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Reactor 120 not showing in bios


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Yesterday I received my brand new Reactor 120GB SSD. It is a replacement for the stock HDD in my Acer aspire 8930g laptop.

 

Installed the SSD and booted for the first time with only the SSD connected and bios did not recognize it. I figured it was not properly pushed into the sata dock so I replaced it again and bios was able to recognize it. Set it to first boot device and checked if sata mode was AHCI.

 

Installed windows 7 and had no problems whatsoever. After installing the proper drivers and some apps I needed to reboot the system and bios was unable to recognize the drive. I removed all power from the laptop including the battery and bios was able to recognize the drive after it was all plugged in again. After windows was booted I checked if AHCI mode was still active in windows. All was right.

 

After another reboot the same happened all over again so I figured lets try another bios for the Acer. I tried 3 different bios versions but all had the same problem. To make sure the laptop wasn't the problem I tried the SSD in another system. I have a P55 motherboard from gigabyte in my normal desktop but even there it sometimes disappears from bios. It doesn't happen all the time but 3 out of the 10 times it boots the bios doesn't recognizes the drive.

 

I've read this forum and found out I am not alone here. It seems to be Reactor related and especially if running it with an intel chipset. I will try a sanitary erase when I get home and then recovering the backup image I made to see if this will solve the problem but I really think this problem will be firmware related. Since no firmware update is available or even planned for the reactor series I really do not know how this problem will be solved. I also read that all the reactor drives that had been RMA'd were tested by corsair but they were not able to recreate the problem. Could this be because you have a special test system that's slightly different from regular systems?

 

Please corsair enlighten me :D:

 

(Sorry for my English as it is not my native language.)

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  • Corsair Employee

I would suggest we get the RMA and as long as you are in the USA send the drive to us and we can try to duplicate the issue but we have not been able to duplicate that issue At this time that is correct and we use standard desktop MB's usually purchased at newegg so there is no special system.

Just before you send it in call in and ask for me and I will tell you how to send it.

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Yesterday I received my brand new Reactor 120GB SSD. It is a replacement for the stock HDD in my Acer aspire 8930g laptop.

 

Installed the SSD and booted for the first time with only the SSD connected and bios did not recognize it. I figured it was not properly pushed into the sata dock so I replaced it again and bios was able to recognize it. Set it to first boot device and checked if sata mode was AHCI.

 

Installed windows 7 and had no problems whatsoever. After installing the proper drivers and some apps I needed to reboot the system and bios was unable to recognize the drive. I removed all power from the laptop including the battery and bios was able to recognize the drive after it was all plugged in again. After windows was booted I checked if AHCI mode was still active in windows. All was right.

 

After another reboot the same happened all over again so I figured lets try another bios for the Acer. I tried 3 different bios versions but all had the same problem. To make sure the laptop wasn't the problem I tried the SSD in another system. I have a P55 motherboard from gigabyte in my normal desktop but even there it sometimes disappears from bios. It doesn't happen all the time but 3 out of the 10 times it boots the bios doesn't recognizes the drive.

 

I've read this forum and found out I am not alone here. It seems to be Reactor related and especially if running it with an intel chipset. I will try a sanitary erase when I get home and then recovering the backup image I made to see if this will solve the problem but I really think this problem will be firmware related. Since no firmware update is available or even planned for the reactor series I really do not know how this problem will be solved. I also read that all the reactor drives that had been RMA'd were tested by corsair but they were not able to recreate the problem. Could this be because you have a special test system that's slightly different from regular systems?

 

Please corsair enlighten me :D:

 

(Sorry for my English as it is not my native language.)

 

EXACT same problem I'm having dude but on a desktop.

 

Something is going on with these Reactor drives

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2 or three people with the same type of issue does not sound like a big problem, we need to test this to see what the issue might be. So far we have only seen a failing drive.

 

I've spent 1800 dollars trying to find out what the problem has been. If you had spent that kind of money you wouldn't be so caviler in dismissing the only link found in 2 months of searching.

 

The very fact he tried it in a laptop AND desktop with the same issue is the clincher aside from the rest of my own experience and those of others here all with different equipment accept for the drives.

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I am not caviler, and no matter how much you spend you may never find a solution with out the knowledge and equipment to detect the problem and then find a solution. And why I have asked that anyone with this get the RMA and then send the drive to us and let me know the RMA at least so we can test for that issue.
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I am not caviler, and no matter how much you spend you may never find a solution with out the knowledge and equipment to detect the problem and then find a solution. And why I have asked that anyone with this get the RMA and then send the drive to us and let me know the RMA at least so we can test for that issue.

 

I've already RMA'd one drive to you guys and described the problem. No one ever responded.

 

I've tried 3 different motherboards and 2 completely different setups including different power supplies and got the same problem.

 

I've filled out your questionaire in detail and have not heard back at all from anyone.

 

Remember you are dealing with people who cannot get their computers to work at all in a stable enviroment. Its extremely frustrating and for you to dismiss the only link we all share is going to get a reaction particularly when the problem has been going on for months.

