XPS 435MT SSD

Hi williambog,

The XPS 435 MT is not designed to work with the Intel Responsiveness Technologies that make the system faster. This technology needs an mSATA module apart from the SSD and the SSD would only act as a caching drive.

For more information on Intel Responsiveness Technologies, please visit the link below:

http://intel.ly/VlCsF9

When used on your system, the SSD would act just as an ordinary hard drive. The only benefit would be the longevity of the SSD over conventional hard drives. The difference in speed in this case would hardly be noticeable.

Let me know if you need further information or assistance.

Hi GauravS

Thanks for the reply, but is does not make sense the link you supplied says I need an intel 7 chip set which started shipping in august.  So no PC manufactured prior to august can use a SSD for speed gain.  mSATA refers to lap top SATA.  I really need to get AHCI enabled.  Dell tech support said I only need to select ATA in my bios, but that did not work.  I know of people who have older PC that got AHCI enabled and get 20 second boot time.  That is all I'm looking for.

Bill

Hi Bill,

Thank you replying.

The BIOS on the Studio XPS 435MT does not have the option for AHCI mode. It only supports SATA and RAID modes. On your system, the SSD would only work as a regular hard drive.

Let me know if you need further information or assistance. I will be glad to help.

Hi

This is what I learned this weekend talked to Samsung and searched the WEB it appears that as GauravS said is correct the XPS 435MT does not support AHCI, Dell support said it did.  The XPS 435MT supports SATA revision 1.0 transfer rate is 1.5 Gbit/s.  I bought a Vantec PCI host Card ($23.00) that supports SATA revision 2.0 3 Gbit/s transfer rate.  The directions were vague and installation was not a smooth as I had hope.  Will keep you posted on how it works out.

Bill

Thank you for replying.

I understand that you have installed a SATA 2.0 PCI card on the system. You should get higher data transfer rate from the SSD now.

Let me know if you need further information or assistance. I will be glad to help.

I bought my Studio XPS 435MT in April of 2009.  The specs on my invoice state SATA 2.0 with a 3Gbit/s transfer rate.

Installing a SSD in the 435MT is not straightforward. There are a few "Catch 22" issues in that regard. TRIM support is absolutely vital with a SSD. Without it the SSD will eventually become as slow or slower than a regular HDD. In order for TRIM to function, the SSD must use an AHCI driver. It also will enable NCQ, giving you all the speed your SSD is capable of over SATA 2.0, which is a max of 3 Gbits/second. A side benefit is that it makes your SATA and eSATA ports hot-plug capable, though not necessarily hot-swap capable. (The difference is hot-plug means you can add a drive but not remove it, while hot-swap means you can add or remove a drive with the system running.)

Unfortunately, the Intel X58 + ICH10 chipset on the XPS 435MT's mobo is not full featured. Dell limits the chipset's capabilities. While the onboard Intel SATA controllers can support AHCI, they run in IDE mode by default. The BIOS is also limited to say the least, more like crippled actually. In the BIOS, under Advanced Chipset Features > SATA Mode, there is only a choice between IDE or RAID with IDE being the default. However, by selecting RAID for the SATA Mode, AHCI is enabled on all four SATA ports as well as eSATA. Of course, if you enable RAID after your OS is installed, everything on your SSD or HDD will be lost and you will have to reinstall the OS again. So, enable RAID in the 435MT's BIOS before installing the OS on your new SSD.

The next problem you will likely encounter is a failed install of your OS. This is described in the MS Knowledge Base Article 2466753 available here:

support.microsoft.com/.../2466753

This is a known issue with both Windows 7 and Windows 8. Don't know about Vista though. There are workarounds involving editing the system registry by creating keys, subkeys, and values, as well as workarounds to the workarounds depending on what controller your SSD uses. Assuming at some point you get your system up and running from your SSD, there is one other problem that crops up when you insert a blank optical disk into your burner. Your system will likely either freeze or crash entirely. This is due to your optical drive(s) also running AHCI drivers when they should be using IDE/UDMA. When you select the RAID option for the SATA Mode in the BIOS, all the SATA ports switch over to AHCI. So, before you use your optical drive(s), check in Device Manager to see if you can change the driver for the optical drive's SATA controller in the OS to IDE/UDMA.

BTW, it's called "Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST)", not "Intel Responsiveness Technologies"

CPU-Z report for Dell Studio XPS 435MT:

Chipset & Memory:

Northbridge Intel X58 rev. 12

Southbridge Intel 82801JR (ICH10R) rev. 00

Intel Rapid Storage Technology Specifications for ICH10R Controller Hub list "TRIM support in Windows 7* (in AHCI and RAID mode for drives not part of a RAID volume)"

See this URL: www.intel.com/.../CS-022304.htm

I didn't quite follow you at the end - were you saying that it is possible to switch the optical drive back to IDE using Device manager - or were you leaving that as an open question?  I am (was) interested in installing an SSD - but your comments about "workarounds to the workarounds" scared me a bit.  Were you successful?

I followed the advice in this and other threads to install a Corsair Neutron 240g in my dell studio xps 435mt.  This went surprising well - I had been rather intimadated.  

Below I've listed an overview of the steps to provide help and assurance - google the keywords in each step for greater detail.  A couple of postings indicated that complicated work-arounds are needed - they are over-stated.  As long as you follow the correct order and used the Paragon software this is actually not that difficult.  Glad I went ahead despite my tredpidations

Lots of discussion about TRIM, RAID, AHCI, & IDE in the forums.  Don't worry about these issues.  Just follow the steps below  - that will get you the drivers and AHCI - and all will work out.  Just make sure you do the FIX first or you will run into boot problems.

