaks have been confirmed to work on the following SSD brands: Intel, Samsung, Corsair, Micron/Crucial (to be updated soon)

Credit goes out to the following for all their help and being Guinea pigs for testing: 'Phil', 'erig007', 'stamatisx', 'LOUSYGREATWALLGM', 'mfractal', 'tilleroftheearth', 'KolosoK', 'Sassen', 'eight35pm', 'eYe-I-aie', 'Dillio87', 'NotebookGrail' and others. PLEASE PASS SOME REP AROUND FOR ALL THEIR HELP AND TESTING OF THESE TWEAKS

WINDOWS 7 SSD R/W SPEED TWEAKS: STEP 1

The first step in this process is to 'activate' certain 'hidden' processor power options so they show up in your 'Advanced Power Plan Settings'. This can be done manually in the registry editor (or by running some command lines HERE Thanks to 'mfractal' !). While these changes do not change any settings at this point there is very little risk, but

IT IS STRONGLY ADVISED TO MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE YOU PROCEED***.

1. Type " regedit " (without quotes) in the start menu 'search bar' and hit return.
   
2. Open my 'regedit' screen shot below and follow the 'path' highlighted at the bottom of the regedit screenshot (easiest if you can split screens side by side)
   
3. Start with the first highlighted line (after power settings) in the screenshots left column and click on it once in your regedit screen (so it highlights blue) and then double click on 'attributes' that appears on the right hand column and change the value to '0' and click OK. Do this for all 6 highighted items shown in my screenshot. NOTE: if any items already have a value of '0', leave them alone by clicking 'cancel' and move to the the next item. (see cross reference list below)
   
4. Once you have completed this for all items, open any 'Advanced Power Plan Setting' and click on 'Proceesor Power Management'. Verify that you now have all 6 new 'processor power management' options available.
   
5. You can now close regedit.

Regedit screen shot showing which attributes to change to "0". NOTE: full path to find these highlighted at bottom of image.
REGEDIT ATTRIBUTE 0 SETTINGS.PNG (click to enlarge)


Here is a cross reference list showing what these regedit 'keys' equate to in the power plan settings (Thanks to LOUSYGREATWALLGM!)

• 06cadf0e-64ed-448a-8927-ce7bf90eb35d = Processor performance increase threshold
• 12a0ab44-fe28-4fa9-b3bd-4b64f44960a6 = Processor performance decrease threshold
• 40fbefc7-2e9d-4d25-a185-0cfd8574bac6 = Processor performance decrease policy
• 4b92d758-5a24-4851-a470-815d78aee119 = Processor idle demote threshold
• 7b224883-b3cc-4d79-819f-8374152cbe7c = Processor idle promote threshold
• 943c8cb6-6f93-4227-ad87-e9a3feec08d1 = Processor performance core parking overutilization threshold

Now go on to step 2 to adjust these new setting options:

WINDOWS 7 SSD R/W SPEED TWEAKS: STEP 2

Note: I recommend that you record your default idle temps before applying the new settings to see how much heat the new settings add to your system at idle. It would also be good to have an idea of your max temps under load for comparison. You can always select the 'balanced' power plan at any time for comparison after these adjustments.

Now click on your battery icon and select 'more power options', on the next screen select the 'HIGH PERFORMANCE POWER PLAN', then 'CHANGE PLAN SETTING'. IMPORTANT: On your first time making these tweaks click on "Restore defualt settings for this plan" to ensure your starting out with all options at default. Now select 'advanced power settings' and confirm that the 'popup' shows 'High Performance - [Active]' at the top.

Double click 'Processor power management' and make the following adjustments:

PROCESSOR POWER SETTTING ADJUSTMENTS
(NOTE: Use the High performance power plan option and change the 'Plugged in' value )*

• Proc. performance increase threshold = 30%
• proc. perf. decrease threshold = 85%
• Proc. perf. decrease policy = Ideal
• Proc. idle demote threshold = 85%
• Proc. idle promote threshold = 95% **
• Minimum processor state = 0%
• Proc. performance core parking overutilization Threshold = 95% **
• System cooling policy (no change) = 'active'
• Maximum processor state (no change) = 100%

That's it for the settings. Now I would reboot (not required) and run CrystalDiscMark with the 5 / 50MB settings and see how your R/W speeds have changed. MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN THE HIGH PERFORMANCE POWER PLAN SETTING FOR TESTING.

If you wish to compare to your original 'factory' settings just switch to the 'balanced power plan' and run it again, you can run as many instances of crystaldiskmark as you want which makes side br side comparisons easy....

* = After you confirm the tweaks work on your system then you can change all the High Performance Power Plan "on battery" processor settings and get the same improvements when unplugged. All other 'on battery' settings (other than processor) can be adjusted to your preference to get the best battery life.

** = 95% is a conservative setting that gives good reults with minimal impact on heat and CPU idle wattage. If you want higher SSD performance at the expense of higher temps then try setting these to 99% for resonable but higher temps or 100% for max performance all the time at even higher temps (will vary by computer). For battery use I would stick with 95%.

*** = How to backup your registry;

1. Type regedit in start menu search box > return
   
2. Locate and click the key or subkey that you want to back up.
   
3. Click the File menu, and then click Export.
   
4. In the Save in box, select the location where you want to save the backup copy to, and then type a name for the backup file in the File name box.
   
5. Click Save.

Here are my results with these settings:

CRYSTAL DISC RESULTS BEFORE, AFTER, UNDER LOAD.PNG CDM results; before tweaks, after tweaks and under light CPU load.
click to enlarge

Note the first 2 runs are at full Idle (no other apps running). The tweaks used are with the 95% settings and you will see that at idle there is a big improvement over 'no tweaks'. More important is the 3rd run while playing iTunes music during the test run (adds a minimal CPU load of 1-4%) this shows even greater improvements in R/W speeds. This is why I settled on the two 95% settings, you get big improvements at idle AND full performance with very light CPU loads of ~2%. All with minimal impact on ide temps or battery life.