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  • Corsair Employee
Once you get the RMA please let me know the RMA number and I will instruct you where to send the drive so we can test it here. If you are out side of the USA please just let me know where and the RMA number.
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I think sanitary erase did the trick. The drive now shows up. Rebooted the laptop over 30 times and so far so good. BTW I was never in America. I live in Holland. What if this drive will go beserk after a couple of days? Is there any RMA procedure for foreign customers? (Not that I hope I need it)

 

Thanx

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spaanplaat

I have explained that in my previous post.

Once you get the RMA please let me know the RMA number and I will instruct you where to send the drive so we can test it here. If you are out side of the USA please just let me know where and the RMA number.
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spaanplaat

I have explained that in my previous post.

 

Sorry, I overlooked it. But it seems the drive now works properly. Boot time is 28 secs and I'm still smiling. Seems my laptop is reborn but better and faster. I can't believe how much more responsive it has become after only upgrading the HDD. SSD's are definitely the way to go from now on. I just wished they would be a little cheaper. But that's the same story for all early adopters I think.

 

Thnx Corsair :D:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry to report back here so late, but I was on a business trip.

 

I will create a backup with accronis and then I will RMA the drive. It happened a couple of times again today. Might I ask what will happen next when I RMA the drive? Will I receive a replacement drive or do I need to wait for the results? I really need the laptop for business.

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  • Corsair Employee

As I mentioned in my previous post we have not been able to duplicate the issue in our Lab, so we really need to see your drive and see if there is a problem with the drive or some other issue.

We can do the RMA and replace the drive but I am not sure of the out come till we have identified the issue.

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Guys,

 

I am in Oz.

I have a disappearing r120.

A bios reset brings it back most of the time.

 

Other brands seem to respond to raising the south bridge voltage, I will see if I can do it with my ud7.

 

Derek

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To add further:-

 

The windows driver can have NO effect on the BIOS seeing the drive, so the driver update cannot be the solution.

 

At the present time I have raised the southbridge voltages by 10% to see what happens.

 

Derek

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I have the exact same problem as is described above on my girlfriends Toshiba Satellite A100-732 laptop. This laptop has the latest available BIOS installed (although this probably pre-dates SSD conception).

 

This laptop uses an Intel 82801 GBM/GHM ICH7-M SATA Controller.

 

Thankfully I only bought these drives a day or two ago, so I intend to have these replaced with a different model of SSD by the retailer.

 

Just thought I´d let you know that this problem exists. It would seem that the Reactor series are getting a reputation for being unreliable/incompatible with some systems...

 

Best regards

 

TFZ

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same problem here....

it´s my third R120 now , the other 2 i got replaced by the retailer because of this problem, SSD disappears every 3 or 4 boot.

 

And now even the third won´t work....

Corsair...i think it´s time to do something and to admit that there is a general problem with these drives......

 

i tried it with an AMD-Sys too, same problem!!!!

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While I noticed it mostly on the X58 platform, I also had some problems with it on the SB850 AMD until I did a few things.

 

1) AHCI must be enabled. The problem happens much less with that setting enabled.

 

2) Try to use shutdown over restart. Restart seems to cause the problem only.

 

3) On X58, it seems that devices get power whether the system is on or off, my USB laptop drive stays on whether the system is on or off. This might be a potential clue, while HDDs are powered directly from the PSU, so should not be effected, perhaps enough of a charge is running through the data cable to keep the SSD busy.

 

4) Latest drivers help. I have had the problem happen once since installing it in my current AMD setup, and it was right after a BSOD. Full power down and power up restored the drive and went on its merry way. IT used to have all sorts of problems both with this board and the Crosshair III

 

It appears to me to be almost like, the SSD is not shutting down properly on restarts and when the system powers back on the SSD is busy and does not respond to POST. This is over a lot of testing done with a few different X58 boards. On X58 shutting down was not enough to restore the drive and I would have to physically switch SATA ports to get it to initialize.

 

Mine is working great now on an AMD setup.

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  • Corsair Employee

I would agree most of the people having problems have been with Intel chipsets using the ICH 10 South Bridge we are testing now to see what the problem may be.

 

And techfreakz I merged your posts to this thread.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I would like share the experience I am having with a CSSD-R120GB2 in the hope it helps technical support in the analysis of the issue. I posted this on a thread about R60, not realising that there was already a thread open for R120 - so apologies if I broken any forum rules.

 

I took delivery of the drive last week, but since installation I've had some sporadic occurances, where on cold boot, the drive is not recognised by the BIOS. It's difficult to troubleshoot this type of issue but i've done the basics like changing sata port and cable. When the drive is recognised, it works very well and I've not encountered any other indications that would lead me to believe that the unit itself is failing. Indeed, issue aside, I am extremely happy with the perfomance in real world applications - especially given it's price point here in the UK.

 

Detailed specs are on my profile but the ASUS Blitz Formula motherboard I use has an Intel ICH9R southbridge and I've enabled AHCI in the BIOS. There is a later BIOS available for the Motherboard which I plan to update at the weekend to see if this has any bearing. I'll post an update if I find it fixes the problem.

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