1.3 Firmware for Force GT 120 GB - Is it compatible with Windows 7 64bit?

Half a year ago, I built an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (6x3200MHz) based Windows7 Pro 64bit system with ASUS M4A89GTD PRO - USB3 (6xSATA3), 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3 2x4GB 1600 MHz Memory, XFX ATI Radeon HD6950 and a couple of Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB HDDs as basic spec of the system. A month ago I added to it as a boot drive Corsair Force GT 120GB. After I set my ASUS BIOS - Main Screen - Storage Configuration to ACPI and applied the recommended registry patch, the ATTO Disk Benchmark showed the write & read speeds pretty well in accordance to what the box was promising (around 555MB/s read & 515MB/s write) and Windows 7 got the drive evaluation 7.9. The whole computer jumped in Windows 7 evaluation to 7.6, what felt all right, but what was really pleasant was that the Boot up of the system got 2-3 times faster.

 

In about a month of use of Force GT SSD, the computer got stuck about 3-4 times - just dead - it needed the push-button.

More frequent was a funny accident, when you shut down the Windows 7 with the option of reboot, you would leave and when you returned the computer was hanging on another strange feature of W7, the automatic Startup Repair. It happened maybe about 7 times. W7 fails to do anything. What helps is the manual shut down, waiting 20 seconds and then booting back into the system. It worked each time and the system was running as if nothing happened. I never lost any data, neither the system got corrupted, it was just bugging a little bit. That's why I decided to update my firmware 3-4 days ago, when I found the Yellowbeards's post on firmware 1.3.

 

I do believe, I was doing the firmware update the right way: I had the newest version of BIOS (1 month old), I was in ACPI mode, I applied the registry patch and I have chosen the Compatibility Mode of running the "SSD Firmware Update Tool" as an Administrator. I repeated all these presets each time I changed the system. I can read and understand that you have to choose the update file with the same signature number (there were only 2 options, you cannot make a mistake). Unfortunately, no matter what I was trying, I always got the Force GT 120GB drive detected, but the update has always failed with the Fatal Error 00000057. I worked always in the default NTFS format.

 

First I tried to apply the update from my W7 64bit system on Force GT, but it failed.

So, I wiped off both partitions on the Force GT drive (by using Acronis Disk Director): the W7 system operated little 100MB primary one and my Windows 7 C: primary partition as well. I reinstalled W7 64bit on Force GT, installed the basic MoBo software and tried to apply the firmware update 1.3. It failed.

 

So, I unhid an old original W7 system on one of the Barracudas' partitions and tried to apply the update from there. It failed.

I deleted the partition on Barracuda & rebuilt it with fresh W7 64bit system and the update from there failed.

I wiped off the Force GT partitions and created a normal storage NTFS primary partition on it instead. I tried to update the firmware both ways, from the Barracuda W7 system partition or by running it from the Force GT storage partition. It failed.

 

So, I wiped off anything on Force GT (with Acronis), now it was a raw unformated disk and it still got detected by the Update Software running on the Barracuda W7 system partition, but the update to firmware 1.3 failed.

I really don't give up easily, but I am at my wits' end. I think, these things should work little bit easier. Normal user should be able to do it. Just like BIOS Update.

 

Yellowbeard forgot to mention in his post, if the update to firmware 1.3 works on 64bit systems. Maybe, that's the problem.

I always ended, after trying to update, with a big red X over the drive icon as you, hopefully, can see in attached picture.

I am wondering, if the new Force GT SSDs in the retail stores are supplied with the new firmware? I have paid for the exchange warranty and my favourite store is out of stock and getting some new Force GT drives this week.

 

I would appreciate very much any advice. Thank you. I know, it's a long post (but it's a long story)...

Is AHCI enabled in the BIOS and Operating System? (Refer to motherboard user manual).

Same error message for me. W7 64bit with GA-880GA-UD3H Gigabyte mobo, hexcore processor. Happened on a Force 240 Gb drive. I have 2 240 Gb's and one 60 Gb - all with the same problem. In order to get the system to boot at all with the drive I had to hot plug it. The AHCI driver allowed that and the drive was recognized. What a PITA this is!!!

Tried to do the upgrade on another machine - XP64. The drive was connected to a SATA3 PCIE controller under an AHCI driver. The software could not detect the drive.

I read through firmware update manual and yes, I enabled the AHCI inside the BIOS and I applied the MS registry "Fix it" patch enabling AHCI. I even manually checked it inside the registry.

The drive is sitting on one of my six SATA-3 ports. I do not have an internal SATA-2 connector to try.

If the firmware updating software cannot detect the drive, the usual problem would be that you forgot to right-click on Corsair_FieldUpdater icon - choose Properties - Compatibility tab - tick off the "Run this program as an administrator" - OK it. Now try to run it again. It should detect the drive. My problem is that I cannot get past this point. The update always fails.

The second system I tried was XP64. The run as admin is not needed there if you are logged in as an admin. On the W7 system I tried, I did have to use the run as admin approach. Neither worked.

Have either of you tried switching the SATA controller drivers as noted in the .PDF file?

