X25-M Issues - 680i the culprit or just a bad drive?

[idata]

To summarize my problem I'm getting random system hang/freeze lockups where (in some cases) part of the system is still responsive (can move mouse and taskbar will animate but nothing will start). Sometimes though, when attempting to reinstall an OS, the OS setup will hang/fail (happened on both 7 & Vista). It's even reandomly created an additional, system 100Gb partition out of nowhere and shows random errors on a scandisk check after one of these freezes. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

I imaged my wife's old drive to the new X25 and she is seeing the hanging described but it lasts a short period of time then the system becomes accessible again (typically).

So, not sure if it's the same issue or different, but I'm betting it's something related to the X25-M and its interactions with the 680i and/or NCQ/AHCI.

Also let me note that both systems worked flawlessly prior to the install of this drive, and if I switch back to the Raptor as primary on both they continue to work just fine, so the problem is related to the X25-M drive. So the question is how to fix it when it's causing hangs/crashes/lockups before I ever get windows installed in some cases? I don't want to return this to Intel for a refund so hopefully there is a known solution for this.

Thoughts?

Here are the specs of our two machines:

Box 1:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 3.2GhzARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro w/ASEVGA 680i SLICorsair XMS2 Dominator CAS4 DDR2 8002x EVGA 8800 GTX SLI @ 600/950Primary HD: Intel X25-M 160Gb FW: 8820Secondary HD: WD Raptor 150GbSound Blaster X-Fi FatalityLite-on 20X DVD/CD R/RW USB 2.0 DriveCorsair 1000HX 1000W Power SupplyLogitech G9Logitech G15Sennheiser PC155Samsung T260 & 225BWOld Creative Labs 5.1 speaker system

Vista Ultimate x64

Box 2:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 3.2GhzARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro w/ASEVGA 680i SLICorsair XMS2 Dominator CAS4 DDR2 8002x Zotac 8800 GT SLIPrimary HD: Intel X25-M 160Gb FW: 8820Secondary HD: WD Raptor 150GbLite-on 20X DVD/CD R/RW USB 2.0 DriveOCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700WLogitech G7Logitech G15 GamingSennheiser PC165Samsung T260 & 226BW

Vista Ultimate x64

[idata]

Lots of views but no responses. No one has any ideas?

[idata]

That's quite interesting since I'm experiencing exactly the same behavour with my brand new 160GB X-25M with an unibody MacBook Pro under MacOS. Everything is fine for hours and suddendly the disk stops responding. In some cases this will last for about 15 seconds and afterwards everything is fine again. What makes it really a problem is that these situations are repeating more and more frequently rendering the system unsusable.

Restarting does not really help. It takes time. Yesterday evening it was completely unusable. I powered it off over night. This morning everything is working great - probably not long...

[idata]

Ok, I think I've discovered the issue here. For whatever reason some chipsets seem to struggle with this (and other) SSD's. Apparently Command Queuing (or NCQ) tends to be the culprit here. First I assume you have the latest chipset/IDE/SATA/etc. drivers installed as that should be step number one. After that in Windows Vista & 7 RC1 I was able to simply go into Device Manger --> IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers --> NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller --> Properties, for the controller that's running my SSD, then uncheck the "Enable command queuing" checkbox. After a reboot I no longer see th is problem. Now, to actually install Windows I was forced to copy the contents of the "sata_ide" portion of the IDE folder of the latest nForce drivers (just extract/install them on an existing PC to gain access to them, or goto nVidia's website as they have a walkthrough on the download page for the drivers in PDF form) to a floppy. Then during the windows install utilizing F6 I was able to piont to the disk and have Windows setup use them on the install. That seemed to get me by until Windows made its first boot which is when I was able to make the change above. I'm sure you could make the change automatic with a littler driver config/ini work.

Nevertheless I've had no problems since disabling command queuing so I highly recommend this as a solution to this issue, although it's obviously not an ideal one as you should be able to leave CQ enabled.

[idata]

Ok, I contacted Intel support regarding my problem. The answer is posted below. For those who don't speak German, here is a rough summary:

Intel seems to be aware of certain problems regarding the compatibility between Intel SSDs and nVidia chipsets. However, they refuse any support with the note, that one could not guarantee compatibility with all chipsets. The staff member adviced me to contact Apple. Great idea.

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Sehr Geehrter Herr ...,

Vielen dank für Ihrer Rückgabe.

Leider sind wir nicht in der lage dieses problem zu unterstutzen.

Offensichtlich wird dieses problem verursacht durch inkompatibilität zwischen den Intel SSD und Ihr Macbook,

dieses problem wurde anscheinend nicht behoben durch ein neuer Firmware version.

Leider kann Intel nicht garantieren daß die Intel SSD's mit alle systemen oder Komponente von anderen Hersteller einwandfrei funktionieren.

So können Wir auch nicht garantieren daß komponente von anderen hersteler immer einwandfrei funktionieren mit Intel Motherboards.

Apple soll Sie informieren bezüglich Kompatibilät bezüglich dieses problems.

Wir bedauren Sie nicht anders informieren zu können.

Für weitere Fragen stehe ich Ihnen gerne zur Verfügung.

Mit freundlichen Grüssen

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