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Solved SSD Detected As HDD?

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Hi all,

I just upgraded my cpu and mobo, and did a fresh install of Win 7 64 bit on an SSD. The CPU is an i7 4790, the motherboard is a Gigabyte GA H97 D3H, and I’m using BIOS rev 3.0 I installed Win 7 onto a Kingston Hyper X 120Gb SSD.

Everything went smooth and there were no problems with the install. I then started installing the mobo drivers, and also installed Gigabytes APP center. I ran the APP center and one of the features is “EZ Setup” which includes an “EZ Rapidstart” – basically a fastboot feature I think. But the EZ Rapidstart screen shows my OS disk as “Type: HDD” and underneath that it says “Warning: SSD Drive not detected” See Screenshot below

[IMG]http://i61.tinypic.com/3499ix3.jpg[/IMG]

I checked Device Mgr and BIOS and it shows the SATA controllers are the the Intel ones (Not Marvel or any second party) and they’re set to AHCI.

My computer boots plenty fast, even without the EZ Rapidstart feature enabled, but I’m now curious what is going on. I don’t know the new Gigabyte mobo’s BIOS very well yet, so I’m going off of info I can see under the SATA controller section. It shows AHCI Mode, and under the port where the SSD is connected, it recognizes the Kingston Hyper X model # correctly; shows the port as “Enabled” and Software as “Supported”. There is no designation in the BIOS under SATA controllers that actually says “HDD” or “SSD”.

I decided to benchmark the drive and got mixed results. Benchmarking with ATTO it showed performance on par with an SSD – seq read and write around 500 Mbps.
ATTO Benchmark screenshot

[IMG]http://i62.tinypic.com/2ui93et.jpg[/IMG]

Then I checked it with Crystal Disk and the seq read was OK – 441 Mbps; but the seq write showed 176 Mbps – that’s lower than my WD Blue HDD.
CrystalDisk Benchmark

[IMG]http://i62.tinypic.com/w1w5mt.jpg[/IMG]

AS SSD showed even poorer seq write speeds
– 130 Mbps

[IMG]http://i57.tinypic.com/29w1lid.jpg[/IMG]

CrystalDisk Health info shows it as acceptable I think – 99% health.
Screenshot

[IMG]http://i58.tinypic.com/msoxnp.jpg[/IMG]

So at this point I’m not sure what to think. Is the info form the Gigabyte APP center just an anomaly \ false reading? Or could it be that the disk is being ID’d and read as an HDD?

Any input?
Thanks

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1 Answer

  1. You need to make sure that the SSD or any bootable drive is connected to one of the chipset SATA ports, not one of the Marvel ones.
    Look at this site:
    http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/…
    it has some great tips for installing and optimizing Windows 7 for an SSD drive.

    You have to be a little bit crazy to keep you from going insane.

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