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Neutron 240 Firmware update with SSD Toolbox

eternitykh

By eternitykh
in SSD Firmware Update

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eternitykh

eternitykh

Posted
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ok i figured out what it was, it's corsair link that was messing with it.

 

when corsair link software is installed a background process will always run.

CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor.exe

 

it will auto-restart if you end it. and it locks exclusive access to the drive which was what gave me issues when trying to flash the drive.

 

I went ahead and uninstalled it rebooted with msahci and BOOM, reflashed successfully.

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Incriminated

Incriminated

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Wonderful. Glad to see it worked for you. I didnt mean to sound like disrespecting you, too. i was just confused about something locking or something beeing set-up wrong so i just want to make clearly sure, what could help.

 

I dont have that service at all...

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AHPD

AHPD

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Looks like you can only upgrade if it's not your OS drive. I'm not able to update the firmware on my GTX. I made two attempts:

 

1st, with Intel RST installed. Installation hung and all I could to is to turn off the computer. Booted fine.

 

2nd, uninstalled all Intel drivers and made sure the controller was the Generic M$ one. After several reboots to get rid of everything I tried to update. Hung for 1 minute and then suddenly rebooted. My motherboard did not recognize the drive. I thought my drive died.

Then I turned off power (switched off my power supply), wait 10 seconds, then turn on again. My drive is working fine, still on M206. No side effects so far in 20 minutes (BSOD's).

 

I ran AS SSD still with generic drivers and scored 700 points. Before I was scoring over 1000 points. I'll reinstall RST and see how it goes. I'll edit the post with my results.

 

Edit: Installed RST, scored 994 points. Since it's my OS drive, wouldn't score much better unless I wipe it clean. Anyway I'll wait for a fix. The main reason for upgrading is the improved 4K scores, would help in overall performance a little bit.

 

My hardware is a Intel Core i7 2600k, Gigabyte Z68XP-UD5, 16GB RAM.

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AHPD

AHPD

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No, and unplugging other drives doesn't make any sense at all. Why the toolbox would try to flash a Western Digital drive? The tool is fool-proof in this sense. The firmware update button is greyed-out on all my WD HDD's.

 

I did send TRIM using the tool, but I don't have speed issues I merely report that defaut MSAHCI driver isn't the best around. I'm currently scoring over 1000 points on AS SSD using Intel's RST 12.6.

 

To Corsair:

 

I'm not complain about my GTX drive and its performance. I complain that the tool isn't capable of flashing Corsair's own drives. It's listed as supported, able to find a update and able to flash it.

 

I do complain that such tool is versioned as 1.0, so it went out of beta with a potential of bricking final customer drives. I did not download a beta version of Corsair SSD Toolbox, so I believe such tool either did not had a Test/QA phase, or developers did not test at all while in Test/QA phase.

 

I'm not the only one with issues. One person reported in another thread that he flashed one drive successfully, and lost his other drive and RMA'ing it.

 

I don't have any "critical" data to lose on my SSD drive, so it can be "safely bricked". The problem is the frustration of RMA'ing the drive and waiting several weeks for a replacement, and in my case I cannot simply buy a replacement and wait RMA'ed drive to arrive. Therefore I won't try again unless a new version is made available.

 

Incriminated, of course that's not your fault, as you have already stated you don't work for Corsair and you're only trying to help. My complain is that Corsair has made available a non-funcional and harmful tool, which you have nothing do to with it.

 

Best regards.

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Chtilainlain

Chtilainlain

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I have found the solution. Firmware updated !! M206 => M208.

 

#1 I tried again with the Intel drivers and it's still KO.

Like the first time, when I decided to reboot my PC, The SSD is still not recognized .

I have to unplug the other internal storage disk (WD 3TO Caviar Black) and my 2 external USB3 drives (WD 3TO My book). Then , when the SSD is alone, the SSD is now recognized in the bios and my PC is booting OK and after I can plug the other disks and all is OK with the old firmware M206.

 

#2 This is the same for firmware update !! No need to change the Intel drivers.

I have to unplug (power) all my disks except the SSD of course and firmware update is completed and reboot is fine.

