SSD Slow Windows Start

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tonkpills

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Sep 12, 2013
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Hello everyone,

I just bought an ADATA XPG SX900 128 GB SSD Drive a couple weeks ago. I'm using it as my boot drive with Windows 8 Pro 64bits. I have configured all my libraries like Documents, Images and movies to be stored on a Seagate 1Tb drive (also almost new), as well all my apps and program data is in that drive so my SSD is free for just Windows and drivers. I fresh installed Windows, no migration was done, no back up was installed. The first 5 days my SDD flew gorgeously. My boot time was like 8 - 10 seconds, and turn-off time was like 3 - 5 seconds. However as the days went by the boot and turn-off times started to last longer and longer. Now is up to 30 seconds the minimum at start. I ran a bunch of tests on the SSD like Crystal Disk Mark and others and the disk was working good. I even defrag the SSD and that helped for a few boots but then it started to last longer again to start Windows. At last I disconnected all the storage-only drives (Seagate and WD) and just booted the SSD after the defrag and the boot times returned to 10+ seconds. So what's interfering between my SSD and the other drives if the other two drives are just for storage? They are not even full. Hope you can help. Thank you in advance.

My system specs are:

Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3
Processor: AMD FX 8150 8-core 4.0Ghz
Memory: Kingston Hyper-X 8GB @1600Mhz
Video: EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked 2GB
PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
Cooling: Corsair H100i
Case: Cooler Master Haf-X
Drives:
ADATA XPG SX900 128GB SSD
Seagate 1Tb
WD Green 1Tb
 
Solution
ur6beersaway
Solid State Drives can access any location on the drive in the same time. This is one of the main advantages over hard drives. This also means that there is no need to defragment a Solid State Drive ever. These drives have actually been designed to write data evenly in all sectors of the drive which the industry is calling wear leveling. Each sector of a Solid State Drive has a limited number of writes before it cannot be overwritten anymore. (this is a theoretical limit which cannot be reached in work environments)

If you did defragment your Solid State Disk you can rest assured that you did not harm it in any way. It is just that this process is not needed and that defragmentation causes lots of write processes which means that the...
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hiberfil.sys it's turned on. :/

And bad news (for me). I just disconnected all storage drives again juts to re-test and the boot time still 30 seconds or more. Now we can left the storage drives out of the equation.
 
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Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 Need to know the rev.# on your board as there are a few SATA driver upgrades out & a updated BIOS. for windows 8 /64.http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3894#driver

The board sets the speed.

There is always windows 8.1 preview upgrade beta (now) & Windows 8.1 final (free) coming out OCT.17 as a last resort as improvements were made.
 
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Well I just updated the BIOS from F6 to F10a. No changes. About the SATA/RAID driver I don't now which one I should install. My rev is 1.1. But there are different options. I intalled the one that says "Marvell 9172 AHCI/RAID driver" that's an windows .exe. nothing changed. The others say "AMD SATA RAID Driver (Preinstall driver, press F6 during Windows* setup to read from floppy)". But my windows is already installed so how the F I will install the driver? The sped still at 3Gbps and now the SSD alone without the other storage drives is still 30+ seconds. I don't know what else to do.
 
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http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/298712-32-slow-windows-boot-times-crucial
So I seem to have fixed the problem. After clean installing windows I tested the boot times, they were lightning fast. I proceeded to install the drivers from the mobo disc and BAM, problem found, boot times were pitiful. I uninstalled each driver one by one then rebooting to see which was the problem. The ASMEDIA sata drivers were to blame, as soon as I removed them boot times were lightning fast again. I plugged in all my other hard discs and they only slightly effected the boot times, still way faster than before. I am still in the process of repopulating the drive so I will post back with any problems if there are any.

sata drivers worked here, check for firmware upgrade to ssd./
 
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The SSD firmware is up to date. Any Idea on how to update the Motherboard's SATA drivers? I seached google for it and all info is very confusing. I'm about to fresh install windows again. I really want to avoid this because I don't want to go through all the installation process just to end up with the same problem.
 
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UPDATE:

I fresh installed Windows.
I did an Acronis back up first. Then I reinstalled Windows. After reinstalling guess what, 1 - 3 seconds boot times no storage drives were connected though. Then I connected the storage drives and the boot time just went up to 3 - 6 seconds. That's great I thought, but no drivers or back up were installed yet.

At last I recover the back up from Acronis. Every little thing on my system is the same after the back up was restored, it wasn't a clone drive back up. Just a regular backup. But my boot time is 3 - 5 seconds with all back up restored and all storage drives connected!!! So the problem is somehow solved but I don't know how the re installation helped, since the back up just put everything back including drivers. If it was a bad windows installation why at first Windows worked well for a week or so? What affected the boot time along the way?

