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IRT.book Page 2 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM Notes, Cautions, and Warnings NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your computer. CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates potential damage to hardware or loss of data if instructions are not followed. WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death. ____________________ Information in this publication is subject to change without notice. © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
IRT.book Page 3 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What do these features do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5 What is Intel Smart Connect Technology? . 2 System Requirements . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Intel Smart Response Technology Intel Rapid Start Technology . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Intel Smart Connect Technology 3 . . . . . . . . . . .
IRT.book Page 4 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 5 Smart Connect Configuration . . . . . . . . How to set up or re-configure a system for use with Smart Connect? . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . 35 35 A Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 B Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IRT.book Page 5 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 3 Introduction What do these features do? Smart Response, Rapid Start, and Smart Connect are layered technologies that can work together to provide improved system responsiveness. Together they comprise Intel's Responsiveness Technologies. The purpose of this document is to help end-users understand and configure these responsiveness technologies that are supported by the Intel chipset on several Dell desktop and notebook computers.
IRT.book Page 6 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM What is Intel Smart Connect Technology? Smart Connect is a feature that periodically wakes the system from the Windows sleep state to refresh email or social networking applications. When the system is equipped with specific wireless devices, it can detect the presence of known networks while asleep, waking only when connectivity is available (this feature is called Net Detect).
IRT.book Page 7 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 4 System Requirements Intel Smart Response Technology • Storage: • The system must be equipped with an SSD (either SATA or mSATA/minicard form factors) storage device with at least 18.6 GB of available storage space and a traditional HDD. (Also see "Appendix A" on page 39) • The system must have BIOS set to RAID on mode (in some system BIOS menus, this mode may be called Smart Response mode or Rapid Start mode).
IRT.book Page 8 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM • • The system may be configured to support both Rapid Start and Smart Response on the same SSD device (configuration details provided later in the document). • Windows cannot be running in legacy ATA mode (as selected from the storage/SATA BIOS settings menu). The system must be in AHCI, RAID, Smart Response, or Rapid Start mode. Processor: • • Memory: • • System should have 8 GB of memory or less.
IRT.book Page 9 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM • Processor: • • System must have an Intel Core processor installed. Network devices: • Net Detect (see "Smart Connect Configuration" on page 35 for details) is supported on these Intel wireless LAN cards in some systems.
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IRT.book Page 11 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM Smart Response Configuration 5 How to set up or re-configure a system for use with Smart Response? This section is a summary of steps, the detailed description of which can be found on the Intel support website: http://www.Intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS032826.htm There is also an Intel setup guide available here: http://download.Intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/Int el_smart_response_technology_user_guide.
IRT.book Page 12 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM CAUTION: Rapid Start configuration must take place AFTER Smart Response configuration. Smart Response configuration may erase the SSD device, including Rapid Start partition information. 1 BIOS — Restart the system, and press F2, when the Dell splash screen appears, to enter the BIOS setup menu. a Navigate to the "SATA Operation" mode menu, usually found under "System Configuration" or "Advanced Settings.
IRT.book Page 13 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 3 The Accelerate button should be visible near the top of the Rapid Storage Technology Manager application window. Click Accelerate, and a page titled Intel Smart Response Technology will appear, similar to the picture below: 4 Click the "Enable acceleration" link in the middle of the Smart Response window.
IRT.book Page 14 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 5 A window titled "Enable Acceleration" for configuring Smart Response will pop up. 6 Follow the instructions in the "Enable Acceleration" window to complete configuration of Smart Response (this text is from the Intel Smart Response setup guide): a Select the SSD to be used as a cache device. b Select the size from the SSD to be allocated for the cache memory. Any remaining space on the SSD may be used for data storage.
IRT.book Page 15 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM d Select the acceleration mode. By default, Enhanced mode is selected. See "How to use Smart Response?" on page 15 for more details regarding Enhanced and Maximized modes. How to use Smart Response? Once the system is configured for Smart Response, the system will automatically begin to use the cache to enhance system performance by storing frequently used data on the cache device, so that it can be retrieved faster than data stored on the HDD.
IRT.book Page 16 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM Removing the mSATA/SSD or HDD • Before removing the HDD or cache from the system, the Smart Response feature should be disabled in the Rapid Storage Manager application by clicking the "Disable acceleration" link either on the main status page or under the Acceleration menu.
IRT.book Page 17 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM "Clicking Yes will return the mSATA or SSD cache device to a blank non-accelerated state, at which point it can be reconfigured by following the configuration steps described in the configuration section above.
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IRT.book Page 19 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 6 Rapid Start System Configuration How to set up or re-configure a system for use with Rapid Start? Pre-Installation Notes • If the system is in ATA (or IDE) mode, Rapid Start cannot be configured until the mode is changed. The procedure for changing SATA modes after Windows installation is generally outside the scope of this document, however, "Appendix B" on page 40 provides suggested methods that may help on some systems.
IRT.book Page 20 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM b Confirm that the system BIOS is set to AHCI mode or RAID on mode (or in some system BIOS menus, this mode may be called Smart Response mode or Rapid Start mode). NOTE: If the system is in ATA mode, Smart Response cannot be configured until the mode is changed.
IRT.book Page 21 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 3 For systems with Smart Response, skip steps 3-5 and proceed to step 6. For single-SSD systems, right-click the partition furthest to the right (highlighted in yellow below) on the SSD (representing the end of the disk), this will bring up an options list. Select "Shrink Volume".
