Dell Dimension 9200 - Can it handle an SSD and Windows 8.1 64 bit??

Thanks for the advice, Dell Dimension king. I did indeed have it set to "RAID Autodetect / ATA" rather than "RAID On" in the BIOS. So I changed this setting in BIOS. I edited registry settings in windows 8.1 following instructions at the following link http://superuser.com/questions/471102/change-from-ide-to-ahci-after-installing-windows-8 When the machine boots there is a notice about AHCI (before windows 8.1 loads) that I didn't get before. To boot to the desktop certainly takes a little longer, due to this extra AHCI screen, but - possibly - the machine feels a bit more responsive in windows? Not sure. Most disappointingly though, WEI still says 7.4 for hard drive performance, same as before, which makes me think I've left something out as others have reported the WEI should go up if you switch to AHCI. I downloaded the SSD benchmark tool 'AS SSD' which says I'm using 'iaStorAV' apparently confirming RAID is on.

I could be just the speed of your ssd I know samsung has optimization that occurs after you enable AHCI maybe check your ssd drivers setting samsung magician has several options for optimizing the ssd I have mine set for reliabillity so my ssd last longer try modifing your settings a bit and resarting your computer then run the test again

2-J,  in your prior post you mentioned that "This is my dimension 9200 Windows 8.1 64bit runs great"  and quoted a scope of 7.3. (http://oi58.tinypic.com/2iibczq.jpg)

But I thought the Windows Experience performance tool was dropped in Windows 8 - how did you get it to run?

Windows Experience Index (WEI) is hidden in WIN8.

The Windows Experience Index is a tool found on the system properties window that
determines the performance of your computer's hardware by running tests on them.
The values are set on a scale with a maximum of 7.9 on Windows 7.
The base score is determined by the system's bottleneck score.

Since Windows 8, the scale ranges up to 9.9, changing your old score on the same system.
This is why your computer may score worse with a Windows 8 system than with your old
Windows 7 system. My score went from 4.6 to 4.2 from Windows 7 Enterprise to Windows 8
 with the same hardware installed:

WinSAT is designed for C, C++, and Visual Basic developers and those who write scripts.

C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore

(Where “C” is your Windows 8 installed drive)

Locate the file titled Formal.Assessment (Initial).WinSAT and double-click on the file (if you have multiple files, please open the latest one) to open up the XML file in your default web browser.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc948912%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

 

Using WinSAT	Procedural guide for initiating assessments, retrieving scores, and retrieving assessment details.
WinSAT Reference	Reference information for the WinSAT API, samples, and schema.

winsat

The WinSAT command-line options are not case sensitive. The command line does not require a dash or forward slash for the assessment name, but it does support either a leading dash (-) or a leading forward-slash (/) character to designate an assessment parameter. WinSAT can be run from a command shell with administrative privileges. An error may be reported if any options or switches are not supported.

The WinSAT tool also supports several command-line switches in addition to the assessment parameters. These are parsed by WinSAT before it passes control to one or more of the assessments. Some of these parameters are also supported by one or more assessments. The command-line parameters recognized by WinSAT include:

    -csv This causes WinSAT to save the top-level measured metrics to a Comma- Separated Value (CSV) file.
    -help or ? Displays the help content.
    -idiskinfo Information on the disk subsystem (logical volumes and physical disks) is not normally saved as part of the section in the XML output.
    -iguid Generates a GUID in the XML output file. Note that this is not valid with the formal assessment.
    -iter N Includes the iteration number in the XML output file.
    -v This specifies that WinSAT should produce verbose output. This output includes progress and status information, and possibly error information. The default is for no verbose output. This switch is passed to all of the specified assessments.
    -xml file_name This specifies that the XML output from the assessment is to be saved in the specified file name. All assessments support the -xml command-line switch; a pre-existing file with the same name will be overwritten.

 

To retrieve the WEI score of network computers follow the steps below:     Open the notepad and paste the code below.

    strCompName = Inputbox("Get Hardware Performance Ratings" & vbcrlf & "of a Remote computer," & vbcrlf & "Input the Computer Name:")


    Set objWMIservices = GetObject("winmgmts:''" & strCompName & "'root'cimv2")

    Set colWSA = objWMIservices.ExecQuery("Select * From Win32_WinSAT")

    For Each objItem in colWSA

    Wscript.Echo "Hardware Performance Ratings"
    Wscript.Echo "Processor : " & objItem.CPUScore
    Wscript.Echo "Memory: " & objItem.MemoryScore
    Wscript.Echo "Graphics: " & objItem.GraphicsScore
    Wscript.Echo "Gaming graphics: " & objItem.D3DScore
    Wscript.Echo "Primary hard disk: " & objItem.DiskScore
    Next

    When saving the script, In the "Save as type", Select "ALL Files (*.*)" and call it something like "retrieve_wei.vbs".
    Now double-click the saved file, and enter the remote computer name.

To do yourself put 127.0.0.1 for the computer name.

This third party tool will give you a WEI in a graphical format similar to Windows 7:

http://winaero.com/comment.php?comment.news.220

http://winaero.com/download.php?view.79