Weird SSD Issues

spi131313

June 15, 2010 4:07:25 AM

So I finally took the plunge and bought an SSD, and have been having some weird issues with it. The drive itself is a MicroCenter branded (yea, I know) 64gb SSD built by IPSG. I haven't been able to find much information on the drive, but performance-wise I haven't had any problems (random reads > 200mb/s writes > 100mb/s).

One problem I have been having is occasionally the computer will boot up, but fail to move on after posting. No error message is issued, it just sits there. If I do a hard reset and go into the BIOS, 9 times out of 10 the SSD has not been detected. If I just do a soft reset, generally windows boots up just fine.

Also, occasionally the machine will wake up from sleep mode and work for about 45 seconds before completely crashing, AFAIK completely unable to access the hard drive. (I left resource manager open and utilization time for the SSD was pegged at 100%).

Very frustrating, not sure what I should do. At this point I am leaning towards wiping the thing and taking it back -- although I'm open to suggestions as to whether I should stick with a replacement or try another brand... performance other than this has been quite good, and you can't beat the RMA process (you can bring it back to the store up to 2 years from purchase).

More about : weird ssd issues

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foscooter

June 16, 2010 10:19:18 PM

1.) BIOS: Check the cables and connectors from the mobo to the drive. Sometimes a bad cable. And, obviously, the BIOS settings are set to auto detect drives. Try changing it, and input the drive info manually, if possible.

2.) There are know issues with SSD and sleep/hibernate modes. I have mine disabled, and I power off the computer when done. Here is a link I found, but no resolution: http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/12035-sleep-ssd-no-go.html

Here is a good websie to visit: The SSD Review.

However, I did not do any off these things. And my drives rocks! Avg 300MBps reads, peaking over 400MBps. But mine are in RAID 0.

Check for a firmware update for the drives. It may resolve everything. We can only hope.

All else fails, return. I see that they are running $159.99, but Intel X25-M 80GB are $229.99. An Intel X25-V 40GB may be too small. But I have 2.

Good Luck.

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spi131313

June 19, 2010 7:56:10 PM

Thanks! Your setup sounds great. I ended up returning it for an A-data S596, and I'm pretty happy with it. Avg reads over 200MBps. I thought about setting up a raid 0 but I honestly couldn't stomach it. I realize hard drives have come a long way in reliability but in my mind Raid 0 = everything gone in a month (I have never seen a raid 0 array last longer than a month, but this was a long time ago).

Edit: Just in case anyone wants to know in the future, the IPSG Microcenter SSDs are re-badged A-Data S596. I'm not sure whether they are more marginal parts, or whether I just got a bad one, as my branded A-data is much better than the IPSG drive.

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foscooter

June 19, 2010 8:52:53 PM

And aren't A-Data X25-M 80Gb re-badged Intel's? :pt1cable:

See this post: A-Data X25-M Co-Logo with Intel?

And this one: I'm not sure I understand.

Anyway, glad you are happy. SSDs rock, well the right ones do!

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spi131313

June 20, 2010 6:01:26 AM

Yea, looks like we're not quite there yet when it comes to competition in this market. It'll be interesting to see what the traditional hard drive manufacturers come up with when they really start getting going (from what I understand the WDs are just meh at this point)

Anyway, thanks for your help! I appreciate it

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