F120 (FW1.1) BIOS detection delay

My new F120 SSD with Firmware 1.1, on my board Intel DP55KG on SATA port 0 in AHCI mode takes 30+ seconds to get detected. No other SATA drive has such a problem. I am yet to install any OS on it because of this delay. One of the reasons to buy the drive was to speed up the boot times.

Besides I tried updating firmware on 4 machines with OS Vista Windows 7 and XP pro. Only on one machine it showed successful completion of update but drive is still on FW1.1. On all other machines the update tool refuses to detect the drive. This is really frustrating.:[pouts:

Any ideas?

There are a lot of tricks to help get the drive recognized you should look at the firmware 2.0 update comments thread.

 

If your drive is taking that long to get detected it may be a BIOS issue or incompatibility I haven't seen any reports about it taking that long or any delay at all in fact. I would check for BIOS updates.

@Synbios

I did manage to update the firmware to 2.0 on the drive. Now the behavior is different.

On cold boot there is a about 34 second delay. But warm reboots there is no delay. I am up on the latest BIOS (5531) from Intel for my board. On boot there is a dash (not flashing cursor) which stays there for 34 seconds before the splash screen is displayed.

On reboot no problem.

Any help?

Thanks

Hi everybody,

 

when I boot my computer the screen stays for about 30 sec. just black with a cursor in the left upper corner until the Intel logo pops up.

 

Intel Desktop Board DP55SB

Latest Chipset Driver

Windows 7 (64-bit)

AHCI-Modus

no RAID

Corsair F60 (Firmware 2.0) as starting drive

Samsung 1 Terabyte as second drive

 

Why does it takes half a minute where nothing happens until the Intel boot-logo appears?

 

 

Any idea?

 

Martin

This seems to be a problem on Intel boards, I just saw this report as well:

 

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=91080

 

I haven't seen any of these issues before now. My first guess would be to decrease the IDE timeout time. That may decrease your booting time but it may lead to the drive being undetected. It's worth trying though just to see what happens.

I'll second this. Thanks Synbios for pointing this.

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?p=476470

So it's not just DP55KG with this problem. I was on chat with Intel support regarding this issue. Yes now I'm in the middle of a ping-pong game. Intel Corsair Intel Corsair......... Every spinning Sata HDD has no problems with Intel boards. I have 2 myself. But F120 is something different. How can we blame Intel? Besides there are enough reports with the Sandforce controller being temperamental. Where do we go from here?

Thanks Synbios. IDE timeout is 0. Also tried setting it to 5. No difference in boot delay +5. This happens early on in the BIOS immediately after power on. This is a Sandforce issue. All other SATA drives HDD & Optical have no issues. Only the Corsair drive does. Conclusion- Sandforce is not getting something right here. Intel support on Chat today suggested I try different brand SSD. Well found two OhSeeZee users with Intel boards & no delays in detection on Colossus drives. Corsair/Sandforce needs to look hard into this. Today I logged in a support ticket with Corsair. Let's see what happens.

You can't really point the finger at either Intel or Corsair because it is a compatibility issue between the two. While other drives may be working fine on the Intel board, at the same time the Force drive with 2.0 runs fine on other boards.

 

Besides I tried updating firmware on 4 machines with OS Vista Windows 7 and XP pro.

 

Did you have the delay on these other machines? Do they have other boards?

@Synbios

You're right. It indeed appears to be a compatibility issue. The Drive has no delay on 2 boards I tested Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4P and GA-Ep45-DS3R. Both with AHCI mode SATA and latest BIOS on both.

Not pointing fingers at anyone. Just that I've blown nearly half a month's salary on the drive. And it is not working as expected and I am looking for some Kind Soul who will set things right.

@ RAM GUY

I did talk to the MB maker - Intel. And yes they asked me to get in touch with Corsair. Here's the conversation attached.

Have you tried the latest RST driver from Intel 10.XXX?

 

This issue has nought to do with any OS. It happens even before the BIOS Splash screen.

Also can you disable the Intel splash screen so that you can actually read the POST, that way you can see for sure where it is getting locked up.

 

This would be the one case where I would try setting the controller to IDE instead of AHCI, also I would disable boot from USB devices in the BIOS if you have the option. I've seen scenarios where a POST will be significantly delayed because it's probing USB ports too long looking for boot up devices. Make sure the SSD is set to the 1st in the list for the boot order. Even if your system is booting fine that doesn't mean it's skipping over USB, DVD, etc it may be checking these devices first.

I have already secure erased with parted magic and that has made no difference at all to the boot delay.

The drive is connected to port 0, but I also tried port 4 and 5 which is the last one. I have also tried with & without the WD HDD disks connected, i.e, the SSD was the only drive. The delay remains. I have opened a service request ticket with Intel. At my last interaction they were unable resolve the issue. I am awaiting further response from them.

In an attempt to experiment further I flashed the motherboard BIOS with older versions all the way upto 3822 (6 variants). The delay still remains.

Will inform what Intel has to say about this.

Thank you.

Edit:

In my earlier interaction with Intel I did send them links to this thread and the one with DP55SB. Is there any way you can take this up with intel? May be you'll be heard better?

RAM GUY would it be possible to merge these topics?

 

ajay see my other post and see if any of this helps:

Also can you disable the Intel splash screen so that you can actually read the POST, that way you can see for sure where it is getting locked up.

