Crucial Offers Firmware Update For Crucial m4 SSD BSOD

Crucial has recently offered a firmware update 0309 for its Crucial m4 SSD series drives. The update is in response to issues brought to Crucial's attention for BSOD occurrences with the SSD, causing the system to require a restart. Based on Crucial's review, the issue was related to a few drives and only affected the system after 5,000 hours of actual "on-time" use. Following the initial reboot, the system then requires subsequent restarts after each additional hour of use.

Crucial stated that the firmware "Corrects a condition where an incorrect response to a SMART counter will cause the m4 drive to become unresponsive after 5184 hours of Power-on time. The drive will recover after a power cycle, however, this failure will repeat once per hour after reaching this point. The condition will allow the end user to successfully update firmware, and poses no risk to user or system data stored on the drive".

Crucial highly recommends end users update to firmware 0309 for all drives out in the market. Though Crucial states that it has no effect on the data saved on the drive but the failure mode can become repetitive, and pose a nuisance to the end user. Even if you haven't experienced the issue on your drive, Crucial still recommends this update to prevent the possibility in the future.

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huron 5 years ago

While I feel for anyone affected, it feels like such an arbitrary number.

I'm happy they fixed it, but how strange.
1
Ragnar-Kon 5 years ago

Hello new firmware. Me and my M4 drive have been waiting for you.

ps. For those other M4 users who are planning on updating the firmware, the install requires a blank CD and the ability to burn an ISO. Unfortunately, no USB pen drive option. Also, use a CD, not a DVD. I used a blank DVD at first and ran into some issues.
2
Anonymous 5 years ago

We were one of those initial companies hit by this. Our phone system is using microsoft's Lync (excellent) but our virtual host box would BSOD.

We went through swapping all sorts of troubleshooting with Intel - ended up swapping board, ram, backplane, cpu and power supply. Drives would test fine (because of that damn hour...)

Our business was essentially offline for a week (we're IT support, doesn't look good when our clients can't call us) until Crucial found and fixed the issue.

I am just very glad we didn't have the same system running on any of our client sites - it would have meant a lost client due to the time outage, regardless of whether it was our fault or not.
2
roscolo 5 years ago

sh-IT happens
3
susg2 5 years ago

USB does work. Verified on my two systems using M4's.
http://www.storagereview.com/how_upgrade_crucial_ssd_firmware
2
JohnnyLucky 5 years ago

Isn't this old news? I thought I read about it some time ago.
0
freggo 5 years ago

Makes you wonder if there is a hidden agenda behind the 'counter'.

IF counter>5000 AND warranty=-1 THEN FAIL
3
sykozis 5 years ago

As usual....Toms is a week late.... This firmware was released on Jan 16....
2
thegreatdekay 5 years ago

i just updated my firmware!! to infinity and beyond with my m4! and LOL @ freggo
0
tecmo34 5 years ago

Anonymous said:

Isn't this old news? I thought I read about it some time ago.
Depends on what you consider old news??

Crucial made note of the issue around the first part of January on their forum and provided the firmware update a week or so ago, so in that sense it is old news. Crucial kept the firmware update kind of quite (meaning no Press Releases or such), so unless you were looking for it, you might have missed it, so in that sense it is new news for some.
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__-_-_-__ 5 years ago

ancient news.
0
alidan 5 years ago

did hdds ever have these firmware problems?
0
vigilante212 5 years ago

Have HDD's ever been as fast as SSD's alidan?
2
dormantreign 5 years ago

Ill stick with Mechanical....Tried & Proven.
0
djab 5 years ago

alidandid hdds ever have these firmware problems?

Yes they do.

dormantreignIll stick with Mechanical....Tried & Proven.

And mechanical HDD can have mechanical failures in addition to firmware problems.
SSD do not have mechanical failures and they are faster.
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freggo 5 years ago

dormantreignIll stick with Mechanical....Tried & Proven.

You are not using PCs much, are you?
I have at least a dozen bricked HDDs from a selection of manufacturers over the years.
Made me a strong believer in the virtue of backups !
1
hedgehog1965uk 5 years ago

I was having this BSOD problem and realised quite quickly that the cause was probably my M4 as it wasn't being detected on reboot. I just updated the firmware from version 0001 directly to 010G and this not only solved the BSOD problem, but my PC now boots twice as fast! The really great thing is that Crucial now provides a Windows updater for this that doesn't even require a boot disc to be created. One slight problem was that I also have a C300 SSD connected to my system and this initially seemed to confuse the updater, so I temporarily disconnected the C300 whilst I ran the updater again. Job done!
0
ntldr17 5 years ago

Oke for everyone trying to update the firmware but is not able to detect your SSD, I've got a solution that worked for me.

Here are my specs:
Motherboard: GA-H67A-UD3H-B3
SSD: Crucial m4 2.5-inch SSD it's the 128gb version

First of all I tried to update from USB and from Windows. Both didn't work I tried firmware 0309, 0009 and 010G. After a long search I decided to run 000F, which removes the 5000+ hour powersafe state. So I recommend 000F over the rest of the firmwares.

So what I did was:
1. Go to your bios and set your drives to AHCI (Instead of IDE).
2. Restart you computer and boot the firmware from your USB, now it should be able to run.
3. Go to your bios and set your drives back to IDE, I atleast I had to do this. (I got a bluescreen running in AHCI, so I couldn't start windows at all).
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hedgehog1965uk 5 years ago

Even though I solved my BSOD problem by updating the firmware to 010G, for the last couple of weeks I have been unable to get my BIOS to detect my M4 AT ALL. I have tried all the suggested solutions I could find here on Tom's Hardware and on Crucial's own forum, including the following

Running a power cycle (disconnecting SATA data connection and powering on SSD for 30 minutes).
Doing the above for 30 HOURS to allow for file "garbage collection" to take place.
Connecting the SSD to alternative SATA ports, including one driven by a Marvel controller on the mobo.
Changing SATA mode in BIOS from AHCI to IDE.

As my M4 is my boot drive, I have been unable to start my PC and am having to type this on an old PC I had lying around. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I have no other ideas, and I really don't want to have to replace my M4 and loose data and have to reinstall everything.
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rjackson64840 5 years ago

It's not a question of whether or not your drive will fail (mechanical or solid state makes no difference) it's only a question of when.

Do yourself a favor and get yourself a Windows Home Server to backup your system(s). Then, when a problem arises you can restore your drive (or its replacement) in under an hour or two.
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