Z68A-D3-B3 + OCZ SSD Problems - FYI

[RzB]

Just for information...

I have just upgraded my wife's machine with a Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3-B3 + intel I3 2100 CPU, and 8G Corsair DDR3.

The machine is now running really nicely - but it took two weeks of hell to fix the BSODs!

The bottom line is that the motherboard does not (for me at least) work with an OCR SSD drive. In fact the latest BIOS (F8a BETA) indicates that it is supposed to improve compatability with OCZ drives. Well it didn't improve things for me and introduced other problems - BSODs during Windows 7 installation!

I replaced the OCZ with a Crucial M4 (more cost) and dropping back to BIOS Ver F5 gives me a stable system.

Hope this helps anyone else out there...

Also the version numbering on a couple of the drivers on the CD did not line up with the versions on the web site. I pointed this out to Gigabyte support and had a really naff response - which I an unable to respond to without raising another problem - Not impressed.

As an ex (retired) software manager for blue chip company, I can tell you that it does not give me a warm feeling when a software/support group can't get a simple thing like version numbers right. What hope is there when they get to the difficult stuff. Hmm...

RzB

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

Thanks for the heads up regasrding the OCZ SSD and the motherboard compatibility problem. To be honest this has been known for some time in different guises. OCZ drives quite often raise problems and usually the only way around it is to update the SSD's firmware which is fine if OCZ has actually effected an update for the purpose. I don't know if you did this during your trials but it is usually a recommended first step.

As an ex (retired) software manager for blue chip company, I can tell you that it does not give me a warm feeling when a software/support group can't get a simple thing like version numbers right. What hope is there when they get to the difficult stuff. Hmm...

Nuff said!

[RzB]

Yes  - updated to latest version and Sanitary Erased prior to starting upgrade.

The drive had been running fine on previous MSI motherboard.

Perhaps I shouldn't have updated the firmware!!! :-)

Thanks for your response.

RzB