OCZ Vertex 3 was workign GREAT....until....

[Cykoth]

I just built a new system very recently. I used the Vertex 3 240GB SSD as my boot drive for Win 7 Ultimate X64. I have a Gigabyte Z68 motherboard, and I'm using the SATA III cable that came with the motherboard. Everything has been working GREAT. Then, all the sudden I come home today, fire up the PC, and BAM my SSD drive is not detected by the BIOS. Just so I'm clear, when I installed the drive I made sure AHCI was enabled in BIOS prior to installing Win 7. I was wondering if there is anything I can try to recover the drive? The BIOS detects my other peripherals (2 TB HDD and a DVD/CDROM drive) just fine. I know the SSD is solid state, but do they just go bad like that? It's my first experience using SSD.....by the way, my drive came shipped with 2.06 firmware. I've seen a couple of (terse) responses from OCZ staff saying if the drive is not recognized in BIOS, it's unrecoverable....so do I need to just start filling out the RMA?

Thanks for the help,

Cyk

 

[SnOop005]

GG

 

[Cykoth]

I'm sorry. I don't understand what you mean by

GG

If we were playing an online game I'd think Good Game....

Cyk

 

[nanaki333]

Clearly there is nothing wrong with your drive! You are just crazy!

Anyway, welcome to the club. I had several similar issues with vertex 2 and agility 2 drives not being detected by the bios. I had to rma the drives. My vertex 3 in my wife's computer sometimes bsod, but haven't had the dreaded stuck drive with the v3 yet.

 

[thescreensavers]

yea Good Game, OCZ has a track record of failing drives.

and so its like Automatic

"oh yet another Dead OCZ Drive thread"

Yes RMA it, better yet if you can return it, do that and buy an Intel Drive. Not as fast but still plenty fast with reliability.

 

[nanaki333]

I was told later by someone there is a destructive flash recovery for this issue, but that was for the previous gen drives. In any case, kiss your data goodbye.

 

[Cykoth]

*cries*

Oh well. I had read the reviews, and even Anand states that using OCZ is a crapshoot at times. I'd hoped this 3rd generation of drives would be more stable. This was my first build with SSD.

I'm going to RMA, and try again. If it happens a second time I'm going to demand my money back and get an Intel drive. I bought it from Newegg, but it's been more than a month. I'm glad I got a "normal" HDD drive and used it as file storage and for windows restore locations! THAT works fine....just no bootable partition

Cyk

 

[nanaki333]

It's really sandforce that's the problem. Ocz just happens to sell the most sandforce drives, so they get the most bad press. Since ocz has their own controller now, maybe we'll start seeing more reliable drives since it will all be done in house.

 

[MrWheezy]

Yes GG.

RMA and go Intel or go with a reliable company that has a decent customer service.

 

[groberts101]

you'd actually be better served to go over to the mfgrs forum for help. Just copy/paste your initial post for a much better troubleshooting experience then you'll ever recieve here.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...-Agility3-Solid3-support-and-discussion-forum

In the end?.. all you'll probably get here is flamers and Intel fanboy's telling you what you did wrong and offering not much more than what's been given here so far.

And that "poor customer service" can either have you fixed or holding a brand new drive flashed with the latest firmware in 7 days flat.

 

[Soundmanred]

GG

 

[techinsidr]

Sorry to hear about your issues with the OCZ Vertex 3. The root of the issue is definitely the Sandforce controller, which did not undergo enough validation/testing. OCZ needs to make their products more reliable, rather than shipping them out the door as quickly as possible.

I just did a blog post about the defects in the OCZ drive over at my website - http://www.techinsidr.com - please feel free to check it out and include your comments.

 

[trungma]

you'd actually be better served to go over to the mfgrs forum for help. Just copy/paste your initial post for a much better troubleshooting experience then you'll ever recieve here.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...-Agility3-Solid3-support-and-discussion-forum

In the end?.. all you'll probably get here is flamers and Intel fanboy's telling you what you did wrong and offering not much more than what's been given here so far.

And that "poor customer service" can either have you fixed or holding a brand new drive flashed with the latest firmware in 7 days flat.

Seriously, nobody mentioned Intel at all. All I see is OCZ fanboy.

