Intel RST AHCI+SSD and Asus K55A Notebook

Hello! I’m new to this forum and I can’t seem to find the answers I’m looking for elsewhere… I need some guidance concerning Intel RST drivers… Here are my specs:
Asus K55A Notebook
Windows 8.1 Pro (x64)
Samsung 840 SSD (250GB)
Kingston 8GB DDR3 (4GB x2) 1600MHz

UEFI/BIOS is set to AHCI… Doesn’t support RAID… And Win8.1 was installed in UEFI mode… I have doubts as to how the Intel RST drivers are supposed to function… I’m not a newbie but the issue is when I install Intel RST, the iaStorF.sys doesn’t install… Is it supposed to for single SSD in AHCI mode??? I also have Storage Controller in device manager that only list Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller… Device Manager also has IDE/ATAPI Controllers that lists the Intel 7 Series SATA AHCI Controller which btw is v12.9.0.1001… Originally my notebook came with a 750GB HDD and running Win8… But I upgraded… I was running Win7 on my SSD at first and Asus has an Intel RST driver v11.0 or 11.2… Which is just iaStor.inf, iaStor.sys… Obviously for single disks… But I don’t know if that version supports Trim and Garbage Collect or even have good performance for SSD’s since they are outdated… So I basically need some clarification concerning Notebooks with single SSD in AHCI mode… Thx in advance!!!

@ @JSebastian:
Welcome at WinRAID Forum!

Don’t worry about the missing SCSI filter driver named iaStorF.sys while running Win8/8.1. This driver is not installed by the OS, because it is not needed. Contrary to Win7 the newest Windows Operating Systems Win8/8.1 do natively support the UNMAP command, which is the SCSI variant of the TRIM command and absolutely needed to let TRIM pass through the Intel SATA AHCI/RAID Controller.
So everything is fine with your Intel AHCI system. You have full TRIM and Garbage Collection support within your SSD.

Regards
Fernando

Thx for the speedy reply!!! Ok perfect I was hoping for that answer! Now another question… I seem to have low 4k write speed on my 840… Around 45 MB/s avg. When I should have about 120 MB/s max according to numerous SSD Benchmark sites… And the other weird thing is if I set my notebook to Power Saving mode I get significantly higher scores in AS SSD… About 1100 - 1300 total… And in Performance mode I get around 920 max… Now for some reason its around 880 total… What could be causing the really low 4K speeds?

Have you already opened the "Disk drives" section of the Device Manager, done a right click onto the listed Samsung SSD, chosen "Properties" > "Policies" and checked both offered options?

I don’t know. Maybe your SSD is nearly full or hasn’t been optimized by emptying the Recycle Bin and running the Win8.1 “Optimizer” (note: your SSD has to be shown as “Solid State Drive”).

Hey! This is my 1st SSD so I’m kinda confused as to which settings are the best for it… All over the web there are contradicting opinios as to whats best for SSD’s… Samsung Magician disables “Turn off Windows write cash flushing” the second option… According to that SW SSD’s don’t need it and disabling it increases performance… I have tested with it on and off with no difference in test results… My C: partition has 60 GB free of 99 GB… And D: partition has 35 GB free of 109 GB… I also have 23.29 GB Unallocated Space after D: for Over Provisioning as Samsung Magician recommends and from what I’ve read about SSD’s they’re supposed to have about 10% unallocated space at the end… Win8.1 Optimizer states that the SSD is optimized and it does detect it as an SSD btw… I ran WinSat first thing after installing Win8.1… I disabled indexing for C: & D: as well… I regularly run manually run Win8.1 Optimizer and set my SSD to never turn off in power options and I use Hybrid Boot (Fast Startup enabled) so Win8.1 can do its Garbage Collect and maintenance while asleep… Any other ideas as to the cause of this issue?

  1. I have never used the “OS Optimization” option of Samsung’s Magician.
    2. Unchecking the “Turn off Windows write cash flushing on this device” option always dropped the write performance of my system dramatically. On the other hand this setting may induce a data loss in the case of any power interuption.

That should be ok.

Not really.

