Dead after three weeks: Corsair Extreme Series 256GB SSD X256

In less than three weeks my, Corsair Extreme Series 256GB SSD X256 CMFSSD-256D1, has died.

 

I am running a duel boot system with vista 64 on a traditional "platter," drive and Windows 7 64 on this Corsair SSD.

 

Long story short, I had the computer booted in W7 and I left the room for a few minutes and I heard the familiar sound of my computer booting into Vista (vista is my default OS), so the computer must of BSODed and rebooted.

 

I have a Corsair 800D case and all of my hard drives are in the hot swappable bays (I have a 500 gig, a raptor 150 gig, a 1 terragig and the Corsair 256 SSD). I have tried to switch the Corsair SSD in every other hotswap bay, but everytime I put it in a different bay, bios does not recognize anything in that sata port!

 

I made every attempt to resuscitate the SSD I disconnected every hard drive except the corsair SSD and bios did show it! However, that is as far as the positives go. Even though bios will show the SSD when all of the other HDs are disconnected, it will not boot up off of it and I can not "repair," it either. When I try to repair it using my OS disk, it does not show the drive as an option in the list of available drives/os. Also, if I try and do a complete reinstall of the OS it does not show the SSD as an option either

 

Also, when I reboot the computer and go into bios, it does not list the SSD anymore, however, if I switch the SSD to another hot swap bay and reboot, then it will show it again in the Bios. I have been tampering with this for hours and am at my wits end.

 

I have come on the forums here and see that this is a common & major issue and I would like a full refund but my seller will only provide exchanges for the same "DEFECTIVE," product. Also, I see that Corsair's solution is to replace your drive with a "lesser," model which is also pure crap because a lesser drive is not what I paid for!

 

Its bad enough that I lost all of my critical data that was on that SSD, but now I am told that I must keep replacing the product with a defective product or accept an inferior model? I need a better alternative here or else, this will be my last corsair purchase.

It's not a common or major issue at all, and RMAing it would replace it with the same part number. Fill out an RMA on the left and then contact customer service as you are seeking something "alternative".

Thanks Ramguy, I just got my RMA number today and will send it out. Thanks for the quick and prompt service!

Thanks Ramguy, I just got my RMA number today and will send it out. Thanks for the quick and prompt service!

 

Actually it is a common problem. This is the 7th person on here describing SSD drives that can't be found by the bois then in some cases found again but the OS connection is gone. You're not alone dude. We feel it too.

 

What socket chipset are you using?

Actually it is a common problem. This is the 7th person on here describing SSD drives that can't be found by the bois then in some cases found again but the OS connection is gone. You're not alone dude. We feel it too.

 

What socket chipset are you using?

 

Im using an LGA 775 Asus P5Q Pro mobo, 8 gigs of Gskil DDR2, with a Q9650 ocd to 4ghz, powered by a corsair HX1000 PSU.

 

The one big positive I can say to all of this was the Corsair 800D hot swappable bays made my life easier in the troubleshooting department. I remember crimping and cutting my fingers trying to plug and unplug smooshed hard drives in hard to reach places with my Antec 900.....uggg it was a chore just to connect and disconnect one hard drive...the 800d made it so freakin easy to swap out four hard drives multiple times!

7 people out of 50,000+ is not that out of line, please don't jump to conclusions

 

Computer equipment, much like baked goods, comes in batches and sometimes the cupcakes are perfect and moist with the correct balance of sugar, flour, butter, cocoa, etc and sometimes the pastry chef has a hangover from the night before because he found out his wife is sleeping with the neighbor, his daughter is pregnant from the same neighbor and his dog has herpes (yes, from the same neighbor too), so he just wants to die, yet he soldiers on and makes the crappiest batch of cupcakes in his distinguished 20 year career and unfortunately after he jumps off a bridge later that day he is only remembered by that last crappy batch of 7 cupcakes and not the 50,000 award winning "to die for," cupcakes he made prior too.

 

Yes, I am rambling, and yes I minored in statistics and I could probably throw some theory up here about the Sampling distribution, standard deviation, or sample medians from the total SSD population versus corrupt SSD population, but I am too lazy and really, all I want is my working SSD back so I can load my games back on it and be distracted from random internet ramblings about cupcakes.

I am completely disgusted with Corsair. My replacement X256 has died in less than five hours and I now have another $600 paperweight.

 

Here is the thread with my original problem:

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=87524

 

Today, 6/18/10 at 4:40pm I received my replacement X256. I put it in my computer and installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 64-bit on it. Then I installed Rise of Flight, then I installed steam with Dirt 2 & Grand Theft Auto IV, then I installed track IR 5, and then I installed the drivers for my Logitec G940. Then I went to dinner.

 

I came home from dinner and booted up my computer and guess what? NO BOOT, just the standard message telling me that I need to configure my bios for a proper boot device. I go into bios and it does not recognize the new X256. I tried it in all of my other Corsair 800D hot swap bays, and tried to reboot, but I GOT NOTHING. This drive is as dead as the original that I purchased, only this one died in less than five hours whereas my original lasted 3 weeks.

 

WTF CORSAIR!!!! IM DONE, IM TAPPING OUT, I DONT WANT THIS POS SSD ANYMORE AND I DEMAND CORSAIR DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT NOW! AND I AM NOT GOING TO PAY FOR RETURN SHIPPING AGAIN EITHER SO GET IT TOGETHER OR IM SUING.