1. Backed up to an external hard drive and made a boot CD.

2. Ran Microsoft Fix it 50470 to make the registry changes.  Must do prior to next steps.  support.microsoft.com/.../922976

3. Installed the Intel controller (download and install Intel Matrix Storage) and drivers.

4. Enabled RAID (F2 during reboot)

5. Installed the SSD (C Drive) in the 0 slot and moved the HD (F Drive) to extra slot.  The 3.5 bracket provided by Corsair doesn't match the frame - I ended up using tape to supplement the bracket as suggested in another forum.

6. Used Paragon to migrate - worked like a charm - worth the $20.  Did not move music, video, photos, or documents to leave maximum space on SSD.  Migration takes a couple of hours.

7. Changed boot order to make sure SSD was first. (F2 during reboot)

8. Defined the location for documents, music, photos, videos (eg right click on My Photos and move location to F Drive where my photos are now located).

9. Made sure Media Center knew where libraries were located - it took a while for MC to re-index photos, etc.

10. Adjusted settings on a few programs that pointed to C for data when data was on F.

My system is working great.  Many thanks to all that helped.

... 3. Installed the Intel controller (download and install Intel Matrix Storage) and drivers. ...

I am going down a similar path as you - trying to install an SSD on an XPS 435mt running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, but slightly worried about the consequences of setting RAID in the BIOS in order to obtain AHCI support. I currently have two SATA hard drives in a non-RAID configuration. I have also seen (perhaps outdated) reports that TRIM support does not necessarily work if RAID is enabled in the BIOS, even if the disks themselves are non RAID.

So, given your own experience, my questions are:

a) When you say that you "installed the Intel controller and drivers", could you be more specific about exactly which software version you installed?

b) Perhaps this is just my ignorance, but I presume there is no need to install Intel Matrix Storage if the disks are in a non-RAID ('JBOD') configuration?

c) Are you sure that TRIM support is enabled on your system?

OK - here's my read on your questions.  To provide context, I'm an experienced user but not a technician.

We basically have the same systems and I have been up and running with vastly improved performance and no issues at all - so you can proceed with confidence so long as you follow all the steps in the same order.

I would suggest that you do a full backup and make sure that you have created a boot disk prior to proceeding.  I didn't have any problems, but better safe than sorry.

It is very important to run the Microsoft FIX to adjust your registry first - otherwise you will have trouble booting after enabling RAID.  Yes - do install Intel Matrix Storage as noted.  To be honest, I'm not sure why it is needed - it may have something to do with the drivers.  But, again, better safe than sorry.

I wouldn't worry about enabling RAID.  You are not going to assign your drives to a RAID so it won't effect how your drives store data - no danger of data loss.  You are just enabling RAID to get the AHCI protocals.  You need AHCI for speed - AHCI allows multiple simultaneious commands to your SSD drive.

If you follow the steps outlined in my prior posting Windows 7 will locate and load the drivers  - it won't be an extra step.  

My reading suggests that the Trim discussons on the fourms are based upon misconceptions.  TRIM is apparently native to Windows 7.  Also many SSDs don't require TRIM - they have their own "garbage" programs.  That said, I ran the line command I found in the forums and it confirmed that TRIM is running on my system.

I am very pleased with the speed improvements on my system - the SSD was a great investment.  I may not be getting the full benefit of the SSD - I might get even more speed if I installed a SATA 3 pci card and ran the SSD off the card.  But I'm very satisfied with the speed I got so I won't bother.  (The pci card was my plan "B" if it turned out that I didn't get the speed I expected.)

If you are going to clone your operating system over I can recommend the paragon migrate software - it makes everything so easy.  It does all the hard stuff with partitions and makes it easy to only move the operating system and programs, leaving those huge mp3 and photo files on your old drive.  (Then you just go into your programs and adjust settings to find your files on the old drive.)

If you are going to do a clean install of Windows 7 you don't need paragon.  I'm happy I cloned - I had no problems.

You will probably have problems attaching the SSD to your Dell case - the 2.5 to 3.5 bracket doesn't attach well.  (I used a little electrician's tape to secure the bracket as suggested in a forum.  There are no moving parts on the SSD so you can get a little creative here.)

Good luck - just make sure you follow the steps in the right order and you should do fine!

Hi HB2,

Many thanks for your posts and your very extensive replies to my questions - they are extremely helpful. Having looked around on the internet I had almost been deterred from trying to install an SSD into the XPS 435MT, but the step by step procedure that you describe sounds sensible and definitely worth trying.

As to the physical installation of an SSD, I will have to fit it into the spare 5.25" optical drive bay (both 3.5 bays are occupied by hard drives), but I'm sure I can work something out here, even if it means resorting to sticky tape.

This sounds great, I too have the 435MT and am very interested in installing an SSD or even two (if it is a viable and useful option) I want to refresh my system to hopefully make it last a few more years. The system has been pretty much flawless since the end of 2008/Jan 2009 (i think it was), the only realy issue being the fan going in to hoover mode when you render something or McAfee is doing a system scan!!

My question now after seeing this advice is this. I ordered the system and it is setup running 2 x 500gb drives in RAID 0. It has impressive transfer rates and it is pretty quick for most things although sometimes hangs slightly due to seeking/spinning.

This must mean my system is already in RAID mode (i have optical blu ray writer drive that works great with no problems also from original Dell order)?

I am currently running Vista 64bit Ultimate but am thinking of getting a new full OEM version of Windows 7 Prof/Ultimate 64 bit, I guess I could clean install this on to SSD?

I even thought if I could not install SSD of buying two new fast mechanical drives just to try and ensure a more reliable and hopefully even quicker system?

Finally I installed 6 x 4gb Kingston 1600 Grey RAM for 24gb RAM as described on another post but windows is only recognising 16gb (bios and CPU-Z see 24gb)??

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Poke13/Jonny