IRT.book Page 22 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 4 Enter the size of the required partition in the field marked "Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB." The Dell recommendation (and factory default) is 8192. Notes on the size of the Rapid Start partition 22 • Memory configurations and partition sizes larger than 8192 MB (8 GB) are not validated by Dell and may cause an increase in the time it takes to wake the system up from sleep.
IRT.book Page 23 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 5 After selecting "Shrink", a new unallocated 8 GB partition will appear with a black bar above it on the right side.
IRT.book Page 24 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 6 The free space on the SSD needs to be used to create an 8 GB hibernate partition. This can be done using the diskpart.exe utility in Windows.
IRT.book Page 25 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 7 A prompt may appear: "Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer?" If this appears, select Yes. Then, a command window will appear. 8 Section (i) is for systems with a single SSD (no Smart Response). For systems configured with Smart Response, skip to "ii. For systems with Smart Response enabled" on page 28. a Type "list disk", and press Enter. This will list all available disks. Look for a disk that has 8 GB free.
IRT.book Page 26 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 26 c Type "list disk", and press Enter. A * should appear next to the disk with 8 GB free. d Type "create partition primary", and press Enter. e Type "list partition", and press Enter.
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IRT.book Page 28 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM f Type "set id=84 override", and press Enter. The 8 GB partition description in the Disk Management window should change to "Healthy (Hibernation Partition)", and the command window should report: "DiskPart Successfully set the partition ID", as in this picture: g Close both windows. ii. For systems with Smart Response enabled After Smart Response is enabled, the Disk Management window should show an uninitialized disk below the OS disk.
IRT.book Page 29 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM b Type "select disk #", and press Enter. The "#" should correspond to the number listed next to the disk with free space. In this example, the disk is labeled "disk 1".
IRT.book Page 30 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM 30 c Type "detail disk", and press Enter. The first line of the output from this command should say "Volume_0000", which corresponds with the default name of the spare disk space created when Smart Response was previously enabled, as shown in this picture, highlighted yellow for illustration purposes: d Type "create partition primary size=8192", and press Enter. This will create an 8 GB partition in the free space on the disk selected.
IRT.book Page 31 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM f Close both windows. 9 Proceed by selecting restart from the Windows start menu. As the system resets... 10 BIOS: ....press F2, when the Dell splash screen appears, to enter the BIOS setup menu: a Navigate to the "Performance" menu or "Advanced" BIOS menu, depending on the system, and enable the Intel Rapid Start setting (as described in the BIOS Menu option section of this document).
IRT.book Page 32 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM How to use Rapid Start Once the system is configured for Rapid Start, and the feature has been enabled, the system will automatically attempt to save power by putting the system into Rapid Start low-power mode during Windows sleep. • The Windows hibernate option may be hidden if the system is configured for Rapid Start. • When the system has transitioned from Sleep to the low-power Rapid Start state, the system will appear to be off.
IRT.book Page 33 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM • Timer Value: When the Rapid Start Timer is enabled, the timer value (in minutes) can be configured to specify how long the system should wait in sleep before transitioning to Rapid Start low-power mode. If a value of 0 is specified, the system will transition immediately to Rapid Start low-power mode whenever sleep is requested.
IRT.book Page 34 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM • Status: This option allows the user to enable or disable Rapid Start from within Windows. NOTE: A selection "off" here will not be reflected as a change in the BIOS menu, however, the feature will be disabled. This allows the user to disable the feature from Windows without. • Advanced Settings: These options match the settings in the BIOS menu. Updates to the application will result in updates to the BIOS menu.
IRT.book Page 35 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM Smart Connect Configuration 7 How to set up or re-configure a system for use with Smart Connect? • BIOS Settings: • • • Enable/Disable option: The Smart Connect enable/disable switch can be found in the Smart Connect BIOS menu, located under the "Power Management" menu or "Advanced" menu. The default state for this option in BIOS is "disabled", unless the system was ordered with Smart Connect enabled.
IRT.book Page 36 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM • After installing the application, the Windows device manager in some systems will report a device listed as "Intel (R) Smart Connect Technology Device". NOTE: The Smart connect BIOS setting must be enabled prior to installing the application. If the Smart Connect feature is enabled in BIOS, and the Smart Connect Configuration application and driver are not installed, an unknown device may appear in the Windows device manager with the Hardware ID: INT33A0.
IRT.book Page 37 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM • Update Frequency Slider: There is a slider in the application user interface which allows the customer to configure how often the system will connect to the network to download updates. Shorter durations will provide more frequent updates, but may consume more battery power over time. • Advanced tab - Extended Power Savings: There is an option in the application user interface to set start and end times for "night mode".
IRT.book Page 38 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM If the Smart Connect wireless device does not find a network connection while in sleep mode, the Rapid Start timer will put the system into a lowerpower state to save battery. NOTE: If Rapid Start is enabled, the Smart Connect will automatically send the system into Rapid Start low-power mode between the hours configured in the "Advanced" tab extended power savings options.
IRT.book Page 39 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM Appendix A Table 8-1. Supported Storage Configurations Boot Disk (below)/ Technology (right) Smart Connect Rapid Start Smart Response HDD only Not supported Not supported Not supported HDD + SSD Not supported HDD + mSATA Not supported SSD only Not supported NOTE: SSD performance achieved without Smart Response. mSATA only Not supported NOTE: SSD performance achieved without Smart Response.
IRT.book Page 40 Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:25 PM Appendix B Registry modifications to allow transitions between BIOS ATA, AHCI, and RAID modes. CAUTION: Procedures for making manual changes to Windows registry settings are generally not recommended by Dell. As with any registry modification procedure, please be advised to back up any important files and account settings before attempting the modifications below.
