Intel Rapid Start Technology

Thanks Terry - all great questions.

About May this year, Intel was breathlessly excited in various press releases about how a portable computer could be put in a sleep mode that would be sustainable for 30 days or more. The computer would fully 'wake' from this mode within 5 seconds or less. Essentially, nearly all starts could be around 5 seconds, since the computer need not be shut down if it may not be used for longer than a few hours/days.

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Hence - 'rapid start'.

So yes,, if the 15z can do this,, i would care about this capability - count me in!!!

In looking for an answer for you all I am searching for the answers to these questions.

What does the file Intel Rapid Start Technology  for the XPS 15z actually do?

What hardware, utilities and software are required to install the file "Intel Rapid Start Technologies" succesfully on an XPS 15z?

Does Intel Rapid Start Technologies, have anything to do with Intel Rapid Storage Technologies and Advanced Format Hard drives?

Should I really care if I can install "Intel Rapid Start Technologies" on my XPS 15z?

I appreciate all of your patience in this and I hope to have some answers for you shortly.

TB

@Terry: I have a Crucial RealSSD C300 (256GB). This isn't an original Dell SSD. I have no idea what Advanced Format Hard Drive Technology is. Windows 7 formatted my SSD with a single NTFS partition. In my XPS 15z BIOS, Intel Rapid Start Technology is grayed out, and I cannot install the Intel Rapid Start Technology driver.

I've installed a CRUCIAL M4 256 GO SATA REVISION 3.0

the first partition is a 100Mo for system

second 100Go for OS

third 138Go for DATA

my bios is updated to A06

and is the same problem as other.

I look on the intel rapid start donwload page is talk to a 8Go partition to save the RAM,

is what the problem is not here?

sorry for ma english i'm french guy

EDIT: I check my config of my XPS 15z and hotfix 982018 is installed and

Paragon Aligment Tool 3.0 confirm all partition on SSD is aligned, but always impossible to install intel rapid start

I'm in the same boat. Bought a 15z refurb from Dell, put an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD in it and can't use quick start. I can't find any utils to format the drive as Advanced and don't know if it already is.

Don't want to finish my setup if I'm going to need to reformat. Please let me know. Thanks.

Mine is an Intel 510 120Gb SSD formatted by Windows 7 SP1.

thanks terry.

I'll try it tonight and will report as it was.

thank you very much for your interest.

So it looks like I was off base with the Intel Rapid Storage Technologies as a few of you pointed out. Intel Rapid Start Technologies looks like it would be a pretty cool feature, allowing you to resume the notebook from sleep a lot faster.

It looks like most of you have installed SSDs after the fact.  This certainly explains why you are having difficulties.  There are a few steps that you have to perform to the notebook and the new SSD before the iRST file can be installed.  

1. Check the BIOS, it must be version A06 and it should have an option on the advanced tab of the BIOS for Intel Rapid Start Technologies.

2. The SSD must be partitioned with an 8 gyg iFFS partition.

3. Install the Intel Rapid Start Technologies file located from the following link

So the big thing here is getting the 8 gyg iFFS (Intel Rapid Start Technologies) partition on the SSD.  If you try, please BACK UP all data before attempting.

1. In Windows click start and right click “computer”, click on “Manage” then click “Disk Manager”.

2. In Disk Manager find a partition that is installed on the SSD, right click it and click “Shrink Volume”

3. Choose 8 gygs for the size of the partition.

Then open a command prompt, click start, search and type in command.  Select the command prompt.  Type the following commands.

a) Diskpart

b) Select disk 0 ( select disk 0 means select the first disk, select disk 1 will be the second disk, you need to select the SSD disk)

c) Create partition primary size=8192 id=84

Return to Disk Manager and verify that the SSD partition is still listed and is the correct size. Install the iRST file and see if it now works.

TB

Hi Terry,

This worked BRILLIANTLY!  Thank you so much. To supplement:

Make sure you have the latest firmware installed on your SSD. OCZ has a Linux boot disc that worked for me:

www.ocztechnologyforum.com/.../showthread.php

After you take steps Terry outlined, reboot, enter the BIOS and you should be able to access the Intel Rapid Start menu. Enable it. Then you can boot into Windows and install iRST without a hitch.

Nice work Terry, thank you.

James

OK I'll test it this evening

Installation Successful. Great info Terry.

Two comments.. when shrinking the volume, make sure to enter 8192Mb (8Gb) rather than 8000Mb

The line to enter when in diskpart has a small typo and should read 'Create partiion primary size=8192 id=84'

I initially had two partitions on the 256Gb Crucial M4 - the 100Mb that W7 creates and all the rest. If I had a third partion for data files, I would likely 'steal' the 8Gb from that data partition.

Now, I am off to see how this RST thing actually works.

Installation successful but I don't see difference at startup speed after enabling iRST

EDIT:

It's good for me, now iRST work

when I press power button my laptop is operatonal in 7" is wonderful

So far, I notice that there is now no hibernation option - it is either sleep or shut down.

I expect no difference in boot time from a cold start - that process I think is unchanged.

I suspect,, that the sleep mode is now much less power hungry and can be maintained for comparatively longer periods. I have confirmed that a restart from sleep mode is at most 3-5 seconds for me. That response time is not too much different than before.

However, the ability of the system to maintain battery life while in sleep mode is the key question - and exactly what the rapid start technology is supposed to affect. I wont be able to confirm that until I have a few hours/days with the computer in sleep mode.

The supposed gain is to have the power consumption of the 'old' hibernate mode (or even less power than hibernate mode)  with the wake up response time of the 'old' sleep mode.

I plan to put the laptop in this 'new' sleep mode for longer periods (ie, overnight, over a weekend, etc) and observe how much battery life is used during those extended sleep periods.

If this technology works, then I can keep the laptop in sleep mode for days at a time and the need for cold boots would be very rare.

I'm confused here - I thought the point was that no battery power is used during the sleep period ? I thought I saw on the youtube demo that the battery was removed and everything still worked OK. Isn't the point of the 8GB partition that it keeps a system snapshot, then reloads this ?

all correct here after instalation. my laptop it's suspend now. tomorrow  i post the percent of battery that will be  remaining.

thx terry.