Hardware Another SSD question

[VectorZ]

Hi folks,

Like some users in the other thread, I treated myself to my first SSD and grabbed the Crucial MX100 256GB drive from Currys at £69.99.

I've done a fresh install of Win7 64bit and all appears to be fine but my MSI G41M-P28 Sata II mobo does not support AHCI. In the BIOS the Sata setting is set to Raid: IDE - is this going to cause me any problems as I'm reading mixed opinions when Googling?

It's a 775 mobo for my Core2 Duo E6850 (Conroe) CPU - I can't afford a complete new setup but might be able to buy something new in bits over the next few months. I'm not really up to date with my knowledge on current tech so was wondering if somebody could set me straight on a few things....

Current system:
Core 2 Duo E6850 3.00GHz (Conroe)
MSI G41M-P28 (MS-7592) Socket 775 LGA
8GB Corsair DDR 3 PC3-10700H (667 MHz) Ram
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS Graphic Card

I mainly use it for:

Running 2 screens
A little gaming
HTPC
Image and Video productivity (Photoshop, After Effects etc)
Web development and programming (Visual Studio)
1 or 2 concurrent VM's, but not all the time (VMWare Workstation)

I'd rather invest in a future proof architecture like a Haswell CPU and 1150 mobo. Preferably reuse the RAM. Graphics card definitely needs an overhaul. If the chipset is right then oboard graphics will do for a while as long as it'll run 2 screens at the same time (HDMI and DVI)

I'm also happy to start off with an equivalent powered setup that I can upgrade in time, but not a step back.

Can anyone recommend a setup please? I haven't got a clue what i3, i5 chips are same sort of performance, and not a scooby on graphics cards.

I might need at least 1 legacy IDE port, but could possibly stretch to a big sata HD upgrade if its a deal breaker.

I deffo want to stick with Intel CPU architecture but am happy to go with AMD graphics card if recommended.

Price, as always is going to be an issue but a few recommendations at different budgets would be great thanks..... over to the gurus

 

[little_pob]

IDE appears to have been killed off on LGA1150 - i.e. I can't see a board with it on. There are ways around it though; for example PCIe IDE boards and IDE-SATA adapters.

On board graphics is either DVI or HDMI, not both at the same time. Though you could use one of the digital ports with the VGA output, I'd reuse the 8800GTS if it still runs the games you play.

I recently rebuilt my dad's Q6600 rig with an i3 4330 and sub-£100 Z97 motherboard. Whilst the motherboard is overkill for that CPU, it offers the option to put a K series in, and overclock it, at a future date.

As such, without knowing any other requirements, I'd suggest the following:
Intel Core i5 4690K 3.5GHz Socket 1150 6MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer
Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 Socket 1150 HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

 

[rapha]

Just read the specs of you motherboard and it comes up as this.

One Ultra DMA 66/100 IDE controller integrated in Intel® ICH7
- Supports PIO, Bus Master operation modes.
- Can connect up to two Ultra ATA drives.


• SATAII controller integrated in ICH7 chipset
- Up to 3Gb/s transfer speed.
- Supports four SATAII ports by ICH7

Not sure why the RAID option is showing in the bios because I don't think this boards does support it. The idea of Raid being you have more than one hard drive and use this for duplicating content mirroring etc. in case of hard disk failures. Even if it did, because you're only utilising the one hard drive I would have thought it would have been disabled.
Have you already installed the SSD and loaded the windows operating system on it?

 

[trevortron]

Thanks for posting this. I was thinking about a hybrid SSD for my ageing PC, didn't realise some mobo's don't support them. Now I know to check

Hi folks,

Like some users in the other thread, I treated myself to my first SSD and grabbed the Crucial MX100 256GB drive from Currys at £69.99.

I've done a fresh install of Win7 64bit and all appears to be fine but my MSI G41M-P28 Sata II mobo does not support AHCI. In the BIOS the Sata setting is set to Raid: IDE - is this going to cause me any problems as I'm reading mixed opinions when Googling?

It's a 775 mobo for my Core2 Duo E6850 (Conroe) CPU - I can't afford a complete new setup but might be able to buy something new in bits over the next few months. I'm not really up to date with my knowledge on current tech so was wondering if somebody could set me straight on a few things....

Current system:
Core 2 Duo E6850 3.00GHz (Conroe)
MSI G41M-P28 (MS-7592) Socket 775 LGA
8GB Corsair DDR 3 PC3-10700H (667 MHz) Ram
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS Graphic Card

I mainly use it for:

Running 2 screens
A little gaming
HTPC
Image and Video productivity (Photoshop, After Effects etc)
Web development and programming (Visual Studio)
1 or 2 concurrent VM's, but not all the time (VMWare Workstation)

I'd rather invest in a future proof architecture like a Haswell CPU and 1150 mobo. Preferably reuse the RAM. Graphics card definitely needs an overhaul. If the chipset is right then oboard graphics will do for a while as long as it'll run 2 screens at the same time (HDMI and DVI)

I'm also happy to start off with an equivalent powered setup that I can upgrade in time, but not a step back.

Can anyone recommend a setup please? I haven't got a clue what i3, i5 chips are same sort of performance, and not a scooby on graphics cards.

I might need at least 1 legacy IDE port, but could possibly stretch to a big sata HD upgrade if its a deal breaker.

I deffo want to stick with Intel CPU architecture but am happy to go with AMD graphics card if recommended.

Price, as always is going to be an issue but a few recommendations at different budgets would be great thanks..... over to the gurus

 

[VectorZ]

Just read the specs of you motherboard and it comes up as this.

One Ultra DMA 66/100 IDE controller integrated in Intel® ICH7
- Supports PIO, Bus Master operation modes.
- Can connect up to two Ultra ATA drives.


• SATAII controller integrated in ICH7 chipset
- Up to 3Gb/s transfer speed.
- Supports four SATAII ports by ICH7

Not sure why the RAID option is showing in the bios because I don't think this boards does support it. The idea of Raid being you have more than one hard drive and use this for duplicating content mirroring etc. in case of hard disk failures. Even if it did, because you're only utilising the one hard drive I would have thought it would have been disabled.
Have you already installed the SSD and loaded the windows operating system on it?

I'll grab a couple of screenshots later. I have installed Windows but it's not a problem if I have to do it again. I just didn't want to fook the drive by running it in the wrong mode, or the imminent loss of data if I restore all my files.

 

[VectorZ]

Thanks for posting this. I was thinking about a hybrid SSD for my ageing PC, didn't realise some mobo's don't support them. Now I know to check

That's the trouble, I don't know if it'll still run just fine in the old mode or not - quite a few opposing opinions about. I've got the latest firmware on my mobo but its clearly a few years old and not being updated, or simply just not available to the chipset.

 

[rapha]

VectorZ, If you've already installed windows on the SSD thats the hard part done and you shouldn't need to reinstall even if you change the bios settings about. There have been a few instances where I had to set the bios to a basic Native / Legacy SATA in order to get windows to recognise SSD drives on install, then change the bios back to AHCI after. also sometimes I have to install a specific driver for windows to work/boot when this is enabled.
Sorry to say I suspect your mother board does not support AHCI so you might have to leave it as IDE. which means you have to deal with a slight loss in read/write speeds. But compared to a regular hard drive with your SSD installed it should still feel like its flying.

 

[elk0019]

I don't see how your mobo does not support ahci, that is a primary component in any motherboeard since the dawn of the Pentium, I'd say go to your mobos manufacturer site and grab the latest BIOS version, if that doesn't work reinstall windows something must have gone wrong, I see no point why you should get another mobo when yours Is fully capable of what you need