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

Read our privacy statement online: 

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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]

I have four Intel 520's, all used as OS drives either singly or in RAID 0. Used them on two different mother boards, always with Intel RST drivers, in either AHCI or RAID mode. Never had a BSOD, not one.

While it's possible you may have a bad SSD, to conclude that all 520's have problems based on one sample is not valid.

[Vegan]

Hook them up as just a bunch of disks and then download the Intel SSD Toolkit and use it to check each drive individually for problems.

Use AHCI mode, no need to use the legacy EIDE mode.

Do not use RAID for this test procedure.

[idata]

I'll try that on the weekend, I've tried running with c-state off and on, is there any bios options that might help?

maybe Load-Line Calibration?

I'm running a P6T mobo, i7 920

3 x WD - raid 0 - 1 x ssd (boot) 64k

if anyone can do a google search for ASUS P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition X58 Motherboard

the site goes into all the bios options, or google image search for p6t bios options and there pretty much exactly the same for my stock P6T

I had it running for about 3 days with no bsod, i then returned everything to stock bios since i was trying to OC at the same time, and now everything is at stock and i'm getting a bsod nearly every day.

I did add that reg tweak - turning off LPM, should i remove it?

[idata]

I have 3x 520 Series SSD's (240 GB Cherryville's)

I have 2x 535 Series SSDs(240GB)

I have never observed a Bsod from any of these SSDs. I have had them hooked up to a 2500k/Z68A, and now their all Raided up on a Devils Canyon 4690k/Z97 Sabertooth Mark 2.

The 535 Series are a hair slower than the previous 520 Series Cherryville, which I'm not happy about, but they were a meer $87 each.

Intel makes the fastest and most reliable SSDs on the market today, yesterday, and 10 years ago, before Samsung knew how to make SSDs......

ExtremeTech.com completed a SSD torture test, a simple on/off test, with ONLY Intel's SSDs coming out with a NEVER-FAIL result.

All other brands; Crucial, Samsung, Sandisk, OCZ, etc, all failed the simple on/off torture test.

Here's the test results-

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/173887-ssd-stress-testing-finds-intel-might-be-the-only-reliabl... SSD stress testing finds Intel might be the only reliable drive manufacturer | ExtremeTech

[GVasi]

Hello guyz,

I am experiencing 0x0000F4 random BSOD's with an Intel 520 240GB.

The disk is connected to the Sata 3 port of a Gigabyte P67 UD4-B3.

I've tried this:

1)Secure Erase via Intel Toolbox,

2)LPM Fix,

3)v10.8 & v11 Intel RST Drivers,

4)Modded BIOS with updated Intel ROM,

5)C3/C6 State Disabled,

6)Different SATA/Power cables,

7)The install of Windows 7 is fresh (AHCI),

Any other Ideas??

The Drive performs normally, but It seems to me that it suffers from the SandForce Bug too.