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]

Interesting. At this point I've got the drivers working in both machines, so that's enough for now. Once the next gen quad or 8x core CPU's come out I'll probably upgrade anyway, so this will get me by til then.

Try the NCQ change if you can Moepi, that should help.

[idata]

I can't. There is no way to disable NCQ in MacOS, at least I don't know any way and aunt Google didn't help either...

[idata]

It sounds like some have had success disabling AHCI too, so that might be an option. Might have to go directly to Apple on the NCQ one though. Since they're so proprietary that might be your only option.

[idata]

I don't give up that fast although I'm a bit disappointed by Intel. Ok, they are not directly responsible for the problem but concealing problems one is aware of isn't a good practice...

For the time being: Which nVidia Chipset do you use? Has it onboard graphics? If yes, do you use it?

I searched the web especially for problems regarind the X25-M and the unbody MacBooks - nothing. On the other hand there are a few reports that everything should works fine. Since I had similar (worse) problems with an OCZ Vertex hard disk I'm very sure that the drive itself is perfectly fine. At the moment I'm experimenting with settings I have influence on - e.g. disabling the onboard VGA. Furthermore it seems that the problems are arise more quickly if I'm operating on big files (e.g. Virtual Machines running or File Vault activated).

[idata]

Mine is a 680i SLI. The spec's of the two boxes I have are in my original post if you want to review them. Hope that helps.