Kingston SSDNOW V200 Is Having Serious Performance Problems

Just installed my kingston ssd and love it so far. Booting into w7 used to be 1 minute and 35 seconds. Now I boot into w7 around 38 seconds. My question is WEI is giving me a rating of 5.9 for "Disk data transfrer rate," does that sound right or is something wrong? I know my SSD isn't that fast but its giving me the same rating when I had my 5400rpm HDD installed.

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Moderators note:
Four people now have stated that their Kingston V200 has serious performance problems. This thread is to discuss the issue.

 

If you click "View and print detailed performance and system information", do you get a remark like the following?

 

No in the note field mine said this "Caution: Based on the results of the WinSAT Disk assessment, your system drive may have slower response times under some workloads. Performance results will depend on the specific applications used and the amount of memory available. If your experience is satisfactory, no action is needed."

 

Which drivers? Have you made sure that your SSD is aligned?

 

Please install Intel RST latest version from Intel.com.

If that didn't improve WEI then post a screen shot of AS-SSD without running the benchmark.

For my own interest: will you post a CrystalDiskMark 3x100MB screenshot please?

 

Sorry Namaiki I'm a newb but what do you mean "SSD is aligned?"

 

Hi Phil I installed the Intel RST latest version. But still get a 5.9 am I suppose to config anything in the RST program? Also what is AS-SSD, also I never used CrystalDiskMark, but I'll try.

p.s I did go under the manage option in RST and it showing this information. So I know its on sata III.

System disk: Yes
Password protect: No
Disk data cache: Enabled
Native command queuing: Yes
SATA transfer rate: 6 Gb/s
Physical sector size: 512 Bytes
Logical sector size: 512 Bytes

 

No need to configure RST.

AS-SSD can be downloaded here: http://alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?cat_id=4&file_id=9

CDM: here CrystalDiskMark3_0_1b.zip??????? - CrystalDiskMark - SourceForge.JP

I suggest not to run AS-SSD, instead just post a screenshot.

 

Thanks Phil. I will report back with my findings

 

OK. By the way, is this a clean install or a cloned one?

 

The AS-SSD you said to not run, but post a screenshot is that what you needed? This was a clean install and I'm a ssd newb but the cdm screen those readings look really low.

 

Well the AS-SSD shot tells Intel RST (iastor) is running correctly and alignment is ok.

CDM tells performance looks bad.

Here's a V100 that should be slower:


Have you applied any tweaks or guides?

 

I used this guide, but did not perform a couple of them is there anyones that I really should do?

The SSD Optimization Guide - The SSD Review

Also, how can I verify for sure I'm on ahci in the bios? Do you think my SSD is defective? The screenshot you posted is set at 5x100mb does it matter?

 

OMG. These guides are completely unnecessary and it may be the reason performance is bad.

Try restoring everything you changed on write caching.

 

Okay. But is there a certain step on that guide that you see involving cach that I should have not done. Then I probably see if I change it or not. I do appreciate the help.

 

Yes and I just told you what step

 

These are the steps I used, the rest I left alone

3 4 5 6 7 9 10 15 16 17 18

I did not do step 8 "TURN OFF WINDOWS WRITE-CACHE BUFFER FLUSHING…OR NOT"

 

Try toggling the write caching settings (8) to see if your 4K write performance improves.

Check with CDM.

 

Do a clean install, turn off Pagefile, do not apply those nasty tweaks and do the same test agian.

After chipset driver, install the lastest version of RST.

I usually go:

Chipset - RST - grapich driver - sound driver - then ACER multimedia stuff.

 

I agree with tuηays advice (except pagefile) but I suggest to not do a clean install yet.

I think the low write performance is caused by write caching settings and it may be possible to resolve it w/o a clean install.

 

Sorry I really am a noob, but where do I go to change it to 8?

 

It's step 8 described in the guide. Try changing options and run CDM only the 4K test to see if it matters.

 

Oh okay sorry. So complete the step turning that option off and run cdm?

 

Do something, be creative CDM will tell you if it works or not.

 

I assume he have enough RAM as he have a SSD drive That's why I suggested turning off pagefile. Not to metion to spare some MB's/GB's.

 

I have a aw m17x r3, 8gb RAM, I7 2630qm. About to run the test Phil suggested. Sorry something had came up brb with screenshot.

 

Not sure if this is good or bad?

 

Still bad. Something is wrong with write performance. I don't know what.

I see three options: You could contacting Kingston or use their support forum. Other option would be to do a clean install.

Yeah I don't suggest turning off pagefile but let's not have that discussion here. It's been discussed at length in the general SSD thread.

 

Maybe there's nothing wrong with his SSD? I found this on the spec sheet.

 

Good point. But his sequential write is 75MB/sec. It should be 190MB/s.

Perhaps the low 4K scores are 'normal' but I doubt it.

takasniper, what is your sequential write now?

 

Maybe because it's CDM not ATTO? The figures given by Kingston are based on ATTO I think.

 

That's valid for Sandforce drives. The Kingston V200 is based on JMicron.

 

Roger that.

 

I'll go ahead and do a clean install and report back with my findings. If I get the same low readings I'll contact kingston. Could it be possible it is defective? Never had an SSD before so I would not know the symptoms.

 

It's possible that it's defective but it's more likely it's something else.

PS. when you do the clean install make sure to remove all partitions during setup. I suggest to not do any tweaks.

 

So basically when i install windows format the drive and install windows?

 

Delete all partitions, create one partition for the entire drive and quick format it.

 

I usually format the drive and let the windows create the partition. But however, I don't think there is a diffrence.

 

This is the footnote in the spec sheet.

and the number 2 refers to sequential write.

 

OK. Well my point was JMicron, unlike Sandforce, doesn't use compression. So using CDM instead of ATTO shouldn't make any difference.

Would be nice to try though.

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Found some interesting stuff: Someone else that gets very strange performance.

Kingston saying that the V200 128GB should get 257 points in AS-SSD.

 

Okay this is from a fresh install with nothing installed but drivers, etc, etc.

My score in wei is still 5.9.

 

Well just got off the phone with kingston and after some testing they said my drive has to be defectived because I should be getting atleast 190mb write.

 

Here an atto benchmark.

 

Do you mind if I ask how much you got that for?

 

I got it for $95+ from newegg during the whole google 20 for 40 deal with a mail in rebate.

 

It's interesting because the guy on the Anandtech forum gets the same 33 MB/sec write speed.

I'm looking forward to see the test results on the new drive.

 

They promised to overnight the drive when they receive my old one. I should get it Thursday or Friday and will report back.

 

Let's hope..this is not another Jmicron saga........

 

Okay let say this drive gives me the same readings will Kingston atleast upgrade the ssd to like a hyper because there only going to exchange it so many times.

 

If it's going to be the same, ask for refund. Then you can buy M4 or cheap SF based drive.