Performance Boosters Pt.1: SATA drive users Beware the IDES of BIOS!

Greetings DRev; World. Thx for stopping by my thread!

We, as gamers have a few things in common. I'll gamble on what we have MOST in common:System Performance!? Think about it. What drives us bonkers quicker than a noob noobtubin' or a camper that C4 whores!? Crappy sytem performance i.e Oh emm GEEE my ***t crashed! Or the infamous--my [name your game]is laggin'!!! Many people quickly blame common culprits, you know, like the GPU maybe or what's that stuff next to the CPU? RAM? Network Connection; I love when poeple whine about laggy internet when it's laggy data!? Which, to be fair for some cases, are actually the reasons at times. One aspect of the system seems to always "get away" with performing "as-is" kinda like the gov'na ya!? What's the governor of your system's performance AFTER the BIOS-yes the HDD(s).
Your HDD is where ALLL of everything "meets" & "shakes hands" (or crashes sometimes ), and is passed on to the next "checkpoint"(system device). So why skimp on how this FRU(field replaceable unit) interacts with its motherboard? Picture witnessing a person driving a WRX-STi using 87 Octane right before a race for pinks--get my "drift"? That driver is just bottle-necking the entire vehicle before it's even on the line!
That's exactly what I've been doing to my WDRaptor150 SATAII annnnd it's 1TB 7200RPM slave since purchase!! Bottle-necking using 87 Oct(IDE mode)!! My absences, as our followers will come to understand, always means my system is being improved. MAC and Giraffes, BF3 Scrim team and DRev thx for being patient this week and pwning those that opposed!! PWNING is GOOOOOOD!!!! :-D

As stated above the IDE drivers that control your SATA devices are definitely bottlenecking the entire system they govern. Besides being designed for a slower operational value, small advantages like NCQ, TRIM(which is a must if you're running SSD's & I know a few of us have already gone there) I chose to use my fully installed Win7 x64 with 12GB DDr31600(7-9-8-25-34), two SATAII WD HDD's of different speeds, Crossfired HD5770's 1GB each, and an M4a89TD/USB3.0 Pro as my testbed. Before wondering, no I did not perform system benchmarks using the AHCI because they already exist. Also, pay attention to that NCQ function. It's almost like perma-defrag and is one of the main reasons that IDE controllers for SATA devices are a phail!! If you're thinking, "oh 9-12% increase only?" remember that we're dealing in terms of millions and billions of instructions per second!! instead of thinking about 9% of 100%; think like "9% of the millions and billions of "events" per second are being improved-that's huge improvement!
This post is to plainly state that AHCI>IDe in all scenarios where the native HDD(s) are of the SATA II and above interface type, you want to easily and powerfully expand your storage capacity, or you simply value maximum performance.

IDE was king

**DREV; DigiRev; CC ( Concorde Computing); Affiliates take no responsibility for sytems crashing as a result of the following information. It's provided with the understanding that ANYone using this information is familiar with BIOS and system administration. If this is not you, find a qualified Tech to assist in this process**


==(CLOSE all processes in the task manager that are assigned to the current user login then uninstall your antivirus antimal or whatever software. Disabling them may work-it didn't w/Avast and Win7 x64)==

Now that you are probably interested in this small upgrade, how's it done? Fairly simply for those of us that own Win7 as the fix can be applied post-install of the O/s which I'm sure most reader will be doing. If you are using winXP, you will have to reinstall the O/s to apply this fix as XP wasn't designed to manipulate the drivers in the boot sector of the boot Hard Drive while the system is operational. Hence the migration to Win7-I like it when software is compliant ~_^ Again, for XP Users please refer to the Microsoft Knowledge base for support. The same may work for Vista due to the similar kernel yet I've read-tell of users running into BSOD using post-OS driver installation methods. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! These issues can occur because the data you are upgrading resides in the Boot Sector of the main hard drive. 1st follow a few precautions just to protect against - gulp! - BSOD or worse corrupted boot sector:
Create a folder that will contain your current System setup e.g. Registry backed-up, Ghost images or whatever you choose to preserve your system. Also place the (downloaded) AHCI and IDE drivers in this folder. Make sure they are all extracted also and save a copy of the new Folder to portable media.
I. Make these three backup instances:1) Registry backup 2) New System restore point. Like right now new. Like you just typed a name for it after you read this new. 3) Then restart your comp. Why? Because the system will chalk that up as the "Last know good configuration" and if you have to use an F8 start, your system will remember that last successful restart as the good config. F8 users know how these can prove valuable.
II. Next Make sure you have downloaded and installed the latest AHCI drivers from your motherboard manufacturers websites. For Intel based systems their site provides the AHCI drivers. Follow the instructions for each brand. Here is a small list of popular mobo brands: Abit, ASRock, Corsair, ASUS, DFI, Foxconn, Gigabyte, MSI, VIA. For ASUS 790, 890, 990fx chipsets it's a simple as downloading the AHCI drivers from here, extract, and run the included installer-done. Drivers are ready for migration. Remember that you only installed them into the driver database. Enabling them will take a few more steps. And yes; IDE mode is still default at this point. Don't worry about the system swapping to AHCI automatically because it's designed not to. +1 Win7 :-)
III. Next, pull up your registry and navigate to these strings:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV

FOR BOTH STRINGS:
Inside left margin: R-Click "Start" then L-Click "Modify" Change the "Value Data" from WHATEVER it is to 0 ( zero ) >>Then "Ok" changes. (( Warning:: The IDE driver is now rewritable ))****
Exit Registry (Hope you made your backup before! )

Ready?? Here goes!

Shutdown PC. Not restart. SHUTDOWN! >> "Power On" interrupt startup and enter the BIOS screen.

**Depending on your BIOS these next steps may vary slightly.

Navigate your BIOS to the SATA "mode" field(s). Here are some pictures of a BIOS correctly navigated to the SATA mode screen(s).

ENABLE your HDD's AHCI mode now. Then restart and reenter BIOS.
**If you get a BSOD or the system wouldn't initially allow you to enter BIOS simply power off the system and re-enter the BIOS screen.
Once you enter the BIOS after enabling AHCI navigate to your HDD page in BIOS. Be sure your system recognizes the device(s) here. Once you've verified that the HDD are part of the system, navigate to the "Boot device order" and setup your drive order properly. I know for the M4A89TD Pro once I set AHCI mode, my drives were no longer showing up or ordered properly in the MAIN HDD page. And all of the PIO and UDMA options no longer apply!! Oh ya!! MOOOORE POWER!
Once you have your HDD's configured properly in BIOS, save the BIOS settings and then POWER OFF>Power ON! You want a POST test here to verify the new AHCI controllers.
**Note here: If your BIOS supports SATA 6GB/s transfer you WILL want that AHCI mode enabled. Also make sure TRIM support is on your SSD if that's your flavor. Be sure you are using sata 3-6GB/s drives(this is one way AHCI totally annihilate those IDE controllers)!! :-)
**Save any BIOS changes if they were made, startup and enjoy.
**Notice a difference in your Boot sequence-yup that's the AHCI page displaying the new HDD setup! Enjoy!

I did not post the "way out" or "uninstallation" because I'm never going back to IDE drivers for SATA devices!!