 

This would be the one case where I would try setting the controller to IDE instead of AHCI, also I would disable boot from USB devices in the BIOS if you have the option. I've seen scenarios where a POST will be significantly delayed because it's probing USB ports too long looking for boot up devices. Make sure the SSD is set to the 1st in the list for the boot order. Even if your system is booting fine that doesn't mean it's skipping over USB, DVD, etc it may be checking these devices first.

 

In a nutshell, I would put the latest version of the BIOS back on and I would play with BIOS settings, those related to IDE/SATA controller specifically.

Oh dear! Are you guys reading my mind?

IDE/AHCI was the very first thing I tried the day I installed the SSD. Of course IDE zooms by easily. AHCI is where the trouble starts. I must have AHCI or not have a computer at all. Otherwise the OS will not install/boot. The SSD is the first drive and is bootable. All other drives including USB and CD boot have been disabled. Network boot too has been disabled.

Tomorrow I will inform what happens when I turn the splash screen off.

Oh dear! Are you guys reading my mind?

IDE/AHCI was the very first thing I tried the day I installed the SSD. Of course IDE zooms by easily. AHCI is where the trouble starts. I must have AHCI or not have a computer at all. Otherwise the OS will not install/boot. The SSD is the first drive and is bootable. All other drives including USB and CD boot have been disabled. Network boot too has been disabled.

Tomorrow I will inform what happens when I turn the splash screen off.

 

What do you mean by the IDE zooms by? When you set it to IDE mode the computer boots faster?

 

You do not need AHCI, if you set it in the BIOS then Windows will not boot but thats because you have to adjust the registry beforehand. AHCI is NOT required for TRIM support and is really only useful if you're hotplugging SATA drives. Other than a possible performance bump there is not much advantage to AHCI that I can think of. If IDE works better on your machine then I would definitely suggest it.

IDE mode set in BIOS leads to no delay and almost instantaneous detection of all drives including SSD.

I must have AHCI because I am not using Windows but a variant of UNIX which demands AHCI to boot or even install. Even for the firmware update I had to install W7 to a new HDD, which is erased now that the firmware is updated.

Sorry, I didn't know you were running Unix. You didn't have to install windows 7 to do the firmware update, a PE would have done fine.

 

But anyways, I don't think there is a solution to your problem so I would in your scenario try another Unix variant with similar features that does not require AHCI if possible, I find it kind of weird that it requires AHCI, what if you had IDE drives?

 

I'm afraid there is no other solution if you want to use this drive with this laptop. I don't think you can count on either Intel or Corsair to release a fix simply for this issue so you would be wasting your time otherwise.

First this not a laptop, it's a desktop, custom built.

The problem is quite early in the boot stage much before the splash screen or any text appears. It happens immediately after the beep. During this time the computer does not respond to any user input from keyboard except for ctrl-alt-del. It also locks up the machine for 30 seconds & one cannot enter the BIOS screen. Once I take the SSD out this lock-up delay is gone.

If anyone can do anything about this it is either Corsair or Intel. They all say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

It is broke so please fix it.

One can toss out responsibility or take charge and co-operate to iron out the issue. Of course ignoring the customer completely and let him learn an expensive lesson, is always an option.

 

1 corsair 8GB Voyager USB flash drive died soon after it was gifted to me by a cousin. He had the invoice, so it was RMAed and after about 10 days I got a new one. A bit embarrassing.

This system I built has 4X2GB Corsair 1600 DDR3 RAM sticks. It took me a second motherboard and 4 days to find that 1 of the new RAM sticks was faulty. It was RMAed and another 10 days before I got it.

The 3rd Corsair product is this SSD.

The writing's on the wall, my dear friend. I never had a RAM stick fail on me in the past 20+ years. I have used SCSI and Fiber channel disks without detection issues. I have used 15+ intel boards and not once come across drive detection issues.

There's always a first time for everything. But this works both ways does it not? Maybe AMI has a flawed BIOS and something was overlooked. Sandforce 2.0 firmware is quite recent and feedback would be just starting. Is is not possible they overlooked something and it now surfacing?

If the delay occurs before the text appears then that is a very strange issue, that means it is locking up the computer before it even begins probing for drives.

 

I've built six custom computers since 2003 all with Corsair RAM and never had a failed module, sometimes there is luck involved unfortunately.

 

I know Intel makes very stable motherboards, but they are often lacking in BIOS options. I completely overlooked that you had a desktop because I haven't seen somebody use an Intel desktop board in a custom built machine ever in my experience. Yes it is quite possible that this issue has been overlooked because of the rarity of Intel boards. Sure they are popular in OEM machines but I don't see many user requests for people putting SSDs in OEM desktops. Most people I've seen are putting the drives in either OEM laptops or custom desktops with Asus or Gigabyte boards.

 

I wonder if Corsair has an Intel desktop board at their lab and then they could look into the problem, but like I said before I if I were you I'd move on from this issue and either find another purpose for the drive or use it in IDE mode with another OS because you'd just be wasting time and losing productivity waiting for a firmware release or BIOS update.

I understand your point.

Intel called me today morning and informed that they tested 3 Intel, 1 Partriot and other competing brand SSD drives on the board in both AHCi and IDE. There are no delays on any of them. Naturally they asked me to get in touch with Corsair again.

I patiently explained to them that this can be resolved only by co-opeartion between Corsair and Intel. Upon which I was informed that they would extend fullest co-operation if Corsair got in touch with them.

So can anyone from Corsair please help?