Sniper and OCZ Vertex 3 SATA 3

[darrylp]

Hello

I have a Sniper and just bought a OCZ Vertex 3 SSD and am having trouble using the SATA 3 connection.
When connected with the SATA 3 cable, the SSD is only found intermittently and when I use SATA 2 all is perfect.
The OCZ supplier has exchanged the SSD for another new unit but the problem persists.
Is there perhaps a BIOS setting to enable SATA 3 that I've missed?
Any ideas will be very much appreciated.
Thanks

Darryl

[Aussie Allan]

 You like I.......Trusted the marketing hype that the Marvell on board chip would support sata 3 out of the box..........unfortunately if it carries the Marvell logo the best you will get is sata 2 performance........even the ICH10R will outperform the Marvell ports.

 The only way you'll get rid of the bottle-neck, reach Sata3 speeds and intermittent connection is to install a quality PCI based raid card... one suggestion is the RocketRaid 640-4 port card that will support boot to OS.....it'll set you back about a hundred fun tickets and save you many hours of fruitless research and testing...... if you don't believe me, just search through this site alone and you'll get the picture.

 Aussie Allan

[darrylp]

Thank you but I'm not technically proficient enough to understand.

Are you saying I need this particular RAID card just to get SATA 3 to work properly and consistently?

This guy doesn't mention it:
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=1175027&page=1

Darryl

[Aussie Allan]

 
 I stand corrected as far as my assumption was it carried the M1928......I have no experience with the newer chip.........DM or others will eventually see this post and give you some imput......Good luck Jim!

 PS......The raid card mentioned WILL give you the speed you require if the newer chip still does not perform........... a dedicated raid card will always perform better then any onboard chip to date.

 Aussie Allan

   UPDATE!........I did have one other though that is generic.......did you have ACHI in BIOS enabled while loading the OS...if so this does not apply.........If IDE was enabled, SSDs can be temperamental.......there is a work around if you need it!

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

As Allan noticed the new boards come with the updated Marvell 9182(I don't know why they had to call it that) chip that apparently works as SATA3 this time. I don't actually have any hands on experience of this chip but I have been told by a friend that it works well.

I can only suggest that you make sure SATA3 is enabled in the BIOS, the Marvell drivers are up to date, change the data cable and make sure that you have the latest version of the BIOS installed.

[darrylp]

Hello

Thanks for the suggestions.
I'll try them in the morning (10.17pm here and watching F1)

Darryl

[darrylp]

No good, now Gigabyte can't help so they're conatcting Taiwan, me, I'm going to buy an Intel board as I cannot be without a PC any longer.

[Dark Mantis]

Sorry to hear that but I do understand where you are coming from. Good luck anyway.

[darrylp]

Thanks for your concern and understanding.

At the last minute (I was about to order the Intel baord) Gigabyte Taiwan came through with a solution to upgrade the Vertex firmware which I'll try in the next week and I hope this'll solve the problem.
It entails creating an image of my installed operating system, wiping the drive, installing the latest OCZ firmware and then copying the mirrored image back to the SSD.

Hopefully I'll be able to retain the Sniper as I really like it.

Regards Darryl

[Dark Mantis]

That sounds quite plausible as OCZ seems to have a lot of issues with their firmware on the Vertex drives. Please keep in touch and let us know how you get on.

As you say the Sniper is a nice board and it would be a shame to not be able to use it.

[darrylp]

This just gets worse and worse.
Having received instructions to upgrade the OCZ firmware to the latest version, I downloaded it and set up for the upgrade.
Upon commencement a message appeared that I couldn't upgrade from the version on the SSD to the latest version.
I assume this means that I have to upgrade first to an interim version but they've removed all other versions from the OCZ website!
The local distributor has no idea what to do so I've had to email OCZ in the USA to ask for advice.
I really, really regret having bought this SSD.

[Wonderwrench]

You cant flash the drive when its the boot drive. It must be a secondary drive. The toolbox will only flash when run from within Vista or Win 7 or you can use the Linux flash method. I have a Vertex 3 MI 120 gig and ended up installing windows 7 on a spare drive to allow flashing the firmware. The toolbox needs a internet connection to download the firmware. The SATA controller must be in AHCI mode in the bios. Flashing may need to be done when connected to the Intel controller. Hope this helps.

Bill

[Aussie Allan]

Darryl......Don't panic, the PC doesn't care!

  You'll have to hunt a bit but I think OCZ have a pre-loaded Ubunti/Linux Bios flash ISO you can download and burn that should allow you to F12,boot and flash the drive.....failing finding one already done........you'll have to make it your self.......there's plenty of material to sift through on the OCZ forum/support website...........Ryder and Praz are both really approachable and willing to help!.....Do this!

  Aussie Allan

[Balthazor]

 You like I.......Trusted the marketing hype that the Marvell on board chip would support sata 3 out of the box..........unfortunately if it carries the Marvell logo the best you will get is sata 2 performance........even the ICH10R will outperform the Marvell ports.

The Sniper motherboard uses the 9182 Marvell controller, and uses two PCIE lanes, allowing full SATA 3 speeds.  Using my admittedly lame Intel 510 drives I get better performance on the Marvell than with the ICH10 ports, including random reads and access times.

[Balthazor]

Sorry, I posted that before reading the rest of the posts.

Sounds like that Vertex 3 is a headache!  I'd also suspect a bad SATA 3 cable, and would recommend trying a different one.