This is just silly... SSD Toolbox Optimizer stopped running.

[idata]

Hi All,

I'm stuck. Any help would be appreciated.

By the picture below you can see the optimizer used to run on my Intel DP55KG motherboard with a single X-25 80GB as my boot drive. This board has 8 ports. 6 via PCH and 2 discrete. This new intel board allowed me to set the 6 ports to RAID and the 2 to IDE (ACHI not availble).

This is suppose to a simple setup with a SSD boot drive and RAID 0 for the data. (No the SSD is not part of the RAID)

This was working fine and as of November 3, 2010 at 6:15:08pm the optimizer ran for it's last time. Now I can't run it and I get the message on the screen below.

I've uninstalled/reinstalled the toolbox.

I've went back to Toolbox 1.3 with no luck.

It's asking for the latest firmware which is reported at 2CV102HG. I think that's the latest.

This is a new motherboard and a new drive. I was hoping this was going to be an easy build.

Thanks in advance!

FYI - My drive is SAEG4510-310

[idata]

Great, glad you have the Toolbox working for you. The fix is actually quite obvious, and I can also verify that the Toolbox does not work with the Marvell 9128 chipset, with the new Marvell driver as well.

I installed a new but formatted Intel X-25M 80GB G2 SSD in a PC with the Marvell 9128 chip and the new Marvell driver. Given the correct settings in the BIOS for the Marvell chip (more later) the SSD was recognized fine and functioned normally. Start the Toolbox, which will see the SSD on the Marvell controller, but it will not run the Optimizer on it, displaying the only error message it can apparently, regarding the need for the latest firmware and that it will not work with Intel G1 SSDs. BTW Intel, people tend to take that message literally, as we have seen many times in this forum, when in fact it may have nothing to do with the true problem.

This result is not surprising, as seemingly the Toolbox simply cannot run on "foreign" chipsets, ie, non-Intel chips. Frankly, that statement is a generalization that may have exceptions which I am unaware of, so correct me if you have better information. The Toolbox User Guide does not state the requirement of a specific type of chipset, but it seems likely that is the case. And now, mistermokkori will correct me on this...

Regarding the Marvell 9128 SATA 3 chipset, it seems some users are not studying it enough before they attempt to use it. It has three modes of operation, "Super Speed", which is really RAID 0 only, and requires two 'drives, "EZ Backup", which is RAID 1 only, and requires two 'drives, and "Normal Mode", which is SATA IDE or AHCI, which can support one or two 'drives, no RAID, and a single 'drive must be connected to the Marvell SATA port 1. I'm guessing that some people think "Super Speed" mode is SATA 3, and activate it with only one 'drive connected, obviously not in RAID 0, and that configuration fails, no 'drive recognition, OS installation failures, etc. If two 'drives are installed in "Super Speed", and then not configured for RAID 0, that also fails. The only Plug-n-Play mode is "Normal Mode", given the Marvell driver was installed first.

I ran AS SSD Benchmark on the Intel SSD on the Marvell 9128, which worked fine although AS SSD seems to see the SSD/Marvell combination as a "SCSI Disk Device". The results were very good, although the score was a little lower than when the SSD was used with the Intel ICH10 chipset with the RST/iaStor driver. So in my experience there is no magic in the Marvell SATA 3 interface, and a drawback in that you cannot use the Toolbox with it.

[mmokk]

parsec wrote:

This result is not surprising, as seemingly the Toolbox simply cannot run on "foreign" chipsets, ie, non-Intel chips. Frankly, that statement is a generalization that may have exceptions which I am unaware of, so correct me if you have better information. The Toolbox User Guide does not state the requirement of a specific type of chipset, but it seems likely that is the case.

there are no specific chipset requirements, but certain sata controller/mode/driver combinations are more likely to work than others.

[idata]

mistermokkori wrote:

parsec wrote:

This result is not surprising, as seemingly the Toolbox simply cannot run on "foreign" chipsets, ie, non-Intel chips. Frankly, that statement is a generalization that may have exceptions which I am unaware of, so correct me if you have better information. The Toolbox User Guide does not state the requirement of a specific type of chipset, but it seems likely that is the case.

there are no specific chipset requirements, but certain sata controller/mode/driver combinations are more likely to work than others.

Which should be mentioned in the Toolbox User Guide, IMO. The User Guide mentions a few specific PCs that do not work with the Optimzer or the Toolbox but nothing more. Given that the Marvell 9128 controller has recently been the most commonly used SATA 3 controller on mother boards, and I found that the Toolbox Optimizer will not work with it with the latest Marvell driver in AHCI mode, we have a perfect example of this type of combination. Now that the Intel H67 and P67 chipsets have SATA 3 capability, the Marvell controller may no longer be used. I recently read a forum post somewhere that implied the Toolbox did not work with the new Intel SATA 3 chipsets. I certainly hope that is wrong, or a Toolbox update is forthcoming.

[idata]

Hola,

Me paso igual con el SSD Toolbox Optimizer stopped running

[idata]

Make sure you're having the correct .NET version installed.

I seriously wished the SSD Toolbox did NOT rely on anything but itself and least of all the HUGE .NET libraries. 😕