[haymura]

here's my story:

I bought a Corsair Force GT solid state drive 120gb becuz i wanted a faster loading windows n programs. I installed windows 7 and all the programs and everything went smooth. the next morning when i turned on my comp i get a message saying "windows failed to start" with an error code "0xc000000f".

when i checked my bios it did not detect the ssd at all. I unplugged my ssd and plugged it on a different sata port. It worked again for awhile. then one day i turned on my PC and bam, it gave me the error again and BIOS couldnt detect the ssd. had to unplug and replug the ssd in order to work.

anyone have an idea why this is happening?

this is my PC build:

ASUS Maximus Gene III mobo
Intel core I5 960
8gb G skill ripjaw ram
ATI Radeon 6850 x2 crossfire
OCZ Vertex 2 ssd 60gb
WD 640gb black caviar Harddrive
Corsair Force GT ssd 12gb (this is the ssd with the problems)
Corsair 750w power supply

[SkinnyPupp]

Could be a defective cable. I have seen that quite a bit, oddly

Also check for a firmware update

[haymura]

i dont think its a cable issue. i bought a patriot pyro ssd before my corsair and it did the same problem even with a new sata cable. i thought i just had a defective ssd but i dont think its an ssd problem at all.

[EmperorIS]

its the SSD i have the exact same problem a week ago i have the vertex 1 60gb
sent it back to OCZ for a refurb one .. installed window on another HD and everything was fine

it died pretty fast... had it for less then a year .. another buddy of mine had his died a month before me

[ddr]

i guess there's some truth to the recent findings that Intel drives provides the greatest compatibility and stability?

[ninjai123]

or it could be your windows that is not genuine :D

[haymura]

i think it may be a power supply issue. It just happened again awhile ago and both my SSD were not read in BIOS. I currently have my system overclocked along with the voltage settings. Ive put it back to stock form. I will monitor it to see if it still does it or not.

[EmperorIS]

blah okay so i reinstalled windows on the the new SSD OCZ sent me and the same problem occurred...

this is weird that on a normal HDD everything is fine but when I install the OS on the SSD it just stops working ..
i tried changing the sata cable and plugging it in diff ports on the MB and still no luck ..

[haymura]

what kind of error do you get? i get this error:

http://www.techyv.com/sites/default/files/users/Joshwa%20D./IMG.JPG

[roastpuff]

Hm, northbridge/southbridge chipset issues?

My Intel 320 120GB SSD is rock-solid on my Z68-based board.

[SkinnyPupp]

I bet you switched your HDD mode from AHCI to IDE or vice versa. Check

[haymura]

I bet you switched your HDD mode from AHCI to IDE or vice versa. Check


i did but isnt IDE the recommended setting for ssd drives?

[DragonsMaw]

I've used AHCI with no problems. Thought IDE prevented TRIM firmwares from working properly?

If you switch back and forth between AHCI and IDE without reinstalling you'll get that issue. Same goes for traditional drives. The two modes address differently so you'll have to use a tool for MBR repair to get windows to recognize that you've changed things. Otherwise it just assumes that the hardware has changed and has no clue where to boot from. If that's the case you could use a usb linux distro to take care of it such as PartitionMagic.

[EmperorIS]

okay this is weird... i took out one stick of ram and now the bios detects the SSD everytime and boots in to it without crashing when theres heavy workload..

could it be a faulty ram stick so when i install the OS on to the SSD it crashes due to limited ram space and there isn't enough virtual memory on the SSD for the computer to work?

but this doesn't explain why the bios didn't detect the SSD in the first place

[bengy]

Upgrade your BIOS. Switch to AHCI mode at least. I run mine in RAID mode because I had a RAID0 before. Install latest chipset driver. Upgrade SSD firmware.

Also, from what I've read so far, there's some issues with Sandforce SSD controllers and ASUS motherboards.

[SkinnyPupp]

i did but isnt IDE the recommended setting for ssd drives?
IDE is absolutely the INCORRECT setting to use for SSD and any modern hard drive made in the last 5 years.

[Psykopathik]

My Kingston 128 GB just died. off to RMA it goes. 6 months of use only and light use...sad.

[Great68]

AHCI mode gives the ability to use "Native Command Queuing", which is a HUGE benefit to SSD's.

But the TRIM command works just fine in IDE mode.

