Reappearing issue: raid drive unresponsive

Hello

 

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to post this.

 

I have 2 Force 3 64GB SSDs in RAID0, using Intel ICH10R.

The raid volume hosts windows 7, and the SSDs are brand new, I've had them for around 10 days.

I am very pleased with their performance, I get around 590MB/s read and 500MB/s write on a X58 board, so in theory I cannot get anything faster without a Sata 3 card.

 

However, I've had the raid freeze on me ( windows becomes completely unresponsive ), and after a reset, one of the drives dissapears from both the ICH10R raid bios, and the Gigabyte Bios. Trying to boot into linux using another drive, gives me a warning "softreset, device not ready" and I cannot boot into it either.

This has happened to me 3 times so far.

The windows 7 install is also brand new, and I have made sure not to load it with unessential stuff.

 

Could anyone please walk me through possible diagnostic tests for this issue ?

I have tried different sata ports on the motherboard, and the cables are also brand new.

 

The problem is resolved only after turning off the computer and turning it back on again.

 

Thank you

Hello

 

You need to have the latest INTEL OPTION ROM.

SSD RAID as far as I remember is supported since version 9.

 

Modified BIOS for Gigabyte x58 motherboards

http://www.jzelectronic.de/jz2/index.php?lid=dGlkPTIwMSZ0aGVtYV9pZD0zMzE3JmFjdD1BbnplaWdl

 

Be careful with INTEL OPTION ROM 11.

The Latest ROM in intel motherboards is 10.

 

http://downloadmirror.intel.com/20372/eng/SO2_0876_ReleaseNotes.pdf

 

Good luck

I am sorry I'm a bit confused.

I've already got latest BIOS version (fh1).

 

What is that modified BIOS you've linked me to ?

Should I update the ICH10R firmware by using the custom BIOS ?

 

Thank you for the help !

Modified BIOS contains OPTION ROM (oROM) updates for

 

INTEL ICH10R

Realtek Lan

JMICRON Controller

 

It's just standart Gigabyte bios with updated ROMs.

For example latest modified BIOS (28.07.11) Fh1 contains

 

1. Intel® RAID ROM 11.0.0.1124

2. Realtek LAN ROM 2.41

3. JMicron ROM 1.07.28

 

Gigabyte, ASUS does not update ROMs.

Only Intel offiсially updates ROMs into Intel motherboards BIOS.

 

Therefore there is a warning

Achtung ! Das Updaten geschieht auf eigene Gefahr !

which means

Attention ! The updating is done at your own risk !

 

And be careful with INTEL oROM v.11.0.0.1124.

Intel downgrade its oROM from v11.0.0.1124 (in bios version 0027) to v10.6.0.1091 (in bios version 0029) for this motherboard

http://downloadmirror.intel.com/20347/eng/DB_0029_ReleaseNotes2.pdf

 

Perhaps some problems occurs with the 11.0.0.1124 and Intel decided to back in 10.6.0.1091.

 

Latest oROM needs latest appropriate Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) driver (perhaps oROM v.11 needs Intel RST driver v.11)

 

Details here

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/961-AMI-bios-option-ROM-modding-old-title-Intel-ICH9R-7.6.0.1011-rom/page81

Core-X thank you very much for your help !

I'll read more into it, and see if I should downgrade the ROM.

 

Thanks again !

Hello

 

So, I did my reading, and I found out I have an old Intel option ROM v 8.9.something.

To make it even worse, I had the old Intel matrix storage v 6.9.0 which I updated to v10.6.

 

Should I go ahead and update the option ROM using the custom BIOS from the link you gave me ? It is my understanding that option ROMs are used before the OS loads, and in my case the problems have been always after the OS has loaded and I've been using the system for some time.

 

Please let me know.

Also, if this fails should I consider upgrading the SSD firmware too ?

 

Thanks !

PS: In case I brick my motherboard by using the custom BIOS, can i revert back to default BIOS or current updated fh1 ?

In your case, I would have

1) updated the SSD firmware to the latest;

2) updated motherboard BIOS to the latest modified (with latest oROMs) from the link I gave you;

3) rebuilt the array in the new oROM + updated RST to the latest.

 

And of course you can reflash any Fh1 to any Fh1 bios(with oROM v.11..., oROM v.10... or Fh1 from the site of Gigabyte with oROM v.8...).

 

You can test your array with latest RST and then decide about SSD firmware, oROMs updates.

So I have updated the BIOS and option ROM, I have updated the drivers, and I still get crashes, BSODs and in some cases, the RAID simply stops responding but windows keeps running until it restarts on its own.

In all cases windows 7 reliability indicates the culprit to be IAstorUI, which is the application that controls the ICH10R raid.

 

The only thing I have not done is update the firmware, simply because I can't since windows 7 run from the RAID.

 

So apart from buying another hard disk for installing windows 7, simply to upgrade the firmware of the RAID drives that windows 7 are installed on, what other options do I have ? Will the firmware upgrade work if I install windows 7 on a usb stick, and then run the upgrade from there ? Also, since I will have to stop the RAID and upgrade each drive individually, re-creating the RAID after the upgrade, will I lose my data or not ?

 

Thank you

Just for reference, I have now upgraded firmware to both SSDs to v 1.3.2 and I have also applied the LPM registry hack and by default turning it off on all ICH10R ports.

Bios is running latest update and I am using intel option ROM 10.6.0.

I am really hoping to not see another BSOD or freeze/crash, at which point I will have to return them and ask for a refund.

I realize the error is not on Corsair's part but on Sandforce's part, and that many companies have been having trouble with Sandforce chipsets, but I would expect a company with a pretty solid reputation in the market such as Corsair to have been more thorough with the chips they use. I do not like to be a beta tester, and I do not even want to image what would happen if I had used those drives in a critical system or a research lab.

 

Core-X thank you for your help.

You are welcome.

 

And yes. Now SF-22XX based SSD is not the best choice for the system that require rock stability.

I am having the same issue on 1 60gb Force 3, 3 times now it has become unresponsive so I had to hard reset the pc and when I do I can no longer see the drive without pulling both power and sata cables and then reattaching them. I am on the latest motherboard bio and latest Intel raid driver. I was about to update the firmware to 1.32 but I have to find an image program first. Does anyone else have any suggestions for my exact issues?

anyone have any advice and yes this is a bump.