Intel 520 Series 120G SSD random BSOD's - please help

[idata]

Gday guys,

just wanted to humbly ask for some help. I've recently fitted a new 520 Series SSD into my PC and im getting random BSOD's. I've had 2 today so far after loading a fresh installation of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 early this morning. I wasnt doing anything taxing (just using Firefox and copying files to another PC over ethernet).

My hardware:

Gigabyte P67A-UD7-B3 running 2nd latest BIOS.

8Gb Corsair Vengeance RAM

2x GTX570's in SLI

2Tb WD RE4

1.5Tb WD Green

72Gb WD Raptor.

LG Blu-ray

History:

I had an OCZ Vertex 2 fail completely in my machine last week. No history of any problems before that. I fitted a backup SATA HDD till i received the Intel 520 i planned to replace the Vertex with. No issues with the backup SATA HDD running in IDE mode.

I fitted the intel 520 and initially set it up using IDE. Realising i should have set it to AHCI, i tried the registry tweak trick but it didnt work and wouldnt load windows on reboot anymore. So re-installed Windows fresh using AHCI. Loaded the latest Intel inf drivers, RST drivers and the other mobo drivers from Gigabyte. I also flashed the BIOS to the most recent non-beta version.

First issue was the extremely slow boot times (2 mins to desktop). After i was at desktop, there didnt appear to be any problems except for the first BSOD. Tracked the slow booting problem down to the 1.5Tb WD drive. If i remove it, the boot time is only about 20 secs. Fit the drive, and its back to 2mins. I plan to replace that drive this week but will leave it fitted for now to remove data from it.

Most annoying issue atm is the random BSOD's. The first time it happened, it was too quick and i didnt see the code/ file. No dump file either. I changed windows settings to catch the next one and it happened a few hours later calling a MSRPC.SYS file.

Problem signature: 

Problem Event Name: BlueScreen OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1 Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem: 

BCCode: 7a BCP1: FFFFF6FC4000CA68 BCP2: FFFFFFFFC0000056 BCP3: 0000000127165860 BCP4: FFFFF8800194D780 OS Version: 6_1_7600 Service Pack: 0_0 Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem: 

C:\Windows\Minidump\020412-120214-01.dmp C:\Users\cylon2\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-121867-0.sysdata.xml

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C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt

Im not sure what to do now. Im just waiting for it to crash again to gather more data i guess. I've read that the Sandforce controllers can cause BSOD issues but i would have thought intel would have ironed those issues by now if theyre using it on their new 520 series. You guys have any thoughts on this?

Apart from swapping the HDD out with another one, is there anything else i can do to narrow down/ force the problem? Maybe its the AHCI playing up? Maybe its not the SSD, but the history of events points towards it. Am tempted to try installing Windows again in IDE mode to see if that changes anything. Is there any special "drive erase" that i should do before reloading windows in IDE mode? Ive just been formatting the drive as per normal.

Would appreciate any advice at all guys. Bit disappointed and have had my head in the pc case for some days now and quite frustrated. Need to get up and running to continue my work. 😐 Thanks for reading so far.

Cheers

Anthony

[idata]

The BSOD is not related to any particular chipset, AFAIK it can affect Intel/AMD/Mac systems, and Windows/Linux/OSX etc. It relates to the Sandforce (specifically SF-2281) SSD controller, which is used in the majority of SATA-3 (6gbps) SSDs on the market.

NB - Don't confuse SandyBridge with Sandforce.

SandyBridge is a great platform with varied chipsets (H61,H67,P67,Z68) and some truly awesome CPUs (eg. i5-2500K and i7-2600K) which offer unrivalled price/performance, massive overclockability and adequate integrated graphics.

Sandforce make the fastest SSD controllers (thanks to on-the-fly compression which increases transfer speeds while reducing NAND wear) but which still suffer from compatibility/stability issues. This is the controller used in the Intel 520 series.

Personally I'd avoid all SF-2281 drives for now. You might be lucky and have no issues or... you could play it safe and get a non-Sandforce SSD. (I'm not even sure if your HP laptop will support SATA-3, in which case a SATA-2 drive would be fine.)

[idata]

Wasn't confusing the two. I just noticed that some of the issues are with those who have P67 chipset...so I asked. I had no intention of any Sandforce controlled SSD, until the 520 series was released. Supposedly, Intel figured out the issue and fixed it...guess not.

My Envy is SATA III on Port 0 and SATA II on Port 1. SATA III drives work full speed.

Thanks

[GVasi]

So the last 3 days I used the M$ Drivers.Νο BSOD's occurred.

I will try the new intel Drivers 11.1.0.1006 and the new updated bios for my mobo (http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios-586.html http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios-586.html - P67-UD4 F8 and the modded one http://www.jzelectronic.de/jz2/index.php?lid=dGlkPTIwMSZ0aGVtYV9pZD0zNjk3JmFjdD1BbnplaWdl http://www.jzelectronic.de/jz2/index.php?lid=dGlkPTIwMSZ0aGVtYV9pZD0zNjk3JmFjdD1BbnplaWdl) i will post again.

Also the ssd optimizer leaves files behind..

[IMG]http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg170/GeorgeVasil/Capture-3.png http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg170/GeorgeVasil/Capture-3.png[/IMG]

Intel must update these Drives asap..

[DShar11]

In W8 the drive optimizer no longer works for me, not on a single ssd or an R0 array. It did before so I guess MS nerfed it with an update for now.

Thought it was funny that MS could figure out how to trim an R0 array but Intel cannot.