Very long boot-up time!

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.

Thanks for merging my post into this thread as I'm facing exactly the same problem as ajaytanna!

 

While my Corsair F60 ist attached to port 0, The Samsung is attached to port 1. I use the latest Intel Bios and all other booting options (USB, ect.) are disabled.

 

So it must be a Intel-Corsair issue!

 

I think, Corsair and Intel should come together and have a look into this problem in order to solve it!

 

Martin

Hi everybody,

 

since Intel's last Update at 7/1/2011 for Board DP55SB (KGIBX10J.86A) the boot-up-time has become much shorter!

 

 

Martin