Intel SSD 330 120GB often freezes for 60 seconds

[idata]

Hello,

I have a problem with my SSD. The symptoms are exactly as decribed in this Microsoft article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976418 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976418

The problem is that I have already installed Windows 7 SP1 and available hotfix is already included in SP1. So the problem should be gone, but it's not in my case. It happens quite often and is very annoying. I think it may be the SSD firmware issue, because I have already tried almost everything and nothing helps. So I decided to post here on Intel's support community for help. I have Windows 7 Home Premium x86 SP1 installed in AHCI mode with msahci driver. My motherboard is Intel D915PBL with 4 SATA I ports. The OS often freezes for exactly 60 seconds and after that time, simply returns to the normal operation. Please help me solve this problem.

[idata]

Yes, the issues are with the old chipsets and their drivers (a six year old PC with a SATA I chipset?... that was 2006 - 2007, must have been an all-in-one PC, known for their cheap parts.) Blame also falls on the AIO PC and mother board manufactures, that provided very simple and limited BIOS options, such as no AHCI mode. Unless you build your own PC, expect compromises and fewer options. Even building your own PC is no guarantee it will be compatible forever. Technology moves on, and "PC years" are shorter than dog years (one human year = 8 dog years.) So has the SATA specification, with several SATA standard updates over that time.

Do you think that a different SSD manufacture's products will work with old hardware and software? I wish you luck with that. Other SSD manufactures that also manufacture SATA chipsets are... none of them. Do these Intel SSDs have issues? I use them all the time, they work fine for me.

I've noticed that Intel is dropping support for some older chipsets with the latest versions of software like IRST. To that I say, good. I can only imagine how much the old platforms have held back software performance, not to mention that people simply install the latest versions of software on their old platforms and expect it to work fine... no, better. I have a few older PCs, and do I install the latest IRST driver on them, no. I understand that things change, and the other software on those PCs (BIOS, OROMs) have not been updated by the manufacture for several years now.

Windows 8 is a transition point as well, and I'm not referring to the UI at all. Sorry to say, it's not going to get better, only worse for older hardware.

[idata]

Yes, we should let people know about that article, since it is so completely wrong about AHCI. I was shocked when I read it, and is terrible mark against MSI's reputation. That is a manufacture that I would think twice about before using any of their products.

I should post that link in some SSD forums, and see how long it takes before MSI removes the article.

[MShaf3]

Hi all,

My story and the eventual solution is as follows:

I had to replace my previous OCZ vertex drive 3 times (no joke woould die every 1.5 years), at which point I decided to go for the reliability of the intel SSD. Unfortunately, for months I would have a computer that would "seize" for several seconds at a time. I mean, completely freeze. I couldn't listen to music because it would jitter, let's not talk about video (that's when the computer was not seizing up).

It looked like an IRQ lock, and then the HD indicator would go 100%. So it looked like the data was buffered and then written all at once. Looked like my machine was treating the SSD like a regular Disk.

Anyways, I tried pretty much everything on this forum, and every search possible, but ultimately, the fix for me was significantly different than anyone else, so I will post it here.

I have a Lenovo X61t (tablet), running Windows 8 32bit (Windows 7 had the same issue anyways).

You can find the specs of the HW online, but the most important thing for me, is that I found that I had a lot of intel components, ex:

[IO]

0x000018C0-0x000018DFIntel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2831OK0x00004000-0x00007FFFIntel(R) 82801 PCI Bridge - 2448OK0x00003000-0x00003FFFIntel(R) ICH8 Family PCI Express Root Port 2 - 2841OK0x00001C10-0x00001C1FIntel(R) ICH8M 3 port Serial ATA Storage Controller - 2828OK0x00001C00-0x00001C0FIntel(R) ICH8M 3 port Serial ATA Storage Controller - 2828

OK

Anyways, the notion that an intel component would not be able to talk to an intel SSD sounded ridiculous. But here we have it...

So here's what fixed everything finally, I needed to update the intel chipset support, 19 oct 2012 found here (http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-68009 Drivers and software - ThinkPad X61 Tablet)

And low and behold my machine is like it's brand new!!! It finally feels like it's supposed to run with an SSD.

I have done a whole bunch of other things suggested in this forum and in google, so it may be a few things that fixed it, but this should be a success story to follow if you have a similar HW.

To intel: too many people are running into this issue, it's embarassing how your best "suggestion" is to update the hardware... intel has some amazing products, but this left me with a bit of sour taste... I mean, what's the point of your SSD toolset if all it does is _nothing_?

[MShaf3]

Nevemind, problem is back.

I am throwing this intel SSD out of the window, and not buying another Intel drive again.

Useless waste of 6 months and 150$