Brand new 525 SSD (120GB) stops responding on write

[ANiel2]

Hi all,

I am just setting up a brand new 525-series SSD (SSDMCEAC12) and as soon as I try to write more than a few MB of data to it it stops responding. I can't even use smartctl to get any details out of the drive, and if I reset the PC it locks up at the BIOS logo (motherboard is an Intel DH87MC.)

If I power off the board for a few minutes then everything seems fine until I write more than a few MB to the SSD and then it stops responding again. Am I doing something wrong? I'm just booting Linux off a USB stick and copying files onto the SSD over the network (so that I can then boot off the SSD instead.) The SSD is not warm at all so it's not a temperature issue. Before it locks up smartctl reports a normal temperature (33 degrees.)

Here are some of the kernel messages I get when things break:

Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0xfffffff SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: [135B blob data] Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: status: { DRDY } Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: [138B blob data] Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: status: { DRDY } Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: [138B blob data] Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: status: { DRDY } Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: [138B blob data] Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: status: { DRDY } Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: [138B blob data] Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: status: { DRDY } Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: [138B blob data] Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: status: { DRDY } ... Sep 07 16:07:52 archiso kernel: ata6: hard resetting link Sep 07 16:07:58 archiso kernel: ata6: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) Sep 07 16:08:02 archiso kernel: ata6: COMRESET failed (errno=-16) Sep 07 16:08:02 archiso kernel: ata6: hard resetting link Sep 07 16:08:08 archiso kernel: ata6: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) Sep 07 16:08:12 archiso kernel: ata6: COMRESET failed (errno=-16) Sep 07 16:08:12 archiso kernel: ata6: hard resetting link Sep 07 16:08:18 archiso kernel: ata6: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) ... Sep 07 16:08:47 archiso kernel: ata6: COMRESET failed (errno=-16) Sep 07 16:08:47 archiso kernel: ata6: limiting SATA link speed to 3.0 Gbps Sep 07 16:08:47 archiso kernel: ata6: hard resetting link Sep 07 16:08:52 archiso kernel: ata6: COMRESET failed (errno=-16) Sep 07 16:08:52 archiso kernel: ata6: reset failed, giving up Sep 07 16:08:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: disabled Sep 07 16:08:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0 Sep 07 16:08:52 archiso kernel: ata6.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0

[Jose_H_Intel1]

Hi Malvineous,

We are still working on diagnosing what is causing this issue (and a few others) with the 525 SSD and the DH87MC motherboard. We're sorry it's taking so long. We will update this thread when we get new information from out engineering teams.

[ANiel2]

Thanks Joe. What other issues are you experiencing with the 525 series? I'd like to know what to look out for.

[KenF_Intel]

Malvineous,

What Linux distro are you working with? Have you tried any other OS's?

[ANiel2]

I've tried it under Arch Linux, with kernel 3.11.1, and under FreeDOS with the hdat2 utility, as requested by Intel support. Neither OS was able to write anything, not even a partition table. (Under Linux this seemed to work due to the disk cache, but running 'sync' killed the SSD. Replugging it brought it back, minus the partition table.) Under FreeDOS, the hdat2 utility reported timeout errors when attempting to write to sectors - no write was successful. After one run, hdat2 could no longer detect the SSD until it was power cycled.

hdat2 did not support the mSATA socket (it only supports the first few SATA devices and mSATA appears as device 6) so I had to use BIOS support to access the device. So I guess the OS in this case is the DH87MC board's real mode BIOS.

[CGree2]

Malvineous & kford-Intel,

I just posted my problem here:

/thread/45811 https://communities.intel.com/thread/45811

Very similar - if not the same - problem.