NB : Just after updating, the SSD Toolbox says "Firmware update completed", and it has still M206 written, but after reboot M208 is written.

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AHPD

AHPD

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Chtilainlain,

 

I went straight to your 2nd step and even crazier than that.

 

I opened the case and literally disconnected all other drives, while the OS was still running, then went to flash the firmware, and everything occurred according to your notes. Yes flashed successfully.

 

And I was using Intel RST.

 

So looks like if you have more than one SSD in your system, and the target SSD is not your system drive, you are screwed.

 

I could say the tool works, but with issues.

 

Thank you Chtilainlain for your time.

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Incriminated

Incriminated

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I answer you both in a raw, sry for mixing it a bit.

 

The tool worked for me and for thousands of other users. FW-update can always fail. The old tool had some guys bricking their SSD too, that will ALWAYS happen. This tool is functional, it has great features next to the FW-update that are worth a final-release and none of them is harm. FW-update is a risk and it is clearly stated that "things can go wrong"... of cause this does mean loose of DATA and you have to replace it after RMA it, or when it's out of warranty then you have to buy a new one and don't get a replacement. I can understand your frustration, but you cannot QA/Test FW-updates for all system-configurations out there. That's why you should try to minimise the risk for the sake of your own benefit. Your claim the Toolbox itself was the reason for the brick and not your system-configuration is not prooveable. But as of matter of fact, they do QA/Test every single FW-Update-file for all of the disks, to ensure exactly that the FW-update-process itself DOES NOT cause fails, so it's high likely your special system-configuration is pretty much the reason, really sry to say that this is my opinion.

 

Still the cause might be a BIOS bug causing the SATA-Controller to wrongly interprete certain commands... we dont know, but everone knows, FW-Update is NEVER secure! I did it about 5-times for my SSD, still when next one bricks it, I would not complain, but be lucky when it's within the warranty and I will stop upgrading FW when the warranty runs out.

 

The sense in unplugging all other devices is not because the toolbox might get confused (considering you only have one SSD of each kind) but to ensure no other drive sending/receiving or might having a fail just in that moment on the same SATA-Controller... i.e. other drive may try to power down (suspend) while FW-update is processing, you never know how such things affect the process ... unplugging others simply minimises the potential risks.

 

There's a note in the manual that FW-update is only supported in BIOS/OS AHCI-mode, and a note first to try your SATA-Controller-vendors driver and when that fails (did for mine AMD) try the MSAHCI-driver. One of them should do it. I personally think to FIRST try it with MSAHCI, but you should do what corsair suggests.

 

Needless to say you should remove any CPU/GPU-overclocking of cause, because of possible system-instability, no matter if the CPU/GPU isn't directly SSD related. Let's say you have eavy CPU-OC.. to your mind, all is prime-stable and file transfers show now corruption... but still errors may occur that the filesystem corrected using re-read if a rare-single-read/write-error happens... that would not work for a FW-update. If only 1 bit is transmited false you're drive is fired from duty! Also if your Memory-Subsystem/Third-Party-Driver quits the special SATA-commands during the FW-update with a BSOD, your drive is fired from duty. When GPU (running via PCIe, where SATA-Controller is connected, too) causes a fail of the system, the SSD is fired from duty. Any fail of a component that stops the system is of relevance and risk of that must be minimized.

 

Nothing of all these possible reasons is a fault of the Toolbox, remember that.

 

#1 I recommend ou to test this strange behaviour on another PC, just to make sure its not a BIOS-Bug before RMA the disk.

 

#2 is normal, see here:

http://www.corsair.com/us/blog/the-corsair-ssd-toolbox/

Picture 5,7 (exactly your example... M208 for Neutron GTX)

 

Considering that, congrats you found the solution on your own, but not necessary to report it to corsair ;):

 

Also there is this note under picture 7 regarding the last questions:

Corsair recommends that users update their OS drive as attached storage when possible. Some systems will require the SSD to be disconnected briefly before the new firmware version will appear in the Drive Information window.

 

Meaning:

1. This rec. isn't for fun: Updating the OS-drive might brick, you should generally attach it secondary, not only when encounteirng problems first. Clearly stated.

