Solid State Drives (SSD)

[kmo_9000]

Alright so I am posting this as a kind of last resort, I've been dealing with random freezes with my system and after a lot of troubleshooting I think it might be related to the M4 SSD. Just to clarify, these are complete system lock ups. The entire computer will freeze, sound will loop and nothing will respond. It requires a hard reset to get it back up.

I have ruled out my ram, sound card, motherboard and cpu with relative certainty. After reading some threads here about people having the same problem I now belive it might be related.

I have done the following things since to try and resolve the issue:

Disabled LPM

Updated Firmware to the Latest 000F

Updated Intel Rapid Storage Driver

Reinstalled and Reformated 2 or 3 times

Windows is now Set to High performance and set to never turn off the Hard Disk

Power Cycled the Drive

I have also installed a bunch of updated drivers for other parts, mainly my sound card. The freezes seem to happen less frequently, but that's hard to tell because they were completely random to start with.

I'm just posting to see if I missed anything, I'm not too worried atm but I just don't have much time to troubleshoot over the next few weeks during class. If it still does it I will install windows on a HDD and play games for a week to see if it really is the SSD.

EDIT: 

One of the threads I am reffering to is this: http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Crucial-M4-128-GB-Random-Freezes/td-p/95787

Another thread where people are having the same problem is this: http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Freezing-of-the-OS-on-the-Crucial-M4/td-p/76674/p...

My problem is exactly the same as the first thread, but not so much as the others because I cannot move my mouse or input anything.

My system is this:

CPU: i7 3820

GFX: 6950 2gb Xfire

Mobo: Asrock X79 Extreme6

Ram: Gskill 16gb 1600 kit

Sound Card: Asus Xonar ST

[kmo_9000]

So... nothing? Today is tuesday and it just randomly froze again. I was browsing files on a usb device when it happend...

[Crucial_Junket]

Hi kmo_9000,

First of all I'm sorry to hear you are having issues with your system, however thanks for detailing what you have already tried as this helps a lot with trouble shooting.

How often are you getting the random freezing and are you seeing any pattern as to when it's happening?  For example is it when playing a game or just totally random?

I know you have likely tried it but as you have not said in the steps I thought I would check.  Have you tried a new SATA cable with the drive?

Power cycling should only be used when the drive can no longer be detected at all so that would not resolve the issue, I thought I would let you know so you don't try that step again as I know it can take an hour or so to do.

Have these issues been happening since you upgraded the firmware or has it also been happening before you upgraded to 000f?

If you are still having issues the drive will still be under warranty and we would be more than happy to arrange an exchange for you.  Just contact the customer service team direct HERE and they can arrange that for you.

[kmo_9000]

It is not isolated to firmware 000F as I remember it happening on previous firmwares.

As a matter of fact I did try a new sata cable just the other night, so I am testing it out now.

As far as a pattern, I cannot tell. I have tried to reproduce the problem by running prime while playing BF3 at the same time and the system would remain stable the whole time. While the next day I would be working on my paper with nothing but word and chrome open and it would freeze (full system lockup requiring restart).

I also plan to do a reformant and reinstal tonight to double check that all the most recent drivers are installed, after which I will run a bunch of differant programs to see if it happens again. If it still happens I will contact customer support and try to arrange a replacment.

[onyxius]

I just reformated and reinstalled and i still get the exact same issue.  I called crucial and come to find out even though i was on 0009 and the software said i didnt have to updated, we manually installed/updated to 000F and i'm a few hours in with no BSOD.  So I think we have fixed the issue by upgrading the ssd firmware to 000F.

Thanks Crucial

[kmo_9000 · Accepted solution]

Alright so I was a bit hesitant to post back too soon, but it's been about a month now and I stopped having the freezing issue.

I swaped out the old Sata cord I was using and hooked it up using a Sata 3 spec cable that came with my motherboard. Funny thing is I never had this issue with my HDD's, maybe the M4 is just too good.

I had a feeling that the solution would be a simple one.

[leonasc]

Any news on this?

My 256 GB m4 is having the same behavior on a Samsung Series 7 (Chronos). I've tried running it either as internal drive or in a USB 3.0 cage and in both situations it gives me a freeze from time to time.

I bought it to be able to run 2-3 VMs at the same time, but despite the first 3-4 weeks, where it worked great, it's being pretty annoying and counterproductive. I'm a little disapointed, to be honest, for I bought the drive hoping it would help me doing more, and not less. As a matter of fact I'm copying all my machines back to my internal hard drive to run from there. It's a lot slower, but more predictable.

[jamescock1]

ok i have the same problem ramdomally  freezes for no reason i have changed the sata cable tested memory graphic card etc all passing i have tried doing the firmware update and just get a message cannot find ssd that needs upgrading even though i have had the drive just over 1 year and never upgraded before so it cannot be a upto date firmware ?

evertime it freezes i get a blue screen i then reset and well behold all drives show up in the bios except the ssd its just gone till i turn of pc then restart and it comes back on i have also tested changing power supplies and get the same thing happens

i am running win 7 64 bit i have also tried moving the ssd drive (c) drive over to another drive and everything works ok i then copy it back to the ssd and it freezes so would suggst a fault with the ssd

[inhac]

Anyone with possible solutions to this?

I've been experiencing same freeze starting from about a week ago.

The freeze starts with a message from Windows not able to find files required, then the system stops responding.

Hard reboot gets me going for another 10 minutes or so....

Thx.

[Holt]

Do you hyve any HardDisk connected to the computer? Often what appears to be a freezing of the SSD is in fact the startup of a harddisk that was in Power-Saving and accessed by Windows, as Windows likes to wake-up all drives when an disk access occurs.