First post, by AntiRevisionism
I have an Athlon 64 3400+ machine that used to be my main workstation from 2005-2008. Long ago I maxed out the RAM to 2GB and installed a ATI 3850 AGP video card, but now I would like to add an SSD as a final upgrade. The sticking point is the MSI motherboard "CoreCell-Extreme Chip you've ever needed!" only supports first generation SATA 1.5. I believe the SATA controller is a VIA.
The motherboard will will refuse to post with a SATA 3.0 hard drive unless it has a jumper enabled that makes them run at 1.5 speeds. Do that and it posts fine... and then it happily installs, boots and runs both XP or 7.
This is a problem though as I'm not aware of any SSDs that have this feature...
I tried using a VANTEC UGT-ST310R PCI SATA controller and then connecting an Samsung EVO 750 120GB SSD... but it would just cause the system to hang while the SSD was connected. Attempting to use the card + SSD in a more modern system worked fine.
I am wondering if it is worth trying another SATA controller (maybe someone could recommend a model?), go with an IDE SSD or maybe just stick with spinning metal.