# Can I disable NCQ on these Samsung drives?



## Anusha (Feb 23, 2009)

OK this is the problem. 

I have two Samsung HD250HJ's. 

And I have an Asus P5B-E mobo.

The two drives are in RAID-0. With Vista as OS, for its I/O priority (rather, the lack of it), it's gets irritatingly when superfetch is doing its thing and when copying files here and there. 

I figured this has something to do with NCQ, as when I had a single drive, and set in IDE mode, this issue wasn't this noticeable. 

Anyway, the question is, is there a way to disable NCQ on these drives, while keeping the RAID volume intact? If yes, how? (In RAID, the drives run in AHCI mode, and when AHCI mode is active, NCQ is also active)


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## Anusha (Feb 28, 2009)

*bump*


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## 95Viper (Feb 28, 2009)

Xp had the option to disable NCQ, but I have not seen it in Vista or 7.  Look around in device manager under drives, disks, raid or scsi to see if it is there and disable tagged queuing and disable synchronos transfers.

If you think superfetch is messing you up you can turn it off, see here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/how-to-disable-superfetch-on-windows-vista/ or control it:http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/change-superfetch-to-only-cache-system-boot-files-in-vista/


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## Anusha (Mar 1, 2009)

95Viper said:


> Xp had the option to disable NCQ, but I have not seen it in Vista or 7.  Look around in device manager under drives, disks, raid or scsi to see if it is there and disable tagged queuing and disable synchronos transfers.


There is no such option in device manager. It it was an nVidia chipset based mobo, their drivers give that option.


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## mrhuggles (Mar 1, 2009)

your right. its as simple as that IDE[emulated] = no NCQ, AHCI = NCQ

just a couple thoughts, it reminds me of DUAL FIFO, something that isnt a big deal on PATA since PATA due to the physical limitations, thats probably why there is only 1 sata drive per cable
its really weird i wouldn't think you'd have an issue like this, not with a SATA controller on a pci express port/onboard dealy infact the whole purpose of raid is to do exactly that, use them both at once

P5B-E hmm ICH8? i have ICH9 they are really really similar except mine has no raid.. atleast not natively [have to crossflash for AHCI still no raid on intel controller] i dont think... i really dont think its got anything to do with NCQ.. honestly i have a little bit of an issue myself from XP to vista i noticed that where my drive performs REALLY REALLY high, anywhere > 90mb/sec and since it does that for the first 25% of the drive, when i run hdtune it goes wild for that part, and then after that it goes steady and is totaly ok, do you think you could run hdtune and post a pic of it? maybe we have the same issue and it just doesnt effect me as badly since only the first 25% of my drive is that fast anyways...


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## AsRock (Mar 1, 2009)

NCQ is a HDD hardware option as for turning it off i have never noticed a option my self.  It's never coursed me a problem using 3 with NCQ and 3 without in a raid 5 setup or in AHCI mode.

But i am on a different chipset so.


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## mrhuggles (Mar 1, 2009)

well technicly i think there might be some way in the registry to turn it off since... it also requires windows support for it.

EDIT: wow i guess if you have a nforce board its disable able from device manager.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 1, 2009)

Usually there is an option in the RAID controller software.  You might have to install the Intel software for your RAID controller to access the option, if it is even available on your controller.






Here are the options on my RAID controller, I can disable NCQ, Write Caching, and Read Ahead all on the fly without even a reboot.


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## AsRock (Mar 5, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> Usually there is an option in the RAID controller software.  You might have to install the Intel software for your RAID controller to access the option, if it is even available on your controller.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Intel Matrix Storage Manager don't seem to have the NCQ option. The other options are there though and also do not require a reboot.


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## OnBoard (Mar 5, 2009)

I'd disable superfetch, but that's just me


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## Anusha (Mar 5, 2009)

OnBoard said:


> I'd disable superfetch, but that's just me


But the problem is still there when copying files. 
And I don't want to see my RAM unused


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