Intel X25-M G1 80GB SSD hangs/freezes in Windows 7

[idata]

About a week ago, I bought Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH080G1 80GB SATA II MLC from NewEgg.com.

I plugged in the new SSD as my main (OS) drive (all my specs are in my sig.) and started installing Windows 7. During install I split the drive into 2 partitions: 20GB for win7 & the rest. On the first attempt win7 install froze at "completing installation" stage, iirc. As it was only my 2nd attempt to install windows 7, and first attempt to install it on the desktop pc, I waited for it to "unfreeze" or continue for ~30 min. Finally I gave up and had to push the reset button. I did my first windows 7 install that very same day on my Acer AO751h netbook and it went smoothly and pretty **** fast (and is still working perfectly).

On the second attempt I was able to install windows 7 successfully. I deleted partitions during second install and recreated/formatted only 1 partition 20GB for win7. The 2nd partition I created/formatted already in windows 7. Just after installation, on my first log in to windows 7, I installed Acronis True Image Home 2009 and tried to create an image of my fresh win7 OS partition. That is something I always do, I like having last fresh windows install image for quick "fresh restore", especially in this case, as I knew there are numerous tweaks to be made, to optimize SSD drive usage. Creating the image failed, as True Image software froze and shortly after-wards windows completely froze as well. At that point I had 5 Seagate 1.5TB (ST31500341AS) drives connected to my pc. Knowing the story behind those drives and from my own experience (from the 17 Seagate 1,5TB drives I had, 2 developed freezing/hanging problems), I obviously suspected the problem was one of them. I disconnected all drives, but Intel's SSD and tried to make partition image again. I probably tried 5-6 times and all attempts failed. By now I wasn't sure, maybe True Image was not working properly on windows 7, so I gave up on making image. I used windows 7 for a couple of days, applied tweaks for SSD, like moving paging file, temp files, disabling system restore, hibernation, indexing, superfetch, defrag, firefox memory cache, etc. Windows 7 was flying, I was ecstatic seeing the performance of windows. Though time from time, windows would just freeze up and nothing helped, but the reset button.

I started googling for solutions. All I could find, that maybe Intel SSDs have trouble with nForce chipsets (ironically, neweeg product review that was posted just yesterday put me on this track).

The questions I would like to ask:

What software should I use to diagnose this SSD? I could not find any tools on Intels site, and googling for SSD diagnostic tools gave me nothing.

Is the incompatibility of nForce chipset an Intel SSD the main and only reason for these hangs and freezes? Does the new G2 drives have this problem as well? If it is, I need to think about returning this drive.

Any other ideas/solutions?

I'd be very disappointed to return it, after experiencing the performance boost it delivered, when it was working

Thanks in advance.

[idata]

Does anyone else have any more information on this problem or advice about how to deal with it?

The last reply seems to imply its a known issue, is this true? If so is there somewhere I can get more information? I assume if I'm being told to RMA then its faulty hardware, is there any more info out there?

[idata]

I am hoping that this is just a problem that new firmware will fix but right now it does indeed seem like the drives are incompatible. Nonetheless, we have some G2 drives on order and I will be testing Windows 7 again once those arrive.

[idata]

Magellan, did you have any luck with the Generation 2 drives? I contacted Intel about the issue and they ask me to RMA the drive even though I told them I couldn't find fault with the hardware.

The new G1 drive just arrived and its doing the same **** thing. I'm about to RMA this one to the Retailer and I need to decide if I want to request a refund or a G2 drive in exchange. Any update you could give me on your experience would be appreciated.

[idata]

Yes, I installed it yesterday and so far so good. I did have one lock up but I think it was because of the Video driver (I had beyond TV up). The nVidia driver for Windows 7 x64 is a bit unstable for the 7900GTX card so I removed it and I am using the standard Windows driver for nVidia (which works great). Even when it locked up, it wasn't the same as before with the other drive, this time none of the icons would respond but I still had control over the mouse and keyboard.

The drive I am using is SSDSA2MH080G2C1 and I am definitly keeping my fingers crossed. I wanted to wait a couple of days before I re-posted just to make sure. If something changes I will let you know.

[idata]

It's looks like faulty hardware or compatibility problem, that's why I asked your S.M.A.R.T. data - does it show something wrong with drive or not. If it is compatibility problem and you returning it to Intel, I hope intel replaces it with g2 drive.