Tutorial : How to switch from IRRT to AHCI mode - E6400/E6500 (Vista)

Except that it doesn't mention that IRRT continually polls all SATA ports for connected drives to setup a mirror which increases latency caused by interupts. In addition the IRRT raid monitor continualy looks for raid events.
Connect a drive to the eSATA port while in IRRT mode to see how annoying it is.

If you have no intention of setting up a raid 1 mirror (which I think in most cases is absolutely useless on notebook), then your wasting precious cpu cycles and battery power. AHCI is considerably lighter and has all the latest advanced features, including hot swap.

But at the end it's your notebook, your decision.

 

Thanks! I'll have to give it a try.

 

Hi! The registry edits and restart worked great, but I could not install the Intel driver. I get this - "This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software."

In the BIOS the options were ATA or AHCI. Prior to the reg updates if I switched to AHCI it would BSD on boot. The original install was set to AHCI, but since i didnt f6 and drivers in I had to switch to ATA for install, and was trying to get back to AHCI.

This a Dell Studio XPS 13 that I did clean re-install of Vista 64 Ultimate with.

Device manager shows this:
Drive: Samsung SSD RBX Series 128GM M ATA Device
Controllers: Standard AHCI1.0 Serial ATA Controller

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

 

Hi.
Thread is for the E6400/E6500 or at least a GM45 based chipset system like the Dell Precision M series or Lenovo T400/500. Hoping this was already clear - but maybe not

I'm not familiar with the Studio XPS 13, but a very quick google tells me that this system uses an NVIDIA MCP79MX chipset. Which of course explains why the INTEL Matrix drivers won't install.

In this case you didn't need to 'merge' the reg entry attached to the tutorial, meant to enum the GM45 AHCI controller (it isn't there). If you like to keep things neat, go into the registry and delete that key (carefully).

Here's a link to the Dell Studio XPS Vista x64 apps & drivers.

Follow it, then expand the chipset section.
There you'll find the nVidia driver 4.69. Download and install it.

 

I dont' know why but I found IRRT to be inherently unstable on my system that eventually resulted in BSOD's on startup - even with the factory install / reformatting.

Chanaged to ATA mode as I don't have a use for eSATA at the moment and everything is working fantastic. I don't know if there is a slight performance benefit of AHCI or whether it is significant in real-life use.

 

if i install vista business 64bit, do i HAVE to change it to AHCI?

i just got me latitude, and its in IRRT mode...is AHCI considered much better (actual tangible benefits) or about the same?

Just curious to what this actually does and if its necessary.

 

Better power management (increased battery time) is the main benefit I decided to keep IRRT instead of switching to ATA.
AHCI is basically IRRT without the rapid backup deal.

 

Brilliant. This is what I was looking for setting up Windows 7 on a Dell M4400. Worked like a charm!

Thanks!

 

Hi

Brilliant - this is just what I need.... for my E4300 though. I believe it uses the GS45 chipset so probably needs a similar fix. Any idea on how to find out the enum info so I can try a similar procedure?

Thanks

Pete

 

I slipped streamed in the AHCI driver on my Vista build (set AHCI in the bios). I would like to switch to IRRT now. Any instructions on how to load the IRRT drivers post OS install.