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]

Thanks mate, much appreciated.

[idata]

I had the same problem. Random BSOD's and random poor performance.

I purchased two of the Intel 520 SSDs. One worked perfectly in one of my

computers with Gigabyte motherboard. The other had these problems.

That computer is a Dell Optiplex 755 with Dell/Intel motherboard and an

Intel ICH9R SATA support.

I set BIOS to AHCI/RAID mode. I installed Windows 7 Home Premium.

Installed Intel Solid State Drive Toolbox version 3.0.2.

I took most of the published steps to fix this problem. I did secure erase.

I upgraded BIOS from A19 to A21 version. I reinstalled Windows two times.

I set power management to high performance. I could not get a good

windows 7 dump because the SSD interface was what was failing.

I finally got the main problem fixed and I am now getting good performance

and BSODs about once every 2 days. I found and applied the Intel LPM fix.

The Link power management (LPM) fix is to disable the LPM from

setting the SATA interface to reduced power.

I still get BSODs once about every 2 days, but performance is much

better. Intel still needs to fix the 520 SSD firmware to work with their

own SATA controllers.

Message was edited by: Kenneth Denbow. Now getting BSODs about once a day. Tried a different SATA port and a different SATA cable, but still the same problems, I reinstalled my old backup WD 500GB drive in AHCI mode and no problems with it.

Message was edited by: Kenneth Denbow for the 2nd time. I cloned the Windows 7 on Intel 520 SSD to an old Samsung 1TB non-SSD SATA drive model HD103SJ. Then booted computer with this drive. After windows 7 loaded MSAHCI driver and re-booted I ran the Windows Experience Index assesment again. My hard disk subscore dropped from 7.8 to 5.9 but my computer runs without any BSODs. I guess I have lost $200 on the Intel 520 and over 20 hours of work trying to get it to work.

Message was edited by: Kenneth Denbow for the 3rd time. I still get BDODs, mostly overnight while computer sits idle. I noticed that I gave some wrong information earlier. My motherboard chipset has an Intel ICH9D0 SATA controller and not ICH9R. The motherboard is made by Intel, model GM819, in a Dell optiplex 755 computer. I installed a new 450 watt power supply just to make sure that power was not the problem. Still fails.

Message was edited by: Kenneth Denbow for the 4th time. I changed power settings in BIOS from S3 to S1. No BSODs in last week since that change. I backed off some of the other attempted fixes and still no BSODs. It seems that Intel S3 support on the Dell Optiplex systems causes this problem.

[idata]

EDIT: Actually I reinstalled Windows 7 and used the F6 (actually you don't press F6 anymore but you click on "load driver") method to load the Intel RST (Rapid Storage) driver. My bluescreens on the Optiplex 755 were gone!

[idata]

I am running an ASRock X79 board and a 3930k with 2 Intel 180 GB 520 SSDs in raid 0. I was getting random BSODs and freezes with both drives. I tried single drives in non raid as well, and took the system apart trying to isolate the crash. It made no sense because I upgraded from 2 160 gb Intel 320 ssd's and had no issues with 32 gb ram. Also Intel had supposedly fixed the bsod issue. Then stumbled upon this thread.

I completely disabled Link power management, and went into the bios and disabled all the power saving C states. Rebooted and have not had a crash/freeze or BSOD in a week. I almost RMA-ed the drives!

Thanks to those who posted the LPM and bios power state changes!

[idata]

I might have spoke too soon

my systems seems stable now after the reg tweak + rst.

was really stress out there for a while