X58A-UD5: BSOD with SSD drive

[seperator]

Hi

First off, some specs of my brand new build:

UD5 rev 2.0
i7 970 w/ Zalman 9900MAX
HD6970
Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz Vengeance (memtest86 stable)
W7 64-bit
(All drivers directly from the GB website, all up-to-date for the other components as well)
(BIOS settings are AHCI mode enabled for all controllers)
(System stable after various p95 tests of 8-16+ hours)

The problem I *thought* I had initially was where I had a corsair force 3 SSD as the OS drive hooked up to the marvell controller. I would get random BSODs and general instability, then one time another BSOD occured and the BIOS didn't pick up the SSD drive. Long story short, I thought the SSD drive was the problem (the Force 3 series does have a lot of problems- read the corsair forums) so I had it replaced with an OCZ drive. Well, the same thing happened again tonight.

Figuring it was a problem with the marvell controller, I moved the OS drive to the the ICH10R controller, and the exact same thing just happened: BSOD then after the restart, BIOS didn't pick up the SSD drive on the ICH10R controller. The fix for this non-detection is simply to turn the computer off for a few seconds, turn it back on, and it will boot normally back into windows everytime.

Now, the reason I am laying the blame of all of this at the feet of the SSD is that after the BSOD, the SSD drive is the ONLY drive not detected by either controller. All other drives are accounted for.

On that note, I have 5 internal HDDs and a BDR drive hooked up, as well as 3 external HDDs connected via eSATA or USB2. Although I knew these drives weren't the problem, I disconnected all of them but the problem still occurs. I've done chkdsk /r on all drives and all returned with no errors, including the SSD obviously.

This problem, IMO, is a driver problem. Whether it be conflicts, corruptions or incompatibility, I have no idea which is why I am here.

The odd thing about the BSODs is that there is no minidumps written after it occurs (I've only ever seen two BSODs, and all I had time to spot was ntfs.sys). Getting it to occur consistently is something I have found to be impossible to do.

Personally, I don't want to go through the hassle of removing the SSD and installing the OS on a normal drive, as I am almost certain the SSD drive is causing the problem. It seems a very common fault amongst SSDs, so surely someone can shed some light on this??

Cheers for any help

[Aussie Allan]

    Being an intermittent fault the one you did pickup (ntfs.sys) points me to memory, but you said "already tested"........did you test and pass ten passes in slot 1 with only one stick at a time ?

  "The odd thing about the BSODs is that there is no minidumps"....this would/could also point to memory

  What speed and timing are you running.......I'm not ignoring what your saying, just interested in ruling out the most common causes with the Doctors hurt list you supplied before moving on.

 Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

Allan has put forward some good points already.

I would add that you were asking for trouble trying to run your SSD off the Marvell controller in the first place. This may have caused corruption of soome of the files whcih could stil be pertinent. After you have followed Allan's advice I would be inclined to disconnect all the other drives and then run a fresh install of Windows after loading Optimised BIOS Defaults and changing hte Intel controller mode to AHCI. The best port for the boot drive is SATA2_0.

[seperator]

Hey fellas

Thanks for the replies.

No, I didn't test each stick one at a time as I should have in retrospect. Regardless, I have some new memory modules that I will be using, so I guess we will see if the ram is indeed the problem. For the record, the current timings are 8-8-8-20@1080MHz, and I have not manually tweaked these settings.

I do have a hard time grasping how the memory would be the cause of these BSODs, as I have tested and retested this hardware with benchmarks, stress tests and multi-threaded real world apps without any problems.

The current situation is that I am using the SSD drive on the SATA2_0 port, but the problem still occurs. I've done several clean re-installations of W7 already. All controllers are set to AHCI mode.

In the coming days, I will be swapping out the SSD for another (mechanical) drive, then we shall see once and for all if the SSD drives were the problem.

Finishing, I just have one question: Am I still able to use the marvell controller? If so, can the drives used be either SATA2 or 3, or does that even matter? It would seem such a waste to have 2 sata ports sitting idle (maybe the optical drive can use those ports?).

Thanks again guys 

[Aussie Allan]

   Sep!

 Youve answered the question your self.....you must be Australian ......I'm assuming those timings are the old set and the new set has not seen the light of day yet (or your PC case).....It would be interesting to know the result of those two dimms tested properly.

  Either way try not to change anything with you system just yet, ...  when you put in the new memory, more then one change means you just doubled the variables you have to consider .... just makes more work for you.

  The Marvell controller has been ..............an issue over here......It's fine for optical (DVD-Drive) Sata II storage drives, or anything else not mission critical.........as far as 6Gb/S..........Maybe next time!

 Aussie Allan

[seperator]

Hey Allan

The first thing I will replace straight out will be the SSD drive which is what I believe is the cause of these problems. If things are stable from there on out, I will have my answer 

Thanks for the information about marvell. I will use it only for my optical drive.

Cheers 

[absic]

Is the SSD firmware up-to-date? Not saying this is the cause of your issues  but it could be.

[Aussie Allan]

 Very good point,,... OCZ in particular have had a series of firmware updates across several models including my Revodrive x2

  Aussie Allan

[seperator]

Current firmwire is 2.06 which is up-to-date.

[Aussie Allan]

 Cool Banana's.......report back please when you get the new kit stuffed in, would love to know the result!

 Aussie Allan

[Wonderwrench]

What BSOD error code are you getting? If its 0x000000F4 the drive is going off line so no memory dump is possible. This seems to be a common problem. The drive is being given the command to shut down or a bad command by Windows 7 and or the storage controller driver. Now that you are using the Intel SATA II ports which AHCI driver are you using. MSAHCI or Intel RST. I suggest using the Intel RST. The latest release from Intel should be 10.1.0.108. Once the driver is installed reboot and then disable LPM and DIPM power options in the windows registry. See this thread, post number 2. http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?88340-Vertex-3-Windows-install-in-AHCI-mode-on-Intel-6-series-Chipset-platforms&p=634046&viewfull=1#post634046
Disregard the fact that this fix is listed for 6 series chipset as the reg change will work with your chipset also.

Hope this helps
Bill

[Zipperbag]

Heres a similiar fix http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Solution-C300-Disk-Freeze-ups-in-Windows-7-solved-for-me/td-p/38766

This is the 9128 (believe its limited to 1X speed)

btw Thankx for providing the link WW

[seperator]

Thanks for the tips guys.

I tried those tweaks but sadly, it didn't work for me. I ended up seeing the BSOD error I was getting but as it still didn't dump it to memory, I can't post it in full. Basically, though, this was the error:
____________________
KERNAL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR

***STOP: 0x0000007A ....
*** partmgr.sys ....

Physical memory dump failed with status 0xC0000010
_____________

Once again, after restarting, the SSD drive wasn't detected by BIOS. A cold reboot is the only fix.

I will be swapping out the SSD drive on Tuesday and reinstalling the OS on a new HDD, so I will post the results here when I am more than confident the BSOD's are gone for good.