2. When version-number shows wrong after update, unplug the SSD from the PC (incl. power), wait about 30 seconds, replug: GO! Clearly stated.

 

That's why you you should read the manual before doing such possibly harmful things like FW-Update and claiming the Toolbox is harmful at all.

 

PS: Did I read correct, you HOT-unplugged your OS-drive while on power and immediately after that started the FW-Update?! Crazy, but respect for that kind of balls of steel! Hot-Plugging capability doesn't mean your OS is secure from BSOD when unplugging that disk :laughing:

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AHPD

AHPD

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PS: Did I read correct, you HOT-unplugged your OS-drive while on power and immediately after that started the FW-Update?! Crazy, but respect for that kind of balls of steel! Hot-Plugging capability doesn't mean your OS is secure from BSOD when unplugging that disk :laughing:

 

I hot-unplugged the mechanical drives. Disconnecting the SSD would lead to BSOD indeed. But I was so mad that wouldn't mind bricking the SSD anymore, I was willing to pay a price to see the results, so I started unplugging drives :P

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PeterPS

PeterPS

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After failing to update without changing anything...

I had to unplug all other drives [all spinning hard disks],

Changed IaStor driver to standart storahci [ there wasn't msahci driver listed as compatible],

Ended Corsair Link task, and

Disabled all intel RST services

 

it succeeded.

 

Ran ATTO bench, and the difference is very significant, even compared to the benchmark I did when the SSD Neutron GTX was new.

 

I have 4 benches saved, 1st when I got it, 2nd with 1 week of use, 3rd 2 months of use [06/03] and 4th made today [06/05] after the FW update.

 

1st http://dc688.4shared.com/img/_qBi7tLi/24-03-2013.png 3rd http://dc688.4shared.com/img/6StMdYSQ/03-06-2013.png 4th http://dc688.4shared.com/img/zzienpe9/05-06-2013-M208.png

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  • 5 months later...
bond101

bond101

Posted
Posted
After failing to update without changing anything...

I had to unplug all other drives [all spinning hard disks],

Changed IaStor driver to standart storahci [ there wasn't msahci driver listed as compatible],

Ended Corsair Link task, and

Disabled all intel RST services

 

it succeeded.

 

Ran ATTO bench, and the difference is very significant, even compared to the benchmark I did when the SSD Neutron GTX was new.

 

I have 4 benches saved, 1st when I got it, 2nd with 1 week of use, 3rd 2 months of use [06/03] and 4th made today [06/05] after the FW update.

 

1st http://dc688.4shared.com/img/_qBi7tLi/24-03-2013.png 3rd http://dc688.4shared.com/img/6StMdYSQ/03-06-2013.png 4th http://dc688.4shared.com/img/zzienpe9/05-06-2013-M208.png

 

 

 

Hi Man

 

Many thanks

 

 

I Follow your instructions and its works !

 

1 - I have problem with update freeze on 80%

 

Rebooted and not problem

 

2 - I have changed IDE ATA ATAPI CONTROLERS from INTEL to STANDARD ( JUST CLICK ON UPDATE DRIVER AND CHOSE FROM LIST )

 

Desactived all startup programs on msconfig and rebooted !

 

CTRL+DEL and finished all non windows services

 

Run toolbox and update all fine

 

 

Now it is M208 FIRMWARE

 

 

 

 

UPDATE

 

But here, the speeds appear to be downgrade, after M208 update

 

See

 

With M206

 

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/c/11/9pwe.jpg

 

With M208

 

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/c/842/fo6z.jpg

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bond101

bond101

Posted
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Toasted

 

Yes, i have tested ATTO with the same ambient like i have tested before FW update !

 

Yellowbeard

 

And do you know why the read speed down a little ?

 

Before update i get reads on ATTO like 555 every time !

 

 

Other thing....

 

 

My ssd make some noises when atto is running, i allready tried to see if this is a fan noise but not, the noise come from ssd !

 

A very small noise, only can hear if i place the ears on the hd area on notebook !

 

a noise like electrict noise "bizzzzzzzzzzzzz"

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