Force GT 120GB - Disappears & BSODs

Guys, I have two Force GT 120GB drives in RAID 0 on the Rampage III Black Edition Marvell 88SE9182 Controller. Previous I had gone through two sets of ********-3 120GB SSD's. The commonality between these drives is that they both use the SandForce 3 controller.

 

Here was my issue with the ********-3 drives (bad firmware for one). One or both of the drives would disappear regardless of how I was using the PC. The system would then BSOD with no error message. Upon restart the drive or drives would not be detected. I would then have to power down the system entirely and power it back on for the drives to be detected. With the ********-3 drives on firmware version 2.09 this would happen a few times per month. When I moved up to firmware v2.11 (supposed to solve the BSOD issues) the BSODs would happen every few hours. Then ******** released v2.13 (again supposed to fix the BSOD issue). I flashed and started having BSODs on every single restart. Reinstalled my OS and still crazy BSOD occurrences. RMA'd the drives and received two new ones with 2.13 from the factory, starting BSODing several times a day. This exact BSOD issue is happening to about 54% of all ******** 3 series customers (all using SandForce controller).

 

I DITCHED ******** and bought two Corsair Force GT drives (very nice drives). They have been stable for several days, but last night while working in MS Word I had the same BSOD issue that I had with the ********-3 drives.

 

Questions:

• Is anyone else having this type of BSOD issue?
  
• Is this issue related to the SandForce 3 controller?
  
• Is this issue related to the motherboard?
  
• Is this happening to you on an Intel or Marvell SATA Controller?
  

 

Also, I'm running firmware version 1.3.2

My general recommendation is to avoid the Marvell controllers. Since you have seen identical problems with 2 different sets of SSDs, i suspect that the controller is the issue, not the drives. A clean install on the ICH10-R is probably your best bet if you chose to try to eliminate the BSODs.

Yes, that could be; however, there are many other users using the Intel z68 Sata III controller and the Intel x58 Sata II controller who have the exact same problem. Which leads me to believe perhaps it is an issue with the SandForce 3 controller. That seems to be the only commonality.

 

For instance, this user is having the same BSOD issue on the Intel SATA II Controller: http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99271

Yellow Beard, I saw a post by you stating that you were working closely with SandForce to iron out some BSOD issues on the Force 3 120GB. Those BSOD issues are basically the same as on the Force GT 120GB.

 

Any info from SandForce on this?

There's an update 1.3.2 firmware posted for the GTs in the firmware update section. The info in the change log is the only information that I can share.

so far 1.3.2 has proven stable.

so far 1.3.2 has proven stable.

 

I have the same experience till now.

:dunno: Nightmare, yeah I had no problems for the first week & then got a bsod then again a few days later & then a few times within a few hours & had enough & hastily bought a last gen ssd just so I'd have a reliable os drive then found the shop would be very awkward & unhelpful so had to use it as a paper weight or battle it out with getting the drive to work, chose to battle it out :D:, I updated the firmware but still got bsod's.

 

I never used to use ACHI until I seen it was highly recomended after buying a force 3 120GB so I thought screw it & put it in what I always used, IDE mode I get 100MB/s less speed & don't know if that's because of the firmware or IDE mode or both but it has been super reliable since 26th of September so I'll be keeping it in IDE mode & be happy it's now reliable which is most important to me for an os drive as I'm sure it is to others & is still waaaay faster than any last gen ssd so I'm happy with that :):.

 

Also I was unable to perform a secure erase on the drive, partedmagic said it was locked so had to skip that :confused:.

 

Would buying a good sata 3 controller card end the bsod issue do you think Yellowbeard, I have a feeling it's onboard sata controllers being the culprit if it isn't the current gen ssd's, either that or the drivers for ACHI which to be honest I don't know which ones to go for or where to get them, also could you enlighten me about why I was unable to secure erase the ssd?.