How to enable write caching

[orangepeel]

Hi,
I've installed windows 7 on my new pc with a MSI P45 neo motherboard with an intel ICH10 controller (Southbridge?).

When I try to rate my PC with windows 7 it says it can't do this because write caching of the drives is not enabled.

So I went to the device manager but under the drives there is no policy tab where the write caching option should be. I've looked under all the tabs and options but can't find where to enable write caching.

If I try to install the latest drivers for the Intel Matrix Storage Manager it says that "this computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software" I assume it's the matrix storage manager that I have to install since I can't actually find any SATA drivers for my motherboard.

One other issue I have that may be related is that windows 7 takes 2.5+ minutes to startup. But, for 1.5 of those minutes it just sits there with the windows logo pulsating and no hard disk activity. Then, all of a sudden the hard drive light starts flashing again and it finishes loading.

Can anyone offer any help please?

Cheers

-Orange peel

 

[Ian]

Hi orangepeel, and welcome to the site :ciao:

Apparently there are some ICH10 drivers for Windows 7 out already, although they aren't live on the Intel website. It might be worth giving them a shot:

http://icrontic.com/news/intel-ahcisata-drivers-for-windows-7-have-arrived

Taking 2.5 mins to boot doesn't sound right at all, so there must be a driver issue somewhere.

 

[orangepeel]

Thankyou very much for such a speedy reply Ian.
Just in case anyone else has the same issue I'll say what fixed it.

Firstly, I downloaded the drivers from the link above that Ian gave.
I also got some windows 7 drivers for my ATI graphics card as well!

The disk driver application said that "This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software" so I googled that phrase and found out what was wrong.
The shop I bought my PC at had left the drive controller as an IDE type in the BIOS. I needed to change this to AHCI and then reboot.

My copy of windows would then not reboot and it attempted to repair the disk by itself. This failed and I had to reinstalled Win7 from the DVD.

The Intel drivers you linked to then went in straight away and I now have write caching enabled.

My machine now boots up in about 30 seconds so it's much better there as well.

Once again thanks for your help.

-Orange peel

 

[Ian]

Glad you're up and running at full speed now I bet you notice a big change!

 

[Thrax]

Hi Ian & folks. I'm Robert Hallock, the Technical Analyst for Icrontic.com, and I'm glad you found our post for chipset and AHCI drivers for Windows 7.

These drivers may or may not work on Windows 7 build 7057 or 7068, so I am currently researching driver revisions that will install properly on these builds.

Cheers.

 

[Ian]

Thanks Robert, and welcome to the site :ciao: I'm interested to see how these work on 7057, so I'll keep my eyes peeled

 

[Thrax]

Time for an update:

The Intel chipset drivers (v9.1.0.104) still do not work on Windows 7 build 7068 x64. The AHCI drivers I linked here work like a charm.

 

[orangepeel]

My build is 7057 and the original drivers that Ian linked to worked fine although it is the 32 bit version of win7 and NOT the 64 bit version.


-OrangePeel