 

PS

 

I told the RMA customer support on the phone that I DID NOT WANT ANOTHER EXTREME SERIES X56 AND TO GIVE ME A PERFORMANCE SERIES INSTEAD AND THEY SAID THEY WERE GOING TO DO THAT, BUT THEY DID NOT. I also included in my return packaging a nice typed message indicating that this was to be exchanged with a performance series model, but apparently you people can't remember anything (just like your Solid State Drives) and you can't read either. I am sick of being understanding and I am no longer calm. I WANT MY FVCK1NG MONEY BACK.

 

Oh and its not my hardware, with my first SSD I was running an ASUS PQ5 Pro with a Q9650, and 8 gigs of ******** ram, but since my SSD died with all my stuff on it I upgraded while I was waiting for the replacement and I now have a Rampage III, 980x and 12 gigs of Corsair dominator Ram...so this problem has spanned from the C2D series to the top of the line I7 series.

Alright now that I got to scream and shout and jump up and down and feel better about myself. What do I do now?

 

Do I have to fill out another RMA to return the piece of junk that replaced my piece of junk? Is this part of an ongoing RMA and my original RMA carries over?

 

Will I actually get a different model besides the Lemon Extreme series this time so I can actually use the product for the reason that I purchased it for. I mean this is extremely fun and all with it breaking and not working and me having to call up microsoft and all of the video game companies and getting new software keys because they are getting wasted on defective harddrives, but I would eventually like to move on and be able to install my stuff and not have to worry about it being there every reboot.

1. Contact customerservice@corsair.com

2. You won't need new keys for your software with the possible exception of your Windows OS.

Wrong, I have several games that have a fixed number of installs, so far I have used four on each of those games.

 

First install was for my old harddrive

Second install was for the new Corsair X256

Third install was for the RMA X256

Fourth install is now to an old Raptor drive so I can use my W7 and games while I wait

 

and now I will be working on my fifth install once I receive another "replacement." :mad:

Thanks again for your replys wired and ramguy. It is very frustrating and I know it is not actually corsairs fault as they don't actually manufacture these things. These issues with SSDs seem to be affecting several manufactures and several models...

I just got off tech support with Carlos and customer service with Jellaide and they were very professional and helpful. They said that they will move me into the P series, which is fine by me as long as it works. I have backed up all of my Windows 7-64 to my old 150gig raptor drive from 2007, so I can still get my gaming on and yes there is no comparison to even the fastest rpm raptors with 16mb cache to these ssds with 64-128mb of cache.....the SSds complete me (when they work).

 

Now my final question is, is there anything that windows 7 64 bit ultimate, may be doing that could possibly be the culprit here? Is there any special settings in bios or whatever that needs to be made? As I mentioned earlier, I had a core 2 quad Q9650, Asus P5q Pro, 8 gigs of ******** ram and now I have upgraded to an Asus Rampage III, 980x and 12 Gigs of Corsair D2000 ram. So its basically the same problem over two different computers and generations, is there any possible way that windows 7 64-bit (or bios) is to blame for this and if so what adjustments can be made so I can prevent any possible other problems.

 

Thanks again for helping....my sanity is slowly returning.

Are you using any third party software we have not talked about on the forum?

If you are cloning a HDD to the SDD what application are you using?

Are you using the Intel Controller or some other on board controller like Marvell?

 

1) Not using any third party software.

 

2) Not cloning HDD to SDD, don't even know how to do that. Everything I did was a fresh install.

 

3) I am not sure? I am now running a rampage III and I installed the drivers which were on the disk. How do I check?

Are you using the Marvell S-ATA 3.0 Ports? What port do you have the SSD's connected to on the MB and does the Marvell Raid BIOS load and boot?

 

I have tired every sata port. Remember I have a corsair 800d (which I love btw) and I have four of my satas hooked up to the hot swap bays so it is easy to switch in and out and test drives. I have even tried the sata 6 ports, when I troubleshooted.

 

In the boot process I belive it says marvel version 1.014 (I will verify next time I boot)

 

Also, this same problem existed with my old setup, which was an older Asus P5Q pro so I doubt its any specific controller with the mobo. I am only using one SSD and that is the Corsair extreme that I have sent back for the second RMA. I already know that there is a problem with the extreme series, I am just trying to figure out if there was anything else that may contribute.

 

I mean why did the first one last three weeks, but the second one only last 4-5 hours? I am trying to figure this out, to see if there is anything with the Rampage III that would accelerate whatever it is that causes the drives to fail.

 

I looked over the Windows 7 advice posts and those were very informative!

Can you call in when you are in front of the system? 800-205-7657 and ask for Ram Guy!

 

Ah, just saw your post and called but its 5:57 est so I imagine you guys are done for the day over there as it goes to voice mail. Ill call again tomorrow.

 

Also, I would like to add a major Kudos to you guys, most companies would have erased my email when I had the hissyfit breakdown after the replacement RMA died, but you all dealt with it and are now seeing me thru it! I appreciate that and I feel bad about my douche attitude earlier... I just wanted to say thanks and kudos for leavin this out there to show customers you care and will work with the issue no matter how difficult they become.

I just wanted to update this. I received a replacement P256 yesterday and have been givin it the run thru. I did all of the tweaks and tips in the Windows 7 threads here and everything is working perfectly. Of course time will tell, but so far I am very happy with the replacement. I just wanted to thank ramguy and wired again for their help and patience. Thanks again Corsair, the customer service has been amazing!

and yes of course we will pay the shipping both ways for all second RMA's.

 

You guys pay shipping for second RMA's as a rule, or only when they are within a few days of each other? Because I just had to RMA a pair of X64 Extreme's for the second time. The first time was because the drives locked up (not firmware related). The second time, they straight up failed. There was a 4 month period of operation between the two RMA's. Unfortunately, I already mailed them, so a free shipping label doesn't really help me, but perhaps the knowledge will be of use in the future.