[EmperorIS]

i think it may be a power supply issue. It just happened again awhile ago and both my SSD were not read in BIOS. I currently have my system overclocked along with the voltage settings. Ive put it back to stock form. I will monitor it to see if it still does it or not.


i tried unplugging some harddrives i have and my SSD was detected no problem..

i am starting to think its my PSU getting weaker or something

[haymura]

i tried unplugging some harddrives i have and my SSD was detected no problem..

i am starting to think its my PSU getting weaker or something


ive been having no problems with my SSD ever since i reverted back from overclocked setup to stock setup. i figured it was a PSU problem for me since i tweaked my voltage.

[freakshow]

This thread reminds me of the SSD Hot/Crazy scale: Coding Horror: The Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html)

[EmperorIS]

ive been having no problems with my SSD ever since i reverted back from overclocked setup to stock setup. i figured it was a PSU problem for me since i tweaked my voltage.

whats the watt on ur pSU? i have a 650w it should be more then enough for this rig ..

[SkinnyPupp]

SSDs use like 2 watts.

[EmperorIS]

okay so i'm really confused. ..

i unplug most of my harddrives and system still bluescreen and crashed and didn't detect the SSD after the reboot

i'm starting to think its the motherboard crapping out now

[Ulic Qel-Droma]

dude, just stick in a conventional HDD with a OS on it. if that works fine, then you know it's probably just the ssd. or stick the ssd into another computer and if it works fine, you know it's not the ssd.


sorry to jack the thread, but my seagate 7200.11 main O/S drive just completely crapped out yesterday (known firmware issue, RMA time), and now im probably gonna go get a SSD.

shit like this thread is scaring me. Im reading about so many damn failures.

I was looking up most reliable ssd's and came across INTEL and CRUCIAL. i'd take reliability over speed any day...

anyways.. is this shit really that common? my mobo bios isnt upgraded to the latest version (p6t deluxe stock from 2008), and if this ssd is gonna be more of a headache than anything else i might as well get a conventional hdd instead. what do you guys think? i was gonna get a 120-128gig ssd for my O/S.

i have no idea what AHCI and all that crap means either. if it isnt something i can just plug and play like a conventional hdd, it's probably gonna be a headache right?

[SkinnyPupp]

crucial are my top SSD recommendation (http://www.hardcoreware.net/mid-range-ssd-comparison-2011/) right now, in terms of speed, price, and reliability. The intel ones are good, but mostly use the same hardware as crucial, but without the lower price and higher performance.
Posted via RS Mobile (http://www.revscene.net/forums/announcement.php?a=228)

[Hondaracer]

So stay away from like $120 60gb seagates etc? I was looking at Ncix for cheap ssd's for my new build for just the OS
Posted via RS Mobile (http://www.revscene.net/forums/announcement.php?a=228)

[EmperorIS]

i'd say stay away from OCZ ...
their entire forums is ppl with problems regarding the same issue

[DragonsMaw]

Stay away from OCZ is a general consensus right now as their QA is crap. Also avoid Sandforce SF-2281 based drives for now because this random BSOD and failure is also a common issue and there is no firmware fix available yet. Crucial M4 and Intel 320/510 are the current top performer recommendations.

Personally I'm still using an old Vertex from the pre-28nm era and it's trucking along but wear and tear have me at less than 30% write life after less than a year in my laptop. My desktop killed one in about 6 months as a virtual machine host. Still, SSD>HDD no matter which one you get.

[trd2343]

^What program do you use to check write life of your SSD?

[DragonsMaw]

SSDLife Free. It isn't perfect but I use it to check a couple stats. Rated write life, max/min/average cell write count. Mine is rated at 5000 writes per cell and my max is already up to 63xx and min at 38xx. 1.6GB reallocated so far. Eh, that's what spare area is for.

[roastpuff]

SSDLife Free. It isn't perfect but I use it to check a couple stats. Rated write life, max/min/average cell write count. Mine is rated at 5000 writes per cell and my max is already up to 63xx and min at 38xx. 1.6GB reallocated so far. Eh, that's what spare area is for.

That's if the SSD manufacturers actually include spare area. I remember in a test by Tom's Hardware some SSD's didn't have much of a spare area, if any, whereas some (Intel afaik) included quite a lot of spare capacity.

Hence, 120GB vs 128GB SSD's.

[DragonsMaw]

I'm pretty sure that same article had a comparison of the different manufacturers spare area around the time that wear leveling started taking off in the first set of Sandforce based drives (Vertex 2 comes to mind). They all have spare area though it ranged from as little as 7% to 22%. Article might have been from Ars though.