The interesting thing is that the SSD writing speed still at 3Gb/s and not at 6Gb/s, which I haven solved and I don't know how to, however now we know the writing speed, SSD firmware, BIOS or anything else was the problem. I will leave this open for a week to see if the boot times change along the way. Also I'll remain open to suggestions about how to solve the SSD writing speed issue.

Thanks to all of you for your help! Have a great weekend!
 
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Let's check~ Device manager>>Ide/ata controller (click on the tiny left arrow to open the tree)>>Marvell>>click properties>>driver.

This will display the driver installed. if it is the 1.2.0.1027 your current. Do nothing.
You can try update driver
It should ask : check online or browse computer.
Try online see if it updates ,if no joy,
Browse computer to the marvell driver you got from gigbyte. Select.
 
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Under device manager>> IDE/ATA controller, there's no "Marvell" at the tree. Just "ATA Chanel 0" and "ATA chanel 1" (three times each. http://sdrv.ms/183BiRK
However my SSD should be at the first ATA controller 0, so I right-click on it and click on "Software driver update". Select "Automatically search for updates" and it comes up with "This device has the best driver" or something like that. Sorry my windows is in spanish and I don't know the exact "Windows terms", I'm just translating them literally as I see them.
When I search 990FXA-UD3 rev. 1.1 drivers and software web page and select Windows 8 64 bits I only see:

"Marvell 9172 AHCI/RAID driver"
"AMD SATA RAID Driver (Preinstall driver, press F6 during Windows* setup to read from floppy)"
"AMD SATA AHCI Driver (Preinstall driver, press F6 during Windows* setup to read from floppy)"

I downloaded Marvell 9172 and tried to install it manually however it says that there no driver when I select one of the files on the Marvell folder.
I'm lost at this point.
Any help is highly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
 
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Your English is just fine.
"This device has the best driver" if you ~ DM>>ata 0>> "properties" , then "driver" at the top, it will give the driver information that device is using . I wonder what it is. win-8 has all "generic" drivers that work. But maybe not a 6Gb/s controller driver.
 
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Yes, as you said, on ATA Chanel 0 the driver it's a Microsoft generic driver. Here is the screenshot: http://sdrv.ms/14XqQZM
 
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It figures, because miro$oft scan is very happy with that one, as their latest. You have to install/replace that one with the marvell one to enable 6Gb/s. Do you have the original motherboard install disk? You might be able to install just the sata controller driver only, and not the rest of the crap. Assuming that ATA 0 is the SSD.
 
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Oddly enough I don't use/have a CD/DVD drive. I have the CD drivers installation CD but I don't have access to it. I contacted Gigabyte to know which driver should I use and how to install it from the Gigabyte support page but I haven't received a reply from them.
Here are a bunch of them but I don't know which one is the one I need to install and how. The only one with an .exe is "Marvell 9172 AHCI/RAID driver" that is 43.13MB whch I already installed, but no changes in speed so far. The other ones just have the inf and sys files which Windows doesn't recognize as drivers when I try to install them in "Device Manager":
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3996#dl

 
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OK, Thank you, let us know what they say, as others would like to enjoy the 6Gb/s speed they paid for especially with SSD. After working with you I ran ATTO to check mine & topped out @ 580mb/s on the larger test packages, good enough, but you don't know until you look.


http://www.attotech.com/disk-benchmark/
 
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UPDATE:

Here are the results from both tests, ATTO and Samsung Magician:
http://sdrv.ms/17C64SR
http://sdrv.ms/17C6d8M

No reply from Gigabyte since Friday morning though. So if you have any suggestions I am open to hear them.

Thanks a lot you guys. I'll keep you informed and I'll keep searching for the drivers updates.
 
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Unfortunately the OS Optimization under "System Management" in Magician is not available. It's like grayed out. Maybe it's because my SSD is an Aata SX900 and not a Samsung drive. I actually get a notification window that says: "Magician was unable to find a Samsung SSD connected to your system. Magician features may not work correctly."
 
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Hello everyone,

I would like to thank everyone that helped me. well I finally contacted Gigabyte customer service and they told me that windows' drivers for SATA are "better" that the ones on the Gigabyte installation CD that came with the MoBo. I still experiencing 3Gbps speeds and the other test they told me to do is to test the SSD on another PC with 6Gbps SATA 3. Just to disregard a SSD issue. I haven't had the chance to do that so this is the update I have at the moment. Since I reinstalled Windows my boot times are 3 to 5 seconds and 2 to 4 seconds turn-off. That's pretty cool. However I've noticed that if there's any software update nbo matter if its a windws one o another software when the software update asks you to Restart the boot time comes back to 30+ seconds. Always when I restart. So I prefer to turn off than restart, it is faster. Also I've noticed when I plugged a 1Tb My book external WD drive the boot time also went up to 30+ seconds. So I don't really know what's going on.
 
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