Not sure what you mean by switching the drivers. In both cases I tried I was using up to date vendor (not MS) AHCI drivers with a fresh BIOS update. As far as I know I have done everything the instructions suggest, and some more. Since my W7 machine won't boot with the drive on board, I hot plugged it. The AHCI driver allowed that and I could see the drive in Windows. In that case I got the 57 error as shown in the screen capture above. With XP64, the update program could not find the drive.

I did a fresh install of W7 on the original W7 machine (both 64bit versions). To save time, I did not install the updates that I did install in the first instance. Both cases were fresh installs. I was able to update one 240 and one 60 Force drives, but not the third which was another 240. The third drive is not recognized by the BIOS, W7 or the update program. So I am now wondering if the failure in the first case has something to do with W7 SP1 or one of the W7 updates. As for the third drive, it must have another problem.

After much difficulty I was able to reflash two of my three Corsair Force 3 drives. I can see some improvement, but they still drop out pretty frequently. They do come back, but the performace is still totally unacceptable. Corsair - what are you going to do for your customers to make this right????

I gave it a little bit more try.

I called the Corsair Support and I was told that 1.3 Firmware is supposed to work fine in 64bit systems, i.e. it should work in Windows 7 64bit.

The Technical Support, on the other side, was underlining the conflict with Marvell SATA Controllers. I found that my controller is not Marvell, but JMicron JMB36X. This can be found in Device Manager under Storage controllers. I downloaded the newest driver for my JMicron Controller at JMicron web page and installed it. Then I tried to apply the update to Firmware 1.3, but it failed with the same error as the capture above is showing.

I tried to get the newest AHCI driver and that was the AMD one, published together with Catalyst 11.8. I installed it and tried to update the Force GT 120GB Firmware to 1.3. Unfortunatelly, it failed with same error again.

These last trials have been done from the Windows 7 Pro SP1 64bit running on my Force GT 120GB SSD that I was trying to update.

During the experiments I tried 2 cables (one of them prooved to be faulty) and 2 different SATA ports.

And now, I am reading the post from brucegriffin mentioning possible conflict with W7 Service Pack 1. All my new installations have been done with a slipstreamed W7 64bit Pro Installation Disk, which had SP1 included. I think, I'm gonna try the bare W7 without SP1. Thanks, brucegriffing, for an idea.

You know, the SSDs are part of our crazy world, where everything keeps changing. The new technologies come with new exciting features, but also with some bugs. Yet, we are all so lured to those untested territories that we don't mind to pay sometimes a really hefty amount of money to get a place between the guinea pigs.

We volunteered to test a new technology. The new generation will probably improve. The Sandforce controllers have still problems. It will get fixed. I think the stability of the drive at this point depends from lucky or unlucky and not always predictable circumstances caused by the interaction with the rest of the hardware & software in the system and the companies manufacturing the SSDs are'nt still up to be able to solve this problem.

When I bought the Force GT, I was first running it in IDE Mode. It was running only about half a speed and crushing more frequently. After I switched to AHCI, my Force GT started to run pretty well the promissed transfer speed and got much more stable. Actually, I mostly like it and I could live with it as is. I just thought, it could be even better.

Hey man, brucegriffing. You found it! Force GT Firmware 1.3 does not seem to like Service Pack 1 of W7 64bit. That's probably, what kills it.

I picked your idea of possible trouble with SP1. I had an empty space on my Seagate Barracuda HDD. I made my system partition on Force GT inactive and hid both partitions on it (the System one & the System Controlled one). Then, I installed Windows 7 Pro 64bit without SP1 in my free space on Barracuda. First thing after installation, I disabled Windows updates. I did not bother to install any motherboard software. I ran the update to Firmware 1.3 and it went through without any problems. Thank you very much.

So, I guess, the software, which kills the firmware update is:

1. Most probably Service Pack 1 of Windows 7 64bit as you mentioned or

2. maybe, the motherboard software. You seem to have similar AMD 6-core processor even though I have an ASUS motherboard and you have Gigabyte.

But in any case, the raw Windows 7 64bit from another HDD worked for me. What a pain was this! Thank you one more time and good luck with your SSDs.

I finally got the 1.3 FW on here after reading some of the posts...I formatted my GT installed w7, ran no updates and no drivers...just fresh windows and it updated in a few seconds...then I recovered my system with Acronis and everything is fine :)

I managed to do the firmware upgrade running Windows 7 64 ultimate with SP1. I did have trouble initially, but that was due to problems with my BIOS settings, not the windows version.

I managed to do the firmware upgrade running Windows 7 64 ultimate with SP1. I did have trouble initially, but that was due to problems with my BIOS settings, not the windows version.

 

What BIOS settings? please expand, thank you.

I have win 7 SP1, I upgraded to 1.3 jsut fine, but could not upgrade from 1.3 to 1.3.2 or 1.3.3. I kept getting the fatal error code 57.

 

I found this post: http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90398

 

and rolled back my driver and now the update worked with no problems! :-)

 

Not sure if I should reinstall the old driver now that I have updated or just leave it as it is.....

After the update I still keep getting a ton of BSOD's, I tried reinstalling the newest driver but I still get more BSOD's with 1.3.3 then I did with 1.3 :-/

I BSOD about once every hour or so. I almost always BSOD straight away if I run more then one instene of the Rift game client under the Inner Space launcher.....

Alos playing digital media like movies and espacially in Firefox, BSOD's me almost always.