TWEAKS FOR IMPROVING SSD READ / WRITE SPEEDS

These tweaks have been confirmed to work on the following SSD brands: Intel, Samsung, Corsair, Micron/Crucial.

WINDOWS 7 SSD R/W SPEED TWEAKS: STEP 1

The first step in this process is to 'activate' certain 'hidden' processor power options so they show up in your 'Advanced Power Plan Settings'. This can be done manually in the registry editor. While these changes do not change any settings at this point there is very little risk, but

IT IS STRONGLY ADVISED TO MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE YOU PROCEED

• Type " regedit " (without quotes) in the start menu 'search bar' and hit return.
• Open my 'regedit' screen shot below and follow the 'path' listed below
• Start with the first highlighted line (after power settings) in the screenshots left column and click on it once in your regedit screen (so it highlights blue) and then double click on 'attributes' that appears on the right-hand column and change the value to '0' and click OK. Do this for all 6 highlighted items shown in my screenshot. NOTE: if any items already have a value of '0', leave them alone by clicking 'cancel' and move to the next item. (see cross reference list below)
• Once you have completed this for all items, open any 'Advanced Power Plan Setting' and click on 'Processor Power Management'. Verify that you now have all 6 new 'processor power management' options available.
• You can now close regedit.

HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Power\PowerSetting\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00

Sub Keys:
06cadf0e-64ed-448a-8927-ce7bf90eb35d
40fbefc7-2e9d-4d25-a185-0cfd8574bac6
4b92d758-5a24-4851-a470-815d78aee119
7b224883-b3cc-4d79-819f-8374152cbe7c
943c8cb6-6f93-4227-ad87-e9a3feec08d1

Here is a cross reference list showing what these regedit 'keys' equate to in the power plan settings:
06cadf0e-64ed-448a-8927-ce7bf90eb35d = Processor performance increase threshold
12a0ab44-fe28-4fa9-b3bd-4b64f44960a6 = Processor performance decrease threshold
40fbefc7-2e9d-4d25-a185-0cfd8574bac6 = Processor performance decrease policy
4b92d758-5a24-4851-a470-815d78aee119 = Processor idle demote threshold
7b224883-b3cc-4d79-819f-8374152cbe7c = Processor idle promote threshold
943c8cb6-6f93-4227-ad87-e9a3feec08d1 = Processor performance core parking overutilization threshold

Now go on to STEP 2 to adjust these new setting options.

WINDOWS 7 SSD R/W SPEED TWEAKS: STEP 2

Now click on your battery icon and select 'more power options', on the next screen select the 'HIGH PERFORMANCE POWER PLAN', then 'CHANGE PLAN SETTING'. IMPORTANT: On your first time making these tweaks click on "Restore default settings for this plan" to ensure your starting out with all options at default. Now select 'advanced power settings' and confirm that the 'popup' shows 'High Performance - [Active]' at the top.

Double click 'Processor power management' and make the adjustments shown in the next STEP.

PROCESSOR POWER SETTTING ADJUSTMENTS

(NOTE: Use the High performance power plan option and change the 'Plugged in' value )*

• Proc. performance increase threshold = 30%
• Proc. perf. decrease threshold = 85%
• Proc. perf. decrease policy = Ideal
• Proc. idle demote threshold = 85%
  *Proc. idle promote threshold = 95% ** (Setting this to 100% will disable Turbo Boost)
• Minimum processor state = 0%
• Proc. performance core parking overutilization Threshold = 95% **
• System cooling policy (no change) = 'active'
• Maximum processor state (no change) = 100%

That's it for the settings. Now I would reboot (not required) and run CrystalDiscMark with the 5 / 50MB settings and see how your R/W speeds have changed. MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN THE HIGH PERFORMANCE POWER PLAN SETTING FOR TESTING.

If you wish to compare to your original 'factory' settings just switch to the 'balanced power plan' and run it again, you can run as many instances of crystaldiskmark as you want which makes side by side comparisons easy....

• = After you confirm the tweaks work on your system then you can change all the High Performance Power Plan "on battery" processor settings and get the same improvements when unplugged. All other 'on battery' settings (other than processor) can be adjusted to your preference to get the best battery life.

** = 95% is a conservative setting that gives good results with minimal impact on heat and CPU idle wattage.If you want higher SSD performance at the expense of higher temps then try setting these to 99% for reasonable but higher temps. For battery use, I would stick with 95%.

*** = How to backup your registry;

1. Type regedit in start menu search box > return
2. Locate and click the key or subkey that you want to back up.
3. Click the File menu, and then click Export.
4. In the Save in box, select the location where you want to save the backup copy to, and then type a name for the backup file in the File name box.
5. Click Save.