Should I enable AHCI?

[madknight3]

I'm don't fully understand what AHCI is, but I've read that it speeds up the performance of your SSD (maybe HDD too? I'm not sure). It also makes sure the TRIM feature for the SSD is working.

 

The thing I found out was that it was supposed to be selected before installation of your OS. But I've found this article that tells you how to do it with a simple registry edit before you change the BIOS setting.

 

 

The last and great tip we want to give you to gain a little extra performance boost is that you should enable AHCI mode. AHCI mode can help out greatly in performance for SSDs. Now, if you swap out an HDD for an SSD with the operating system cloned and THEN enable AHCI in the BIOS, you'll likely get a boot error / BSOD. The common question is, is there a solution for this?

To answer that question (and as we do safely with all modern chipsets) there is a way to safely enable AHCI mode. Here we go:

1. Startup "Regedit"
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlset / Services
3. Open msahci 
4. In the right field left click on "start" and go to Modify 
5. In the value Data field enter "0" and click "ok"
6. exit "Regedit" 
7.  Reboot Rig and enter BIOS (typically hold "Delete" key while Booting)

In your BIOS select "Integrated Peripherals" and OnChip PATA/SATA Devices. Now change SATA Mode from IDE to AHCI. You now boot into Windows 8 - 7 or Vista, and the OS will recognize AHCI and install the devices. Now the system needs one more reboot and voila ... enjoy the improved SSD performance. 

 

But this article only mentions activating this with an SSD. My boot drive is a 250 GB Samsung 840 Evo, but I also use my old HDD for additional storage. A 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 16MB Cache HDD. If I switch to AHCI will this HDD continue to work?

 

 

Update: I switched from IDE to AHCI successfully but the above instructions listed didn't work for me. Instead I did the following instructions found here.

[SirRoderick]

YEs you should, definitely. SSD's really want to have that to perform optimally. Your HDD will continue to work as normal as well.

 

Before you mess with the registry make sure you have a restore point to revert to.

[Jvagle875]

You should be able to switch to ACHI at any time in the bios.

[SirRoderick]

You should be able to switch to ACHI at any time in the bios.

Not unless you do a clean install afterwards, he has to change the registry as well to keep his install.

[madknight3]

Thanks. I tried only changing in the bios but it cause my OS to break lol. Switching back in the bios and running a system repair fixed everything, but this time I'll do the registry edit first.