FULL IDLE TEMPS AND WATTS AFTER TWEAKS.PNG Temps and wattage at full idle after tweaks (68F room temp)
click to enlarge

Finally a big thank you to 'Phil' who started the 'Laptops w. Intel Series 5 chipset can not take full advantage of fast SSDs' thread which got us to this solution. If you would like to see results for other users and systems as well as info on how we got here and other potential solutions please check it out. Also please post your before and after results and basic system specs / CPU - chipset / SSD make and model

[anseio]

posting here as well as the original thread.

Here are my results from the changes recommended. My machine specs are in my sig. I'm using the default Windows chipset. I didn't get significant improvement in sequential Read, as my SSD is already maxed out at near 250MB/s, but did get a touch of improvement in the 4K regiion, which is nice.

[PulsatingQuasar]

As I posted on this page( bottom):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hard...t-ssds-60.html

I got better results on the G73JH after I DISABLED CORE PARKING.

EDIT: Just increased Proc. performance core parking overutilization Threshold to 97%. Even better SSD scores. Not a lot of impact on the idle temperatures.

[JJB]

@anseio

Yoy should try upping the two 95% settings to 99 or 100% for max performance at idle. I explain in my instructions that the 95% setting is conservative in order to minimize heat and power.

Also try running your CDM run again (original tweaks) with just a small CPU load (play some music) it should improve your scores dramatically.

I saw your post in the other new thread, you should make sure that your Max Turbo Boost still works with that tweak, many have lost full Turbo speeds...

[JJB]

Originally Posted by PulsatingQuasar

As I posted on this page( bottom):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hard...t-ssds-60.html

I got better results on the G73JH after I DISABLED CORE PARKING.

EDIT: Just increased Proc. performance core parking overutilization Threshold to 97%. Even better SSD scores. Not a lot of impact on the idle temperatures.

Read my above post to anseio, I have founf that with a minimal CPU load ~1-3% you will get full SSD speeds without having to raise the 95% settings.

Also when I disabled core parking the power draw and idle clock speeds went haywire, also you need to check if that affects full Turbo boost speeds.

[anseio]

Originally Posted by JJB

@anseio

Yoy should try upping the two 95% settings to 99 or 100% for max performance at idle. I explain in my instructions that the 95% setting is conservative in order to minimize heat and power.

Also try running your CDM run again (original tweaks) with just a small CPU load (play some music) it should improve your scores dramatically.

I saw your post in the other new thread, you should make sure that your Max Turbo Boost still works with that tweak, many have lost full Turbo speeds...

Yeah, I've noticed that about the other tweak. I can get great 4k numbers OR I can have TurboBoost. Device Manager shows issues with each of the cores. Able to undo it. Already did once, just to make sure. Might just system restore and go back to the way things were before any tweaking since your tweaks, though good, didn't yield significant change and the other tweak has pros and cons equal to their significance.

[PulsatingQuasar]

I also found that lowering Proc. performance increase threshold to 5% helps the Write speed of the 4K test.

I don't seem to lose turbo boost or the height of the boost with those 2 little tweaks.

[JJB]

Originally Posted by anseio

Yeah, I've noticed that about the other tweak. I can get great 4k numbers OR I can have TurboBoost. Device Manager shows issues with each of the cores. Able to undo it. Already did once, just to make sure. Might just system restore and go back to the way things were before any tweaking since your tweaks, though good, didn't yield significant change and the other tweak has pros and cons equal to their significance.

You may have missed my point on the previous post. You should get full SSD performance from my standard tweaks by just applying ANY small CPU load while running the CDM test.

Point is that in any real world use where you need / want max SSD speeds your going to have something loading the CPU.... Try running CDM again with my standard tweaks while playing some music, your scores should be much faster. Example; MS security essentials run a full scan 33 minutes faster with my tweaks than without even though the CDM score shows no big improvements when run at idle (at least on my system)

[anseio]

Originally Posted by JJB

You may have missed my point on the previous post. You should get full SSD performance from my standard tweaks by just applying ANY small CPU load while running the CDM test.

Point is that in any real world use where you need / want max SSD speeds your going to have something loading the CPU.... Try running CDM again with my standard tweaks while playing some music, your scores should be much faster. Example; MS security essentials run a full scan 33 minutes faster with my tweaks than without even though the CDM score shows no big improvements when run at idle (at least on my system)

I did miss that. Will give them a try in a few hours, after I'm done seeing my next client.

[anseio]

Ok, I've done my playing around. Running CDM while iTunes was playing the in the background did yield better numbers, though 4k wasn't as good as when TurboBoost was gone. I decided to test these settings against a blu ray rip (.m2ts) that I had. Before making any changes I could get mostly smooth playback through VLC. After changes were made, the cores were going haywire and the playback would glitch rhythmically. This was impacted even after switching to Balanced Power asl well.

Smart me, for once, I had made a system image before trying any of these changes. I just finished restoring from my system image. Reinstalled TurboBoost Monitor and core activity is remarkably more stable. .m2ts playback was smooth and only the virtual cores were in use and hyperthreading. They were steady with no erratic behavior.

I did notice that the further the settings were pushed, the more TurboBoost was affected. Right now, TB spikes smoothly when I launch an app and the cores move up and down smoothly as well. Before I restored my system and was operating off of altered settings TB seemed jerky. Balanced mode yielded higher bursts and High Performance mode would cap at 1.73, then push beyond after too much upward pressure (the only way I can explain).

Thanks for your hard work in coming up with these settings. I wish they had worked more smoothly for me.