OCZ Agility 2 slow!!

[kongming92]

Hi everyone,
First post here, so please pardon the inexperience.

I recently decided to upgrade my almost-4-year-old desktop and install Windows 7. Currently running Intel E6600 on Intel DP965LT board.

I have a 60 GB OCZ Agility 2 SSD (as well as a 200 GB Seagate and 500 GB Maxtor, both SATA)

I was running windows xp on the 200GB drive before, then installed the SSD and installed Windows 7 on it. I am dual booting and can access the 2 HDDs from my windows 7 install.

NOW...my windows 7 boot times are longer than a minute!!! I understand this isn't a completely new build but still it seems to be kinda ridiculous. I just realized I didn't have AHCI enabled but now that has been fixed.

BTW, apparently windows 7 isn't recognizing this as an SSD, as I have the option to defrag, and Superfetch was turned on by default

Attached some benchmark results....clearly slower than the numbers that most people are getting.

Before AHCI:

After AHCI:

Any help greatly appreciated!!

 

[Elganja]

Did you align the drive? If not, google it... there are ways to do it post install of an OS

 

[RaiderJ]

If you install Win7 directly on a drive, doesn't it properly align the drive for you? Assuming you haven't fiddled with an alignment jumper?

 

[Elganja]

if you install in ACHI I believe it does, otherwise I'm not sure

 

[kongming92]

Is there a way for me to check whether my SSD is aligned properly?

 

[Yellowbeard]

What driver is your ICH8 controller using? Also, just for testing, disconnect the 200 GB Seagate and 500 GB Maxtor drives temporarily.

 

[Elganja]

Is there a way for me to check whether my SSD is aligned properly?

paragon alignment tool

 

[kongming92]

hmm.....I just tried to pull the other 2 drives (one contained windows xp install, the other strictly data), and windows 7 would not boot!!!!

I'm running driver version 7.0.0.1013, I think it was the latest chipset driver provided by Intel (the board is no longer updated).

I'd rather not reformat and reinstall, but I might have to...

EDIT - just thinking here....could windows 7 be booting off another drive!??!?! I'm really confused

 

[kongming92]

is this going to be a problem?

 

[FishAk]

According to the AS SSD screen shot you posted, the drive is aligned properly, so you can count that out as a problem.

If you have other drives connected when you install Windows, it can sneak the boot loader onto another drive. That happened to me, and I can't remember exactly how I fixed it, but I think I used EasyBCD. It's possible, however, that I simply disconnected the other drives, and repaired with the Windows install disk. (Windows 7) I know I didn't re-install, though.

Superfetch is on by default- even with an SSD, but Windows defrag won't automatically defrag a drive with no RPMs. Windows will allow you to force defrag, if you are so inclined for some unknown reason. Obviously, it would do no good, but Windows will allow it.

 

[Yellowbeard]

I'd rather not reformat and reinstall, but I might have to...

EDIT - just thinking here....could windows 7 be booting off another drive!??!?! I'm really confused

Just do a repair install using your WIN7 disk.

 

[kongming92]

Just an update for everyone -
reinstalled windows 7 starting with AHCI in the bios, no other drives connected. No difference
Here's an updated AS SSD

 

[Yellowbeard]

Contact the drive manufacturer and see what they advise.

 

[pjkenned]

The sequential speeds look fine for a 60GB drive.

The odd thing is that on my 120GB Agility 2 I get over 60MB/s 4K writes and 123/94 read/write 4K-64. Also your Acc.time seems 1,5-2x what I have seen on SandForce drives on Intel ICHxR's.

 

[razel]

Try running AS SSD in Windows Safe Mode to help eliminate the driver variables.