The “Optimization” feature in Magician is supposed to run trim and garbage collect from what I’ve found out… I also have my SSD aligned to 1 MB starting offset so I’m good there… I am really stumped!!! Lol… The SSD is formatted to GPT too… And I installed from a GPT Fat32 flash stick also… Can’t seem to figure this out!!!

I meant the Magician "OS Optimization" option, which disables some OS features, and not the "Performance Optimization", which triggers TRIM (can better be done by the Win8.1 Optimizer).

Hey! Yeah sorry I realized that’s what you were referring to a bit later… This was the first time I have actually used the OS Optimization feature… I figured that maybe it modified those particular settings in a different manner than Win 8.1 does… i.e Disabling SuperFetch and Prefetcher… I know that after running WinSAT, Win 8.1 removes those 2 items from the registry… although SuperFetch is still active and used by Win 8.1… According to Microsoft® SuperFetch works differently in Win 8/8.1 using SSD’s… But I do find it odd that one has to manually run WinSAT so that Win8.1 detects its installed on an SSD… I also remember that when I first installed my SSD I was running Win 7 and I had similar SSD Benchmarks… As far as the 4K Write is concerned… DO you have any idea as to why my AS SSD scores are a lot higher when I’m in Power Saver Mode??? I mean scores between 1100 and 1300 Total is very high for a Samsung 840 SSD… Maybe for an 840 Pro you might get similar scores but not for a basic 840… And running in Power Save Mode too… Any Ideas???
One other thing… Do you know why Aida64 and HWinfo detect my SSD running in UDMA Mode 5 after I restart my notebook??? Or Hybrid Shutdown??? But if I put it to Sleep… waking up I’m at UDMA 6???

Maybe your issue has something to do with the Intel Management Engine firmware or settings of your system. Please run the MEInfo tool.
By the way: Until you have found the reason for your bad benchmark results after having set the "Energy Options" to "High Performance", I recommend to stick with the default Power Saver Mode setting.

No, I don’t know the reason.

Actually about 3 weeks ago I updated my notebooks Intel® ME Firmware… I followed YOUR guide on this Forum! And everything went perfectly… Here is the MEInfo:

Get ME FWU OEM Id command…done
FW Capabilities value is 0x1101C60
Feature enablement is 0x1101C60
Platform type is 0x72420321
Intel(R) ME code versions:

BIOS Version: K55A.404
MEBx Version: 0.0.0.0000
Gbe Version: 1.3
VendorID: 8086
PCH Version: 4
FW Version: 8.1.51.1471
UNS Version: Not Available
LMS Version: 9.0.0.1310
MEI Driver Version: 9.0.0.1287
Wireless Hardware Version: Not Available
Wireless Driver Version: Not Available

FW Capabilities: 0x01101C60

Intel(R) Anti-Theft Technology - PRESENT/ENABLED
Intel(R) Capability Licensing Service - PRESENT/ENABLED
Protect Audio Video Path - PRESENT/ENABLED
Intel(R) Dynamic Application Loader - PRESENT/ENABLED


Get iCLS permit information command…done
Command response status indicates permit not found

Get iCLS CPU allowed feature information command…done
CPU Upgrade State: Not Upgradable
Cryptography Support: Disabled
Last ME reset reason: Power up
Local FWUpdate: Enabled

Get BIOS flash lockdown status…done
BIOS Config Lock: Enabled

Get flash master region access status…done
Host Read Access to ME: Disabled
Host Write Access to ME: Disabled
SPI Flash ID #1: C22017
SPI Flash ID VSCC #1: 20052005
SPI Flash BIOS VSCC: 20052005
Protected Range Register Base #0 0x0
Protected Range Register Limit #0 0x0
Protected Range Register Base #1 0x0
Protected Range Register Limit #1 0x0
Protected Range Register Base #2 0x0
Protected Range Register Limit #2 0x0
Protected Range Register Base #3 0x0
Protected Range Register Limit #3 0x0
Protected Range Register Base #4 0x0
Protected Range Register Limit #4 0x0
BIOS boot State: Post Boot
OEM Id: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Capability Licensing Service: Enabled

Actually by updating my Intel® ME FW I resolved some issues with running Intel® WiDi since my notebook has an Atheros Wireless Adapter… As well as issues when updating my Intel® Chipset INF… Anyways I find it really odd that I fall back to UDMA 5 every time I restart or shutdown my notebook… Only if I put it to sleep it recovers to UDMA 6…

Hey one more thing… Concerning my SSD Benchmarks… I am referring to Random 4K QD1… Does that matter??? Because my 4K QD32 and QD64 seem to be decent… And I also turned off my Eset Smart Security Real Time Scanning during testing… So which 4K test matters the most for my SSD??? Thx!

