Dead SSD or dying SATA controller?

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kelvin08113

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Jun 20, 2012
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There are 2 SATA controllers on board, 1-4 with AHCI setting and 5-6 with IDE.
I have a SSD (Corsair Force GT 120GB) plugged into port 1, a HDD on port 5 and DVD drive on port 6.

Few days ago, my SSD started to freeze randomly, with disk usage spiked up to 100%.
Everything was still running including the cursor but I was unable to click, can't ctrl+alt+del and can't even shut down with power button. I had to turn off the switch.
It happened more and more frequently and finally "died", freezing right after I login.
So I formatted the HDD with Windows, but the SSD was still causing my PC to freeze without booting from it, and I had to disconnect it.

Another thing is about the SATA controller. My PC now, running Windows on the HDD would freeze too if I set SATA1-4 to IDE.
Although there is nothing plugged into port 1-4, it will have to remain as AHCI so that I can run my PC.

I have no other PC to test my SSD on but I'm 90% sure it's dead, but is the SATA controller thing related?

CPU: AMD FX 4100
MB: ASUS M5A88-V EVO
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LP 2x4GB
GPU: GTX 550 Ti TOP
OS: Win7 (previously Win10)
 
Solution
techgeek
If your HDD supports AHCI, that is what you should be using. Depending on the workload, there is a small performance increase when using AHCI (more importantly NCQ of AHCI) on the desktop. If you installed Windows with AHCI enabled, then it needs to stay AHCI. It's weird that setting IDE on ports 1 through 4 without anything connected to them would cause your system to freeze. When you say freeze, do you mean POST? Or do you mean that once it reaches Windows it freezes?

I'd say that the SSD is most likely your culprit since it continues to cause problems just being connected to the motherboard.
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techgeek

techgeek

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Apr 11, 2004
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If your HDD supports AHCI, that is what you should be using. Depending on the workload, there is a small performance increase when using AHCI (more importantly NCQ of AHCI) on the desktop. If you installed Windows with AHCI enabled, then it needs to stay AHCI. It's weird that setting IDE on ports 1 through 4 without anything connected to them would cause your system to freeze. When you say freeze, do you mean POST? Or do you mean that once it reaches Windows it freezes?

I'd say that the SSD is most likely your culprit since it continues to cause problems just being connected to the motherboard.
 
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kelvin08113

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Jun 20, 2012
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My HDD supports AHCI, but I've tested it out that it works slightly faster in IDE mode.
If ports 1-4 are set to IDE, 5-6 will have to be IDE too. If ports 1-4 are AHCI or RAID, then 5-6 can choose either to follow or remain as IDE.
My PC has been running with AHCI 1-4 (for the SSD) and IDE 5-6 all the time, even when I installed Win7 on the HDD yesterday (which is on port 5).
However, it is kind of annoying as whenever I turn on my PC, it will stuck at the AHCI Driver for a few secs during post until it says "No drives detected".
If I switch ports 1-4 to IDE, it will take minutes to get through the Starting Windows logo, and everything freezes including cursor on the login screen and I have to switch the PC off.

Edit: For the SSD, I've tried on different ports (2, 3, 4) and different cables too, yet no luck.
 
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techgeek

techgeek

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Well I had a look at your motherboard, and I can see no reason why SATA 5 & 6 should be tied to SATA 1 - 4 with regards to IDE / AHCI mode. The reason why they seem to separate 5 and 6 is to allow you to set it to IDE independent of 1 to 4 so that if your optical drive doesn't work in AHCI mode, you can select IDE.

I usually use the first ports (in your case 1 - 4) for my HDD's SDD's with the first being my boot device. I suspect if you put your HDD on port 1, the SATA detection may go faster.

 
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kelvin08113

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Jun 20, 2012
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I see, thanks for that, will try it when I'm free.

Anyway, in this case, is my SSD really dead? It's still showing good 100% health on CrystalDiskInfo before it went completely unusable.
Chkdsk showed a lot of errors, fixed them but still showing errors on the next check. It was unable to format but succeeded with Partition Wizard for some reasons. Files were still able to be retrieved bit by bit right after login while copying before it started to freeze.

Will be buying a Samsung 850 EVO 120GB if mine really died, or are there any better recommendations?
 
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techgeek

techgeek

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Apr 11, 2004
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It's possible. SMART collects data on the medium. If the controller were dying, it might not trigger any SMART events.

As for a replacement, I really like Samsung drives and the 850 EVO's are very good in my opinion. The only thing I would suggest is to go with a 250GB drive. SSD's can get really sluggish when you get them more than 75% or so full. Particularly with writes.
 
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kelvin08113

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I don't really use much of it, just the OS and some programs I want them to load fast. I had 60GB free and had been always maintaining it by removing temp files.

Guess I'll go for the 120GB since it looks like one of the best and is also lot cheaper than other brands too. I have a tight budget btw.
 
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