Intel's have had a rep for reliable longevity and part of it was from increased spare area.

I'm not complaining or anything mind you. This pair of Vertex drives are my first SSD's and after the furor of people complaining about premature drive deaths I'm actually just wondering how long these things will really go before re-allocation finally goes above spare area. Spare drive is ready to go but even at this point with daily use I've seen no random failures. Knock on wood.

Edit: http://online.hddlife.com/ssdlife/9ed37ca1586ce3363664a8fc8e9e8d1f
Reads as a 32 but it's a 96GB drive. Working life seems to go by my last reformat and reinstall which is odd. Powered on time is longer than working life =?

[ddr]

so i'm reading you can manually set the $ you want to use as a spare area. what's a reasonable amount or %? is this area a write-off or can this be reclaimed through a reformat (i'm guessing no ...)? so if i used an extremely large amount as a spare area, it means i can get much longer life out of it? this is confusing me with TRIM. better start googling.

[Ulic Qel-Droma]

spare area WAT?

[Great68]

Both my Vertex2's will hit a year old in October and so far I haven't had any problems with them, the one in my "server" computer is on 24/7.

Tom's hardware put out a handy SSD OS tweaking guide a while back that I found useful:

Can You Get More Space Or Speed From Your SSD? : Optimizing Precious Solid-State Storage (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911.html)

[SkinnyPupp]

Lowering spare area on a Sandforce drive seems like a horrible idea, IMO. Just buy a bigger drive. If it can even be done easily.

And don't disable the page file, or prefetch.

[Great68]

I didn't touch the page file and prefetch settings on my machine, but I did disable hibernation and system restore and that gave me a few gigs extra space. My drives are only 60's so every bit helped.

[SkinnyPupp]

Yeah hibernation and system restore are good to turn off. The rest of the settings can mess up how Windows works, and slow things down, etc.

[EmperorIS]

my mobo/bios is only reading 1 stick of ram now ...

starting to think this is definately my mobo shitting out

[LuHua]

Have another comp to try it on? Might be RAM/Mobo in your case but I had the same problem with my agility 3 drive a month back, drive died. Had a red light on the drive. Current Crucial M4 is flawless.

[asian_XL]

It's a headache to tweak my vertex 2 (FW: 1.33) to match the factory stated speed. Win7 64bit + 180gb Vertex 2 SSD, followed all the tweak guides on OCZ and other forums like disable this and that. ATTO keeps showing 280mb/s read and 170mb/s write.

As for the BSOD, I had the same problem few days ago, did some reading it's only video card problem. Updated the latest driver and it's all fine now.

[SkinnyPupp]

Keep in mind that as soon as you start using your SSD, it is going to slow down. Some are worse than others.

Also with Sandforce drives, the amount their speed is determined by the type of data that is on the drive. More compressed data (archived files, videos, pictures, mp3s) = slower performance. Less compressed (Windows files, exe files, etc) = better performance. You can read more about this on the bottom of page 6 of my SSD review (http://www.hardcoreware.net/mid-range-ssd-comparison-2011/6/).

Typical data in your "program files" directory is about 45-55% compressible, which is what I use in my SSD reviews. I find this reflects best real-world performance. You can see the results on page 7. Remember that read performance is more important, since when you are loading programs, etc, most of the operations are reads.

[ddr]

i wanna jump on the SATA 6Gbits/s ...

what happened to the Asus U3S6 cards?

[SkinnyPupp]

i wanna jump on the SATA 6Gbits/s ...

what happened to the Asus U3S6 cards?
The one English review they link to doesn't even tell you what controller it's using :facepalm:

It was a fill-gap solution, and probably never intended to be used with devices such as SSDs that will actually make use of SATA3 bandwidth. I would avoid it, not that you can get it anyway.

There are several choices on Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007531%20600022029&IsNodeId=1&name=PCI%20Express%20to%20SATA%20Card), but for some reason product pages aren't loading for me, so I can't offer a recommendation.

Would you consider upgrading your motherboard? But then you will probably have to upgrade your CPU as well. IMO, the only good SATA3 controllers right now are the Intel X68 ones and the AMD SB950 one.

[ddr]

ya... i'm on 1156 and plan on using it for a while

i thought it would a great solution to have both next-gen (now current) techs on the same card ... guess i missed out.