 

[TemjinGold]

When I saw that topic title, I was expecting it to say "...until I turned it on."

 

[jjmIII]

I'm going to RMA, and try again.

Sell the new RMA and move on. There are soo many choices now. If/when you get burned again, your gonna be pissed at yourself.

I have hammered Intel, G-Skill (Sandforce), and Kingston (v+100) drives with no issues. 24/7 for a full year even. Out of the three, I honestly say grab a cheap Kingston. Maybe I'm lame, but I can't tell the difference.

 

[razel]

I have hammered Intel, G-Skill (Sandforce), and Kingston (v+100) drives with no issues. 24/7 for a full year even. Out of the three, I honestly say grab a cheap Kingston. Maybe I'm lame, but I can't tell the difference.

I guess I'm lame too. I cannot tell the difference between the Kingston V100+ and the master of low latency Intel. The Kingston V100 series however, I somewhat can, but I bet 90% non-enthusiasts would be happy. The good news, lately on sale after rebate, the V100+ is only a few dollars more than regular V100. July 4 is coming around so what out for more sales.

 

[thescreensavers]

Sorry to hear about your issues with the OCZ Vertex 3. The root of the issue is definitely the Sandforce controller, which did not undergo enough validation/testing. OCZ needs to make their products more reliable, rather than shipping them out the door as quickly as possible.

I just did a blog post about the defects in the OCZ drive over at my website - http://www.techinsidr.com - please feel free to check it out and include your comments.

A nice read, I had a Vertex 2 60gb SSD, it died in a month, Luckily I returned it.

But what crap from OCZ, the crap OCZ pulled with the Slower Vertex 2 drives, and now with the Vertex 3 drives is the main reason I dont buy from them any more. At least Corsair is recalling them and doing the right thing for their customers.

 

[Saldir]

you'd actually be better served to go over to the mfgrs forum for help. Just copy/paste your initial post for a much better troubleshooting experience then you'll ever recieve here.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...-Agility3-Solid3-support-and-discussion-forum

In the end?.. all you'll probably get here is flamers and Intel fanboy's telling you what you did wrong and offering not much more than what's been given here so far.

And that "poor customer service" can either have you fixed or holding a brand new drive flashed with the latest firmware in 7 days flat.

Gorberts i respect you and your posts usually as i frequent the OCZ forums also,but under a different name. The OCZ drives really are garbage when it comes to failure rate,COMPARED to Intel. The rates are published. I don't need to post them here i don't think.And i own THREE of their drives and ive had issues with 2 of them.

 

[tcsenter]

Early adoption is early.

 

[groberts101]

Gorberts i respect you and your posts usually as i frequent the OCZ forums also,but under a different name. The OCZ drives really are garbage when it comes to failure rate,COMPARED to Intel. The rates are published. I don't need to post them here i don't think.And i own THREE of their drives and ive had issues with 2 of them.

Thanks.. but there are no official reported failure rates of any drives as the mfgrs themselves will not release that info. Only a few vendors that have compiled their own perception of failures as they relate to the returns. With Sandforce hardware/firmware compatibility issues across the board and taking into consideration the amount of Sandforce controlled drives that OCZ sells?.. not hard to imagine the overall perception. I see plenty of posts on threads that bash OCZ/Sandforce that say theirs are fine and they must be "lucky".

I could easily say that the one Intel drive I had which died out of the 3 purchased/tested would be an awful failure rate from personal experience?.. but I know better to just make assumptions without further research.

Of the 15 OCZ drives I have(7 of which are Sabdforce)?.. 0 have died.

I can tell you for a fact that my "luck" has never been that good and surely I would have issue with at LEAST 1 of them if any of this info/opinion had an ounce of credibility. I run 6 of them in R0 for christ's sake! How the hell would I do that if they weren't rock solid on my platform? lol

It's a platform/driver/controller issue. Simple as that. My mobo absolutley loves these controllers as does my extreme usage model.

Most of all these OCZ/Sandforce threads wouldn't have many posts at all if only the one's who had actual experience with Sandforce replied. But NOOOO.. everyone's got an "expert" opinion on sh*t they have little or no firsthand experience with. :thumbsdown: