Greetings all.

Let me start with my system specs...

C2D E6300

2g DDR2

Gigabyte GA-945P-S3

1x SATA-II and 2x IDE HD Drives (can't remember make/model numbers)

My question concerns the SATA Drive.

I can install XP cleanly without needing to F6 any drivers. According to SiSoft Sandra I get about 50mg throughput and 17ms access time.

Even tho I can install XP, would I get better performance if I F6'd or NLite'd the intel sata drivers? My board has an ICH7 Chipset and in the bios I don't see anything about setting my system for AHCI.

Thanks in advance....

T

Gigabyte hides some advanced BIOS settings under the command Ctrl + F1, so next time when you enter the BIOS hit Ctrl and F1 and you'll see all the BIOS settings (including the settings for the S-ATA controller).

So do I need to look at those advanced options to get more performance or just slipstream the F6 drivers into my XP CD?

I'm still a little confused....

Thanks

T

what sata drive/model do u have?

I want to say its a DiamondMax 21 320g SATA drive, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm at work right now.

I am sure its a Maxtor, 320g, SATA-II drive tho.

T

EDIT -- I'm also thinking about installing Vista. Would I need to slipstream or F6 the drivers there as well?

Edited March 30, 200719 yr by Taliseian