For your Samsung SSD I recommend to use either the AS_SSD benchmark test or Anvil’s Storage Utilities. The most important benchmark results regarding the performance “in real life” are the 4K Read and Write scores.

For your Samsung SSD I recommend to use either the AS_SSD benchmark test or Anvil’s Storage Utilities. The most important benchmark results regarding the performance “in real life” are the 4K Read and Write scores.



Hey! I know but which 4K scores are the ones that matter??? There is 4K QD1… 4K QD32 and 4K QD64… Or are you referring to all the 4K Read/Write scores being the ones that matter in “Real Life” performance???

I meant the clean “4K” scores of the AS_SSD and Anvil’s tool.

I meant the clean “4K” scores of the AS_SSD and Anvil’s tool.



Yeah I know but they have 4K and 4K QD64 which one of those 2? Or both are important? I also think I might have an alignment issue… You see, since I installed in UEFI mode Win8.1 formatted 3 partitions before C:… Part0 is Recovery 300 MB, Part1 EFI 100 MB and Part2 MS Reserved 128 MB… AS SSD says OK fro the offset though…

They both may be “important”, but the 4K scores are the most realistic ones, if we talk about the normal user’s work with his computer.
Example: If you compare the usual benchmark results of an SSD RAID0 with a single SSD in AHCI mode, you will find all numbers nearly doubled except the 4K Read and Write ones. On the other hand everyone knows, that the performance doesn’t increase twice by creating a RAID0 system…

They both may be “important”, but the 4K scores are the most realistic ones, if we talk about the normal user’s work with his computer.
Example: If you compare the usual benchmark results of an SSD RAID0 with a single SSD in AHCI mode, you will find all numbers nearly doubled except the 4K Read and Write ones. On the other hand everyone knows, that the performance doesn’t increase twice by creating a RAID0 system…



Hey I’m doing some testing and I need some guidance please… I manually updated the IRST driver with the actual version installed, but this time instead I selected Intel 7 Series/C216 Family SATA AHCI Controller when normally it installs the 7 Series controller without the c216 part… Now my 1st AS SSD test for 4K is higher… Almost 30 MB/s Write and 65 MB/s Read!!! When before it showed 21 MB/s Write and 45 MB/s Read 4K 64Thd is also better… And I’m in “Power Saving Mode” too!!! I seem confused as how this is supposed to work… AHCI drivers, 4K alignment and test scores… I just want to have the best performance and correct settings/config for my SSD and laptop…

You can easily check the real and correct HardwareIDs (especially the DeviceID) of your on-board Intel SATA AHCI Controller:
Open the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section of the Device Manager, do a right click onto the listed Intel SATA AHCI Controller and choose the following options: "Properties" > "Details" > "Property" > "HardwareIDs".
If you see the DeviceID DEV_1E02, your on-board AHCI Controller is the "Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller", whereas your laptop has an "Intel(R) 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller", if the listed HardwareIDs contain DEV_1E03.

Hey Fernando! Ok It shows DEV_1E03 so the correct driver is the “Intel(R) 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller”, ok now I have been pounding my brain as to what can cause the extremely low 4K Read/Write scores… Could it be that Win8.1 created a 128 MB MSR Partition instead of a 100 MB MSR??? The other thing I found out on another forum points to the CPU “Power Management Features” specifically “C1E” & “EIST” or Speed Step Technology causing the problem… But the downside is my UEFI/BIOS doesn’t have any “Power Management Options” To the best of my knowledge I don’t have an Intel® ME Interface either… Do you know if being an Asus notebook with a Core i3 and no vPro if I can access these features???