Vertex 3 sporadically disappearing

[abc1987]

Hi there,

I am having an issue with my 3XS Vengeance P67 OC in that the 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD has started intermittently disappearing from the system whilst in use - it seems to be when disk activity becomes more intense. The fault manifests in that Windows will suddenly lock up with no particular pattern to the error messages, and when I reset the system I find that the SSD is no longer listed in the BIOS and I get a black screen error stating that winload.exe can't be found. Turning the PC on and off causes the drive to re-appear and Windows to start functioning until it happens again.

I have tried reinstalling Windows on the SSD to ensure that it was not caused by some new driver issue on the old install, and the fault is still occurring.

Please could you advise on what needs to be done regarding this (I suspect the SSD may be faulty and needs replacing under warranty).

Thanks,

Alastair

[ik9000]

not sure if this entirely helps with why the machine crashes to start with, sounds a bit odd...

however with the SSD disappearing on restart - I get a similar thing if my machine crashes out. The bios resets to IDE mode instead of ACHI and hence it can't find the SSD. A quick bios tweak back to AHCI and moving the SSD back to primary drive let's it start up fine. After doing this a few times I got fed up and put a password on the bios which seems to have solved the problem - for now at least.

[Phage]

To reassure your self you could run SSD Life or AN Other freeware diagnostics on the SSD and see what it tells you.

[Butuz]

Early OCZ Vertex 3 had serious problems with dropping out / dropping off the system and only being fixed by a full power down (plug remove).

It is fixed by a firmware update. Cant remember the exact one but I used a beta firmware from 6+ months ago as I had to flash all my OCZ drives because of this problem and I'll never buy another OCZ product ever again. Would assume the latest firmware would sort it.

Butuz

[abc1987]

I did a Secure Erase of the drive using the OCZ Linux-based utility and a couple of other "fixes" that it showed in there. It seems to be OK again now - perhaps the Secure Erase has cleared whatever was causing the fault. The only thing that's changed now I've reinstalled Windows is that the performance rating on storage has dropped from 7.9 to 7.8 - not something to worry about so long as it hasn't taken a significant performance hit.

I tried to do the firmware update but it said my drive's firmware version (v2.02) was too old. I did read somewhere at OCZ that if it was that version there was some procedure to upgrade it to 2.08 first then the latest version - but I am thinking that if it ain't broke now, don't fix it . . .

Thanks for the help.

[SUMMONER]

Unfortunately that old saying doesn't apply to SSDs. Most new firmware releases address serious issues (some of which can cause drives to become inaccessible) and others simply improve performance.

[Butuz]

I tried to do the firmware update but it said my drive's firmware version (v2.02) was too old. I did read somewhere at OCZ that if it was that version there was some procedure to upgrade it to 2.08 first then the latest version - but I am thinking that if it ain't broke now, don't fix it . . .

Thanks for the help.

If it's running firmware that old then it is definitely broke and you should fix it. But I guess that's up to you!

Butuz

[abc1987]

It's never malfunctioned up until the last few days and when I tried to update the firmware from the Linux utility on OCZ's web site it refused, saying it was too old. I'm guessing I might need to try it again using the Windows toolbox and then it will do the thing of upgrading from 2.02 to 2.08 first (maybe), then 2.22. Unfortunately that means I'll need to install Windows on a partition on the storage drive first since it can't be done from the SSD installation (I thought of using recovery console from the Windows DVD but it needs a working network connection).

The PC is now boxed up for a house move I am in the middle of but once I get it out I will probably go back and do it. As I say something must have changed recently since it never happened until the last few days - it may well be that the old firmware renders it susceptible though.

Thanks again.

[Ben @ Scan]

Hi abc1987

Please email your build and invoice number to systemsupport@scan.co.uk and we will look into this for you

Regards

Ben

[Butuz]

I used the OCZ bootable CD image to do the firmware updates. Seemed to work fine. Hope this helps!

Butuz