Running Toolbox Optimize on 240GB Intel SSD 520 Results In BSOD

[DWund]

I've been using a 240GB Intel SSD 520 as my boot drive for about three weeks (Intel RSTe v3.5.1.1009). I have not had any problems with day to day operations and the AS SSD benchmark for the drive is about what I would expect it to be. Yesterday I attempted to optimize the drive using Intel SSD Toolbox v3.1.2. At 85% I got a BSOD that completely froze the system. I did a hard reboot and the system came up without an issue. All of the trim files created by SSD Toolbox were still on the drive. I deleted them manually and attempted to optimize the drive again. The result was the same. Except this time when I restarted the system the SSD boot drive could not be found. The second time I tried to turn the computer on the SSD drive was found and the system booted. I ran SSD Toolbox quick and full diagnostic scans and neither found a problem with the drive. I also ran optimize on an X25-M SSD drive I also have in my system and it completed without a problem.

Although the drive seems to be working fine, the fact that running optimize crashes the system has me concerned with its long-term reliability. Any suggestions for further troubleshooting the problem (or fixing it) would be greatly appreciated.

[RCram]

Ken,

In your attempts to recreate the problem, have you tried making a lot of deletes to the SSD drive that would cause the SSD Optimizer to have cells that needed to be clean-up when the SSD Optimizer job is run from the scheduler?

Maybe clone the SSD and restore the image to the SSD. With wear leveling, this should cause cells that are unused that contain data that need to be cleaned-up after the image restore correct?

Thank you.

[DWund]

Thanks for your efforts Ken. In response to your latest query, I do not have an HDD password set in the BIOS.

[KenF_Intel]

Hi All,

No luck recreating this yet. I'll keep plugging away. I encourage anyone who would like 1:1 help to contact our customer support center. You can find contact information at http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/contactsupport http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/contactsupport.

[DWund]

Ken,

Over the weekend I played around with my setup to see if I could find anything that might provide insight to the problem. I removed all other drives (four hard drives, one SSD and two optical BD drives) and unnecessary hardware (sound card) from the system, reconfigured the Intel SATA controller to AHCI, and disabled the Asmedia SATA controller. I then did a clean install of Windows 8 on the SSD 520 drive. After applying all Windows Updates, I installed the latest RSTe drivers and SSD Toolbox. When I ran the Toolbox optimize, the result was the same as previously reported. So that rules out RAID or a conflict with the other SATA controller as being the issue.

As the next step in my troubleshooting efforts, I picked up another SSD 520 from a retailer with a 15day return policy. I did a clean install of Windows 8, applied all Windows Updates and installed the RSTe drivers and Toolbox. Toolbox optimize errored out part way through the process as it did with the other drive. So that rules out a bad drive (unless I am extremely unlucky and the second drive is bad too).

Short of installing the drive in a different computer (which I would do if I had a second computer) or testing the drive under Windows 7 instead of Windows 8, I'm out of troubleshooting ideas. I had hoped that I could trace the problem to a bad drive so I could go down the RMA route to receive a replacement. But there is no point in doing that given that a second identical drive exhibits the same behaviour. For now the drive seems to be operating fine for day-to-day use. But I'm a bit concerned with the fact that each time I have run optimize the percentage complete that is reached before it crashes is less than the time before (made it to 86% a month ago, but on the latest run it only makes it to 15%).

[KenF_Intel]

Hi Dar Wunder,

I finally was able to recreate the problem on Friday using RSTe. I'll keep you posted on efforts to find a work around or fix.

For those of you having problems with regular RST, I have not had any luck recreating the issue yet. I'll keep trying.

Ken