MSI x58 pro i7 pci express 2.0 issue with sata controller

[alexkn4]

hello

i installed rosewill rc-225 (marvell controller) pci express 2.0 x1 card. my crucial m4 ssd maxes out at 271MB/s
it is installed in the x16 slot. i tried gen 1 x1 slot i was getting pathetic 130MB/s what is going... on new egg people with this drive and the controller are getting more than 400MB/s

stock speeds 271MB/s, yes I used the drivers from their web site.

It seems like I get PCI Express half speed? I heard about this on the forum.. is it possible my PCI Express 2.0 running half speed?
The problem is not with the drive since when I overclock PCI express bus I do get the higher speeds.

I tried every PCI Express slot, the x1 , x4 and the 2 x16s. the x1 is pathetic. My blame is the motherboard. If you look at newegg reviews of the card RC-225, everyone gets at least 400MB/s +

Newegg sells x4 SATA cards, but they cost 100$, I am not spending that much, I will rather just get a new motherboard...
You know I do all my research. Match things up PCI Express 2.0 gets you up 500MB/s each lane. PCI Express 1.0 x1 is set at 250MB/s. On the BIOS screen, marvel bios says, running at "SATA 6Gbps (PCI Express 5Gbps)"

I have my suspicions that it is a windows problem....

But who knows... are there any bios settings that could limit PCI Express speed? Or windows settings?

How can I make sure and check my motherboard is full PCI Express 2.0 spec?

Motherboard model: MS-7522, BIOS 7.30 running Windows 7 64bit
Also running Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 on one PCI Express slot, I wonder if anything to do with it?

 

[heymrdj]

hello

i installed rosewill rc-225 (marvell controller) pci express 2.0 x1 card. my crucial m4 ssd maxes out at 271MB/s
it is installed in the x16 slot. i tried gen 1 x1 slot i was getting pathetic 130MB/s what is going... on new egg people with this drive and the controller are getting more than 400MB/s

stock speeds 271MB/s, yes I used the drivers from their web site.

It seems like I get PCI Express half speed? I heard about this on the forum.. is it possible my PCI Express 2.0 running half speed?
The problem is not with the drive since when I overclock PCI express bus I do get the higher speeds.

I tried every PCI Express slot, the x1 , x4 and the 2 x16s. the x1 is pathetic. My blame is the motherboard. If you look at newegg reviews of the card RC-225, everyone gets at least 400MB/s +

Newegg sells x4 SATA cards, but they cost 100$, I am not spending that much, I will rather just get a new motherboard...
You know I do all my research. Match things up PCI Express 2.0 gets you up 500MB/s each lane. PCI Express 1.0 x1 is set at 250MB/s. On the BIOS screen, marvel bios says, running at "SATA 6Gbps (PCI Express 5Gbps)"

I have my suspicions that it is a windows problem....

But who knows... are there any bios settings that could limit PCI Express speed? Or windows settings?

How can I make sure and check my motherboard is full PCI Express 2.0 spec?

Motherboard model: MS-7522, BIOS 7.30 running Windows 7 64bit
Also running Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 on one PCI Express slot, I wonder if anything to do with it?

I believe on your board all the 1x slots come from the Intel ICH10R southbridge chipset, which can cause some speed issues. These slots are only gen 1. You should have 2 gen2 x16 slots though, though on some models the slot falls back to 8x when both are populated. We need to know your *actual* board. MSI uses a weird naming convention where that number covers entire families of boards. http://www.msi.com/service/search/?kw=MS-7522&type=product

All these models have *very* different ways of interacting with with pci-e. Get back to us with that and maybe we can help more.

 

[alexkn4]

I believe on your board all the 1x slots come from the Intel ICH10R southbridge chipset, which can cause some speed issues. These slots are only gen 1. You should have 2 gen2 x16 slots though, though on some models the slot falls back to 8x when both are populated. We need to know your *actual* board. MSI uses a weird naming convention where that number covers entire families of boards. http://www.msi.com/service/search/?kw=MS-7522&type=product

All these models have *very* different ways of interacting with with pci-e. Get back to us with that and maybe we can help more.

it is x58 pro not pro-e. so on the weekend i tried another card with 9125 marvell chip. i am topping now 378. this drive should get more than 500 with new bios. i should be getting at least 400... with pci x1

also a little note i get tiny performance increase in my pci express x4 slot... it looks like x16 but i think is x4

 

[mb103051]

speed seems correct if its going through southbridge since board is pcie 2.0 compliant [right?] and usb3 if equipped is done through an add on controller...my dfi board has a x4 slot that manual says its through the southbridge...I run a tv card in it..all is good..

