Intel 520 Series 120G SSD random BSOD's - please help

[idata]

Gday guys,

just wanted to humbly ask for some help. I've recently fitted a new 520 Series SSD into my PC and im getting random BSOD's. I've had 2 today so far after loading a fresh installation of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 early this morning. I wasnt doing anything taxing (just using Firefox and copying files to another PC over ethernet).

My hardware:

Gigabyte P67A-UD7-B3 running 2nd latest BIOS.

8Gb Corsair Vengeance RAM

2x GTX570's in SLI

2Tb WD RE4

1.5Tb WD Green

72Gb WD Raptor.

LG Blu-ray

History:

I had an OCZ Vertex 2 fail completely in my machine last week. No history of any problems before that. I fitted a backup SATA HDD till i received the Intel 520 i planned to replace the Vertex with. No issues with the backup SATA HDD running in IDE mode.

I fitted the intel 520 and initially set it up using IDE. Realising i should have set it to AHCI, i tried the registry tweak trick but it didnt work and wouldnt load windows on reboot anymore. So re-installed Windows fresh using AHCI. Loaded the latest Intel inf drivers, RST drivers and the other mobo drivers from Gigabyte. I also flashed the BIOS to the most recent non-beta version.

First issue was the extremely slow boot times (2 mins to desktop). After i was at desktop, there didnt appear to be any problems except for the first BSOD. Tracked the slow booting problem down to the 1.5Tb WD drive. If i remove it, the boot time is only about 20 secs. Fit the drive, and its back to 2mins. I plan to replace that drive this week but will leave it fitted for now to remove data from it.

Most annoying issue atm is the random BSOD's. The first time it happened, it was too quick and i didnt see the code/ file. No dump file either. I changed windows settings to catch the next one and it happened a few hours later calling a MSRPC.SYS file.

Problem signature: 

Problem Event Name: BlueScreen OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1 Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem: 

BCCode: 7a BCP1: FFFFF6FC4000CA68 BCP2: FFFFFFFFC0000056 BCP3: 0000000127165860 BCP4: FFFFF8800194D780 OS Version: 6_1_7600 Service Pack: 0_0 Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem: 

C:\Windows\Minidump\020412-120214-01.dmp C:\Users\cylon2\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-121867-0.sysdata.xml

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Im not sure what to do now. Im just waiting for it to crash again to gather more data i guess. I've read that the Sandforce controllers can cause BSOD issues but i would have thought intel would have ironed those issues by now if theyre using it on their new 520 series. You guys have any thoughts on this?

Apart from swapping the HDD out with another one, is there anything else i can do to narrow down/ force the problem? Maybe its the AHCI playing up? Maybe its not the SSD, but the history of events points towards it. Am tempted to try installing Windows again in IDE mode to see if that changes anything. Is there any special "drive erase" that i should do before reloading windows in IDE mode? Ive just been formatting the drive as per normal.

Would appreciate any advice at all guys. Bit disappointed and have had my head in the pc case for some days now and quite frustrated. Need to get up and running to continue my work. 😐 Thanks for reading so far.

Cheers

Anthony

[idata]

Are you sure that you connected the Intel 520 (high speed!) 120GB SSD to the proper SATA port on your Gigagyte P67A motherboard?

Over the last months I noticed a number of issues concerning proper SATA port connection and drivers.

[DShar11]

I have been using two 520's for over a week now. I have had them in R0 mostly but also in single drive configs. Absolutely no issues. You should probably download the Intel toolbox and do a secure erase on your drive. Then install W7 using achi mode.

Been impressed with the drives so far, we have to see how they perform over time now.

[idata]

Thanks for the replies guys.

L10090 : I've plugged it into the SATA 3/0 slot which has the white connector it. Manual tells me its controlled by P67 chipset and is a 6Gb/s connector. Is that the right one? Other drives are plugged into the the other ports. Am using the most current driver as supplied by Intel site.

DooRules : thanks mate. I pretty much did that, (except for the secure erase part). I formatted it during Windows installation. Is that not correct? How do i do the secure erase if my O/S is installed on it please?

I persevered last night on AHCI mode and during a windows update, it BSOD again and wouldnt even load back into windows.

Frustrated, i set BIOS to IDE mode for all ports and installed Windows again. There hasnt been a single BSOD since and i changed nothing in the physcial config. Has been running all night without a problem and have installed several updates this morning.. still going strong.

So it seems to me like AHCI is the problem.

When i did have AHCI set, there were some BIOS settings i was unfamiliar with (transaction modes, SATA Firmware Selection. I dont understand that i have to switch RAID mode on even though im not using RAID (theres an option called Xtreme HDD). Could someone please tell me what BIOS settings i should have set? Think this would go a long way to making sure the base level setup was correct.

Also, do i need to load the latest Intel AHCI driver during windows install?

When i installed Win 7 with IDE mode active, the boot load times were MUCH quicker.

I ran some HDD benchmarks (ATTO and AS SSD) this morning and got the following results. Cant say that im overly impressed for a drive that is supposed to deliver read/write speed 550/500MB. Im lucky to get 400MB read.

And of concern is the "piciide BAD" field on the AS SSD screen. Is that referring to the fact that it should be running in AHCI mode or theres a problem with IDE?

HD Tune Pro gave me the following information. Average speed seems to be higher than the apps listed above, but why is UDMA Mode 5 active when Mode 6 is supported? Is this a limitation of IDE Vs AHCI? Also, why is Native Command Queuing ticked on when im running in IDE mode? I thought this was a feature only available in AHCI?

Again, thanks heaps for helping guys - much respect. Feel like im getting closer and at least i have a stable system atm (even though its not running as quickly as id like).

Would really like to be able to run the drive as it should be in AHCI mode, but until i can work out what BIOS settings i need and which drivers and how to do the secure erase, im stuck. Would be great to have an identical system sitting beside me that i could run tests on, alas.. i need to work on mine.

[DShar11]

OK, first off a secure erase will blow away the OS, that is what I would do at this point. Can be done from Intel Toolbox.

If you do not want to reinstall you should have by now downloaded the Intel Toolbox. It has a function for cleaning up a drive in single drive config. Drive optimization, or forced trim I believe.

For a new install you will always want to use Achi mode or raid mode. In raid mode any single drive not part of a raid array will default to Achi mode, you do NOT need to load any Achi drivers on install.

You can switch between Achi and IDE without a reinstall but at this point for best performance I would secure erase the drive and reinstall in Achi mode.

You don't need to use Xtreme hdd.

Your as ssd score shows you have a pciide isue, this comes from the pciide warning in red.

I don't trust data from HDTune on our drives, Intel Toolbox can read smart data and drive data.

Soooooo, by now you should see that I would strongly recommend a fresh reinstall in Achi mode and get the Intel Toolbox downloaded.