Intel Matrix Storage Manager

Hi!

I have a SL500 machine, and I am doing a clean install now. I've read in the Clean install guide that the "Intel Matrix Storage Manager" needed to be installed. Being outof touch with these latest hardware stuff, could anyone of you tell me if i need to install that driver? My hard disk is a Hitachi 5.4k, 250 GB and i don't have any Turbo Memory installed.

Thanks for your time.

 

If you have AHCI enabled, then install the MSM, as it will provide support for NCQ.

 

I am sorry for being such a n00000b, but could you please tell me if it's worth enabling AHCI (and how to enable it ), and also, will NCQ (whatever that means) improve the Harddisk performance? My harddisk is some loud during the the read/write operations & is somewhat accessed frequently.

Thanks for your help.

 

Native Command Queuing: The ability to queue i/o requests and reorder them to allow the hard drive to be its most efficient. I think this can explain better.

All in all, the performance boost is noticed when running 'multiple' intensive threads/tasks. It is said to reduce drive wear and tear, but I have seen many tests and benchmarks, and if an HDD with AHCI disabled will last you 10,000 hours, a drive with AHCI enabled will last you 12,000 hours.
It is also said to improve the power efficiency of the SATA controller, but that won't improve battery life much.

Clean install of Vista or XP ?

 

Its a Windows Vista Business.

 

Then you can enable AHCI in the BIOS, reinstall Vista (Vista has its own native AHCI driver - msAHCI.sys). After installation, update all drivers first (chipset first), and then install the Matrix Storage Manager utility from Intel.

You can keep a copy of the Intel AHCI driver for your system in a USB flash drive/CD or DVD. I have seen some Dell Users facing issues with AHCI vista installations and need for 3rd party AHCI drivers.

 

MY recommendation is that if you decide to clean install, follow the instructions here...Dells have indeed had problems with using Vista's 'default'/'generic' driver:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=158277

 

I've just now installed Vista (Clean install) and have only installed the Intel Chip set driver as suggested in the Clean Install Guide. Since, the guide says to install Matrix driver afterwards, I was waiting for some clarification if it's needed or not.

Besides, as you said windows has it's own driver, do I need to first disable is somehow? if so, then how can I do that? before installing this Matrix Driver?

 

Thanks for the reply, well the machine is SL500 Thinkpad, do u think that they too have this similar problem with generic driver?

 

Well, which CPU and GPU ?
And which Vista Business ? 32 or 64 Bit ?

 

Intel Core™2 Duo P8600 2x 2,40 GHz, and GPU is NviDia 9300M GS. Its a 32-bit Vista.

 

Download this. Extract the zip file onto a USB Flash Drive, or a CD/DVD. Then during the Vista install, when it is time to select the partition, you will see "Load Driver", click on it, insert the drive/OD and select the "iaAHCI.inf". It is Intel's AHCI driver.
Do this only if Vista is unable to install with AHCI enabled.

 

Thanks for your help, appreciated! Tried rating you, don't know if it worked

 

No Problem. Hopefully the install works well for you. Enable AHCI in the BIOS prior to the installation, and avoid using the Intel drivers at first.

 

n0000b,

MSM and the SATA driver are actually 2 different things, although they come in the same installation package from Intel. If you're running a single HDD, MSM is actually not useful and not needed, it's for RAID setup. When you install MSM, it will install this service(IAANTmon.exe) and startup application(IAAnotif.exe) to your Windows, but you can disable/remove them. The old Intel packages used to allow you to choose custom installation to install the driver only, but the newer package doesn't have this option, so you will have to disable/remove it afterward.

Check you this thread that I posted before:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=273478

 

the first thing you have to install is the INTEL CHIPSET DRIVERS. It comes here C:\SWTOOLS\OSFIXES\INTELINF if your system-vista came preinstalled from LENOVO.

for some reason intel has removed the link of chipset drivers for the pm45 chipsets from their web site...

 

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm

The only boost in performance that AHCI provides is that of NCQ, which will only be enabled once Intel MSM is installed.

And those extra RAID services are to simplify the upgrade from AHCI to RAID. They won't consume resources since they have no function in the OS without RAID.

 

Those services may not consume resources Andy, but extra useless startup programs really bother me.