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]

Ive got the same issue too. Using Intel X25-M G2 80GB SSD under Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. The OS hangs/freezes when starting applications and switching between them. I updated to the latest firmware yesterday but that didnt make any differense. My Motherboard(Asus P5Q3 Deluxe Wifi-AP) using the latest drivers for all hardware. My SATA storage is ICH10 using Intel Matrix Storage Technology. Is it coming an update that will fix this storage compatbility issue? Ive tried to run the SSD in both ACPI and IDE compatible in BIOS but nothing seems to work as it should do. INTEL HELP!!

[idata]

Hmmm, that makes me wonder if it is in fact my nvidia cards causing the problem or not... I'm running an Asus P6TD Deluxe mobo with the latest and greatest intel drivers, etc, as well... I'll likely enable Aero again later and see if the problem persists. I may go back to my old ATI cards as well with Aero turned on and see if the freezes occur with that as well... I guess I basically have to narrow this down to determine if it is the Intel SSD or not - will post my results in a few days.

[idata]

I'm sick of this problems and now I will send back my SSD to the store and hoppefully get a new one or the money back...

[idata]

Hi!

Good news from here! I think i know how to get it to work now! I updated to the ssd new firmware from intels page. After that i switched back to ACPI in my bios. After that i formatted the SSD with a non quick format. Then i reinstalled my OS. (Windows 7 Professional x64) Didnt upgrade my sata driver i just used the ones that comes with Windows 7. And everything seems to work like a CHARM! ACPI also gave me about 25MB/s faster read and 20MB/s faster write if you should trust Crystal Diskmark! Hope this issue will be solved by doing the same as i did!

/mimar

[idata]

are u sure u havent had any freezes yet? I can say that when I first started writing in this thread I had maybe 5-6 freezes a day. Now I maybe got 1 a day or not even that but still, it's an issue.

I'll try what you've done and see if it help me. but what do you mean formatted the SDD with non quick format? U just used the Win7 cd to format it ?