Intel Matrix drivers for AHCI?

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bitgod

Gawd
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Feb 20, 2003
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(oops, meant to make this a new topic instead of adding onto another thread)

Is there any real need to install those when using AHCI? And what would it give me? I'm doing AHCI currently on my system, I'm about to get an SSD and do a fresh install on that, was wondering if I should install the drivers, I'll be sticking with AHCI.
 
I wouldn't.

Use the INF Update Tool, it will include any updates for AHCI if they're necessary (or you can extract them and manually install if you want...). The Matrix stuff is just the tool to manage the RAID, it uses the same driver as included in the INF update tool.
 
I've always just used the Microsoft AHCI drivers, unless you're using RAID. For SSD's, the built in driver is the best in terms of compatibility due to the fact that they're the only ones that have TRIM support at the moment.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
I've always just used the Microsoft AHCI drivers, unless you're using RAID. For SSD's, the built in driver is the best in terms of compatibility due to the fact that they're the only ones that have TRIM support at the moment.
Click to expand...

Ah, that's right, thanks for reminding me.
 
what OS

i assume W7, then just use MS's
but if it is XP then the intel ones are needed.... (i think)
 
Yeah, Win7.

I assume the only way the Intel drivers get installed is installing the Matrix drivers right, not the chipset drivers? I installed the chipset drivers that were on MSI's website last night, I probably didn't need to, but I was having some weird USB issue with my mouse and thought maybe it was a USB driver issue since I hadn't installed though. Installing them, at the same time installed an AHCI chipset driver, which made me a little paranoid what was being installed.

If I go into device manager, check under the drives, go to the SSD's properties, and the drivers tab it says Microsoft, then I'm still using the MS drivers that do TRIM?
 
If it's the Microsoft AHCI driver, your Device Manager should show this:



You need to pay attention to the drive controller, not the drive itself. If it shows up as the Intel driver, you need to uninstall it and reboot and let Windows install the default. With Windows 7, you don't need to install chipset drivers as the one's built in are more than enough.
 
When not using a SSD, I install the Intel INF update (chipset) and the Matrix drivers. Does no harm, and I've seen performance skyrocket after the Matrix install on HDDs. For whatever reason.

On SSDs, you don't want to touch the Matrix install, but can do the INF.. as long as you double check that it didn't install the Intel driver over the standard MS AHCI SATA controller. That happened to me with my Vertex.
 
the latency for SSD winsat benchmark is dramatically reduced with intel driver 9.5.4 or 9.5.0. this got verified with both intel x-25m and corsair P256.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
If it's the Microsoft AHCI driver, your Device Manager should show this:



You need to pay attention to the drive controller, not the drive itself. If it shows up as the Intel driver, you need to uninstall it and reboot and let Windows install the default. With Windows 7, you don't need to install chipset drivers as the one's built in are more than enough.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, so then it looks like the intels are installed? Here's the screen shot.
AHCI.png


I tired uninstalling them, restarted, it thought about it for a while and installed a driver, had me restart, and after that restart I checked and it says the exact same thing. Any other suggestions if this is what I don't want for TRIM to work?
 
Make sure you're uninstalling the Intel drivers from within Device Manager. After you delete them, go into Safemode and open back up Device Manager. Search for any mention of the Intel AHCI/SATA drivers and again, delete them. Now disconnect from the internet and reboot into Windows normally. It should now install the default Windows Drivers. This is all assuming you're controller is set as AHCI in the BIOS.

 
Last edited:
OK, got it fixed. I was about to do Sic's steps, I uninstalled it, and then noticed when the pop-up box to confirm uninstalling came up, there was a checkbox to "delete the drivers", which I didn't think I checked the first time. So I checked it, restarted, and just let it boot back up normally, it installed drivers, restarted, and now it's back to the MS drivers.

Thanks for the help guys.
 
did you run winsat benchmark? if you tried to compare ms driver with intel's new driver, you will notice big difference in max latency.
 
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