 

[alexkn4]

speed seems correct if its going through southbridge since board is pcie 2.0 compliant [right?] and usb3 if equipped is done through an add on controller...my dfi board has a x4 slot that manual says its through the southbridge...I run a tv card in it..all is good..

no usb 3 just usb2

 

[heymrdj]

it is x58 pro not pro-e. so on the weekend i tried another card with 9125 marvell chip. i am topping now 378. this drive should get more than 500 with new bios. i should be getting at least 400... with pci x1

also a little note i get tiny performance increase in my pci express x4 slot... it looks like x16 but i think is x4

Have you secure erased the drive between these benches? If you don't then your speed will keep dropping as garbage collection can't happen this fast naturally with benching sessions.

As for your board being the X58Pro, you have 3 2.0 slots, all 16x physical, and 16/16/4 electrical. (as you mentioned the one is 4x speed on a 16x slot) The PCI -E 1x slots are indeed gen 1 and provided by the southbridge, not the X58 chipset. You will see beyond pathetic speeds on those slots.

Other than that, I don't see all these great speeds. I see alot of the opposite, that these cheap Rosewill cards use cheap Marvell chipsets with poor drivers. The highest I saw from one person was a 387mbs read speed.

If you want to add SATAIII to a board with a high performance SSD (you dropped the $$$ for the SSD), get a proven well chipped SATA III card.

The card should be a 4x card at a minimum. This Rosewill is only 1x. A single lane of PCI-E 2.0 is only 500MB/s, or 4000mb/s, which is not the 6000mb/s required for a SATA III port let alone 2. That 4000mb/s must also include overhead, there's data packaged on each side of transmission that must fit in. Overall it's a glaring alarm the fact that card is built as a 1x card. It should be 4x.

 

[alexkn4]

Have you secure erased the drive between these benches? If you don't then your speed will keep dropping as garbage collection can't happen this fast naturally with benching sessions.

As for your board being the X58Pro, you have 3 2.0 slots, all 16x physical, and 16/16/4 electrical. (as you mentioned the one is 4x speed on a 16x slot) The PCI -E 1x slots are indeed gen 1 and provided by the southbridge, not the X58 chipset. You will see beyond pathetic speeds on those slots.

Other than that, I don't see all these great speeds. I see alot of the opposite, that these cheap Rosewill cards use cheap Marvell chipsets with poor drivers. The highest I saw from one person was a 387mbs read speed.

If you want to add SATAIII to a board with a high performance SSD (you dropped the $$$ for the SSD), get a proven well chipped SATA III card.

The card should be a 4x card at a minimum. This Rosewill is only 1x. A single lane of PCI-E 2.0 is only 500MB/s, or 4000mb/s, which is not the 6000mb/s required for a SATA III port let alone 2. That 4000mb/s must also include overhead, there's data packaged on each side of transmission that must fit in. Overall it's a glaring alarm the fact that card is built as a 1x card. It should be 4x.

That's the thing. On MSI forum, someone reported over 400MB/s with that Rosewill RC-225 card on the same motherboard I have. He has same OS, same drivers all around, and higher end video card than me. So either I got some fluke motherboard or Crucial M4 SSD doesn't like marvell chipsets.

 

[heymrdj]

That's the thing. On MSI forum, someone reported over 400MB/s with that Rosewill RC-225 card on the same motherboard I have. He has same OS, same drivers all around, and higher end video card than me. So either I got some fluke motherboard or Crucial M4 SSD doesn't like marvell chipsets.

I doubt it's your mainboard. I'm going to hang with either the card is crap, or you have an SSD that's just not quite so fast. They do say "Up To" like ISPs.

 

[alexkn4]

I doubt it's your mainboard. I'm going to hang with either the card is crap, or you have an SSD that's just not quite so fast. They do say "Up To" like ISPs.

It is not SSD, its Crucial M4, I looked at a few dozen benchmarks, this drive goes beyond 500MB/s. I am thinking crappy marvell chip.