Dell Inpiron 1520 SATA HDD Issue

Hi,

Recently, I ordered Dell Inspiron 1520 with the following main specifications:

Intel Core 2 Dou T7500 2.2-GHz CPU
2x1 GB 667-MHz RAM
nVidia 8600GT 256-MB GDDR2 GPU
Fujitsu 160-MB SATA 5400-RPM HDD
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premuim OS

Anyway, at the beginning I was really disappointed with the performance; the system was too slow specially during booting, loading, and playing games. Furthermore, when the notebook is on battery, the performance was terrible; I even can't watch movies smoothly or explore the hard drive normally.

So, I entered the BIOS, load the defaults, no improvements!

Then, after too many calls/chats with Dell technical support, someone asked me to update the BIOS, then I update it, but again there were no improvements.

Finally, I got the right man from Dell support, and he suggested to change a BIOS setting, which is the "SATA Operation" and set it to "ATA" rather than "ACHI". Then, I entered the BIOS (which is the new version "A03"), and went to the "SATA Operation" option then I saw the default factory is set to "ATA" where I am sure that it was "ACHI" as a default factory with the previous BIOS version. Anyway, I set it to "ATA" and I had to disable also the "Flash Cache Module" to do so. Then finally, the system performance improved and everything seems to be normal.

Now, my questions are:
Did I lost the "SATA" feature/performance of my hard drive (because I set it to "ATA")?
If I do lost the "SATA" feature/performance, is there any workaround solution to make the "SATA Operation" as "ACHI" and system remails OK (e.g.: installing new storage/interface drivers to the OS)?
Why in the new BIOS, the "SATA Operation" default factory is set to "ATA" not as like the previous version were the default is "ACHI"?
Is there anybody faced the same problem as mine? If so, how did he solve it?
Is this one of Dell disadvantages/faults?


Thanks in advance...

I know SATA is ACHI, but I am setting the SATA Operation to ATA, so did I lost the SATA feature/performance?

BTW, I have the latest drivers for the storage device, and it did not improve the performance.

Although, I can fetch you here a snapshot of my chat with the Dell support guy:

*** 11/09/2007 07:03:39PM Salan: "hi"
*** 11/09/2007 07:04:06PM Agent (Madhusudhan_Anandkri): "There is one quick setting which we'll need to change in the system setup"
*** 11/09/2007 07:04:08PM Salan: "so, what is the setting that should be disabled"
*** 11/09/2007 07:04:18PM Salan: "which is?"
*** 11/09/2007 07:04:21PM Agent (Madhusudhan_Anandkri): "Please note the following steps"
*** 11/09/2007 07:04:31PM Agent (Madhusudhan_Anandkri): "In the BIOS under ‘Onboard Devices’ set ‘Flash Cache Module’ to ‘Off’, Under ‘Onboard Devices’ set ‘SATA Operation’ to ‘ATA’, Save your settings and exit the BIOS. The system should now operate correctly"
*** 11/09/2007 07:04:53PM Agent (Madhusudhan_Anandkri): "To enter the BIOS, please restart the system on the Dell Logo, and keep tapping F2"
*** 11/09/2007 07:05:26PM Salan: "currently, it's set to SATA/ACHI"
*** 11/09/2007 07:06:23PM Agent (Madhusudhan_Anandkri): "I see, please chance it to ATA"
*** 11/09/2007 07:06:32PM Agent (Madhusudhan_Anandkri): "This should improvise your system performance."
*** 11/09/2007 07:06:50PM Salan: "even if my hard drive interface is SATA"
*** 11/09/2007 07:06:51PM Salan: "?"
*** 11/09/2007 07:06:53PM Agent (Madhusudhan_Anandkri): "If still nogo, then I recommend you to contact your local tech support team"
*** 11/09/2007 07:08:03PM Agent (Madhusudhan_Anandkri): "This is not related to the hard drive directly Salan, the reason behind this setting is memory sharing that'll happen with the IRQLs will reduce the traffic with the SATA operations thereby improvising the processor speed"
*** 11/09/2007 07:08:56PM Salan: "ok, I will try this one and let see"
*** 11/09/2007 07:09:18PM Salan: "thank you for the help"

I was asking about this issue because I got the laptop with terrible performance from the first run, then after several calls/chats with Dell support, they told me to change this BIOS setting and after that the system get improved (I mean the system works normally). So I thought, there were putting ACHI as default setting in the BIOS for for some reason (like, to get more performance), but as I understand from you here that it will not make that impact, so the issue is clear to me know and I will keep the setting as ATA for now being.