Intel 520 SSD 180G BSOD / SF-2281 issues

[idata]

You can read this and get all diagnostic files from http://hyrule.folays.net/ssd_intel_520/ http://hyrule.folays.net/ssd_intel_520/

=== CONFIGURATION ===

Laptop, Asus T101MT : Intel Atom N450 1.66 Ghz with 2Go RAMBIOS has the latest (1202)

SATA is configured as AHCI in the BIOS

=== SYMPTOMS ===

I can reproduce BSOD with a 100% "success" rate with Windows 7 x86.

Ubuntu is also affected.

All I have to do is to close the LID, and re-open it and be promped with the BSOD.

=== DIAGNOSTIC ===

I've already read:

- http://communities.intel.com/thread/27680?start=0&tstart=0 http://communities.intel.com/thread/27680?start=0&tstart=0- http://communities.intel.com/thread/27813?tstart=0 http://communities.intel.com/thread/27813?tstart=0- http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/intel-ssd-520-review-cherryville-brings-reliability-to-sandforce http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/intel-ssd-520-review-cherryville-brings-reliability-to-sandforce- http://www.ssdflashdrivereviews.com/flash-drive-article/Sandforce-SF-2281-BSOD-Performance-Issues.ph... http://www.ssdflashdrivereviews.com/flash-drive-article/Sandforce-SF-2281-BSOD-Performance-Issues.ph... <- especially this</span>- LOT and lot of forums/reviews/whatever on the SF-2281

The http://www.ssdflashdrivereviews.com/flash-drive-article/Sandforce-SF-2281-BSOD-Performance-Issues.ph... http://www.ssdflashdrivereviews.com/flash-drive-article/Sandforce-SF-2281-BSOD-Performance-Issues.ph... article lead

me to try with Linux the aforementioned "bug which seems [...] to drop connection with the drive's SF-2281", related tosome power stuff or S3 state.

The BSOD of Windows and the freeze of Linux lead me to think that the drive wasn't even present once the laptop is awekened.

So, I flashed my USB thumbdrive with the latest Ubuntu, namely "Ubuntu precise 12.04 (development branch)", and booted my

laptop with it.

Then, as root, I "apt-get install smartmontools" and, for you Intel to have some stuff to further investigate:

$ cat /etc/lsb-release > lsb_release.txt$ cat /proc/cpuinfo > cpuinfo.txt$ dmesg -c > dmesg_boot.txt$ lshw > lshw_boot.txt$ lspci -vv > lspci_boot.txt$ smartctl -a /dev/sda > smartctl_boot.txt

You can get all those files at http://hyrule.folays.net/ssd_intel_520/ http://hyrule.folays.net/ssd_intel_520/

Then I close the LID, let the laptop sleep, then re-open it and press enter to wake it

(so it was really a sleep and not a hibernate).

After opening the LID again, something weird happened. With a regular rotational disk, I'm

used to have the login screen very quickly (between 1 to 3 seconds), but with the SSD,it takes rougly 14 seconds, without displaying anything, as if the kernel was waiting for something ...

Then I succesfully get access again to the shell (of course, I'm running on the USB liveCD):

$ dmesg -c > dmesg_after.txt <- THIS IS THE MOST INTERESTING<p> $ lshw > lshw_after.txt$ ls -ld /dev/sda : No such file or directory

Of course, in dmesg_after.txt, in addition to the "awake" phrase, you have the messages of the "sleep" phrase

at the beginnin, because I couldn't execute dmesg while the laptop was in sleep mode... 🙂

So indeed, after wake, the SSD is not present anymore in the system, and there is lot of errors in the dmesg.

Besides that, "drive's connection drop & BSOD" being put aside, the SSD seems to works well. I've not used it mush,

Ubuntu and Windows 7 are functionnal with the SSD, but I cannot suspend the OS (BSOD) and I fear that if some power

management stuff kicks in, like the SSD going to idle mode by itself maybe, tha the SSD be disconnected again (thus BSOD again).

At this point, I'm helpless and don't know what to do to fix the problem.

I just hope that it's a firmware and not a silicon issue.

Living in France, I have 7 days to test the SSD and return it to be refunded if I'm not satisfied.

I'll probably test the SSD in another computer or two to do crossed tests, and then return the SSD,

because if I can't put my laptop to sleep with this SSD, it's not even nearly usable.

If I can help anymore : folays at gmail dot com

P.S.:

Even if I'm confident that it's not the source of the problems, having also the issues from the liveCD,

I have to be honest : the Windows 7 is not a freshly installed system, I've copied the partition from

my old hard drive, moved it and resized it to align it to 1 MB. But it works well, and I've done this

multiple time in the past.

[idata]

I think the 520 issue here is systemic. I just put one into my 2006 Mac Pro (OsX 10.6.8). It was working great for about 2 days (Sleeping, awakening). Now, when the system wakes up, OsX slows to a crawl and usually completely freezes up requiring a hard reset. There's never any issue when booting (So far).

Crazy thing, there's no errors posted in the logs when this occurs. It's like the SSD is alive, but feeding out data at about 1/1000000th it's normal rate.

Intel? I hope you guys are going nuts right now fixing this and regression testing the heck out of it on every operating system! I went for the Intel 520 simply because of the firmware horror stories I've been hearing on other SSDs.

[idata]

Dear folays and xl600,

I have exactly the same problem on an HP 6930p. Intel support says (amongst others) that they have "not received any other reports from customer regarding this issue" and "The issue is most likely related to the power management in the system, not necessarily the SSD."

I don't really agree with this opinion, since the issue occured with standard settings.

Therefore, it would be good if you report the issue to Intel support. Hopefully, 2nd and 3rd level support will deal with the issue after enough complaints.

Thanks,

Hans