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Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L + OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD: Any known issues?

GodisanAtheist

GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
As stated in the topic title, I have a Gigabyte P45 motherboard and am planning to pick up the OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227551) on account of the fact that I have money to spend and this is the most worthwhile upgrade for my computer at the moment.

However I'd like to know if, the P45 chipset being as old as it is, if there are any well known or well documented issues in using these two parts together.

The rest of my computer's specs are in my sig under "mothership" and I am running Windows 7 x64.

Thanks!
 
I'm going to weigh in on this one... was going to make a new thread but am in the same boat....My dad has the same board and just ordered a Vertex 2 60gb... I'm not sure if it would be better to image the drive rather than do a fresh install...never done drive cloning before so I'm iffy, and would prefer to use free software to do it.

My other concern is that he is using an OEM copy of Windows 7... if I was to just reinstall, would the change in hdd's prevent an activation problem?

I believe the his current drive (wd 250gb) is in ide mode... is it better to switch to AHCI? Also he is using all drivers directly from Windows 7 dvd... would downloading new chipset drivers be necessary?

Hope you don't mind me butting in on your thread...but I just thought it would make sense since the situations are so similar.

Just to add... my main concern is performance... if its better from a performance standpoint to do reinstall than I'm all for it. No sense in buying a pricey SSD and not getting the max speed out of it.
 
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Ksyder said:
My other concern is that he is using an OEM copy of Windows 7... if I was to just reinstall, would the change in hdd's prevent an activation problem?
Click to expand...

If all you're doing is replacing the drive, it most likely will not trigger re-activation. Even if you do trigger re-activation, it's an easy process. I did it via telephone prompts and other than typing lots of sets of letters/numbers, it was pretty painless.

I believe the his current drive (wd 250gb) is in ide mode... is it better to switch to AHCI?
Click to expand...
By all means, set the BIOS to ACHI mode before booting to the SSD to install Win7. Without AHCI mode, TRIM will not be active. And, it's a whole lot easier to install Windows onto a SSD/HDD pre-set to ACHI, than it is to install it onto a SSD/HDD in IDE mode and then change it to ACHI post-installation.
 
GodisanAtheist said:
As stated in the topic title, I have a Gigabyte P45 motherboard and am planning to pick up the OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227551) on account of the fact that I have money to spend and this is the most worthwhile upgrade for my computer at the moment.

However I'd like to know if, the P45 chipset being as old as it is, if there are any well known or well documented issues in using these two parts together.

The rest of my computer's specs are in my sig under "mothership" and I am running Windows 7 x64.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
You will most likely need a BIOS update for your motherboard, otherwise you'll get a "SMART command failed" error at the SATA BIOS screen when booting. The error doesn't cause any problems other than a short delay of a few seconds when booting.

There is a thread over here on the subject, and links to the BIOS files.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...ave-the-SMART-error-with-FW1.11...look-inside
 
I got the Vertex 2 60 gb and Windows 7 installed... a couple things-

1. Switched to AHCI mode and installed Windows. While I see SATA bios when booting, I don't get a SMART error. Not sure what bios version, but has never been updated since we got the board (EP45-UD3L) last year. Also, reactivation was successful, no problems there with the change in HDD.

2. Checked TRIM status using these steps, and it was enabled by default, which is probably no surprise to folks, but I didn't know for sure: http://forums.legitreviews.com/about23670.html

3. Windows Experience Index hard drive rating went up to 7.7 after installing SSD. Installing Windows wasn't as quick as I'd hoped due to all of the awkward pauses at the beginning of installation. It also took some time "expanding files".

4. Booting is very fast, from Windows splash screen to full desktop with background apps loaded in a few seconds. So far it is impressive performance. My dad says it is "twice as fast" now.
 
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wpcoe said:
By all means, set the BIOS to ACHI mode before booting to the SSD to install Win7. Without AHCI mode, TRIM will not be active. And, it's a whole lot easier to install Windows onto a SSD/HDD pre-set to ACHI, than it is to install it onto a SSD/HDD in IDE mode and then change it to ACHI post-installation.
Click to expand...
TRIM works on IDE and AHCI mode, but you must use Microsoft's IDE/AHCI driver. I think Intel drivers work with TRIM as well now, but I'm not certain.

It's not hard to change from IDE mode to AHCI mode after installing Windows, but there's a risk of running into problems. I was able to make the change, but ended up wrecking FLAC playback in mediamonkey. Switching back to IDE mode fixed it.

Regarding the question of whether to image or do a fresh install, I would do a fresh install to avoid any complications.
 
Ksyder said:
1. Switched to AHCI mode and installed Windows. While I see SATA bios when booting, I don't get a SMART error. Not sure what bios version, but has never been updated since we got the board (EP45-UD3L) last year. Also, reactivation was successful, no problems there with the change in HDD.
Click to expand...

Just thought I'd update... had to a little more work on this computer today... and when I booted, I did, in fact, see the SMART error. It didn't halt the booting process or anything, but I did see it as an error message when going through the boot process.

I guess I'll have to update the BIOS after all.
 
Ssd install went smoothly, with the only issue being getting my motherboard to properly boot from my USB cd drive properly. Windows experience rating for the ssd is 7.8 and my whole system feels a heckuva lot snappier. I have bios revision F8 and I do experience the smart error message during boot up, but it doesn't really affect anything so I might leave it as is. I am now feeling much more confident and comfortable with ssd drives and will integrate more low end drives into my systems.
 
Forget the error message glad you got it sorted out 7.8 score index is outstanding. have fun with it.. gg and gb,
 
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