Replacing Manufacturer AHCI Drivers with Standard Microsoft^® SATA Drivers

Abnormal performance in Windows® operating systems after upgrading to an SSD, such as slower benchmarks than expected or system crashes, can result from outdated or poorly supported storage controller drivers. Besides updating to your motherboard or system manufacturer's most recent drivers, changing your drivers to built-in Windows drivers can improve or eliminate performance issues. 

To do this, open the Device Manager (type Device Manager into the search field).

In Device Manager you will see a list of different driver categories. You will want to look for a category called IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and expand it. 

If you cannot find the IDE ATA/ATAPI section, then your system is most likely not running in AHCI mode. Refer to your operating system (OS) and system manufacturer documentation and follow their steps to ensure your system is configured for AHCI mode for best performance of single SSD configurations. 

You will see a few entries for the AHCI controller (such as the Intel® drivers shown below).

Right-click on the controller driver entry and select Properties, then click the Driver tab, then Update Driver Software.

Then select Browse my computer for driver software.

In the next screen select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.

In the list under Model, you will see the current drivers as well as the Microsoft driver, called Standard AHCI1.0 Serial ATA Controller. Select Standard AHCI1.0 Serial ATA Controller and click Next.

The Microsoft driver will now be installed and you will need to restart the computer for the changes to take effect (sometimes several restarts are required). You can also go back into Device Manager and verify that the Microsoft Standard drivers are now installed.

If you are still experiencing problems after making this change, please reach out to our support team for further assistance.