Samsung Rapid Mode BSOD

[Nec_V20]

I have just built up a new system, got it all installed, updated etc. until everything was at the latest BIOS/Hardware drivers/OS/Mobo utilities/Application versions.

I have a Samsung 850 Pro 256GB as my boot drive. I have installed the Samsung DiskMagician software version 4.6. I decided to try out the Rapid Disk feature to see what benefits I could accrue from it (bottom line is, none that I can really ascertain or "feel" if you will).

Everything has been running quite nicely and been behaving itself for the past few days until the past 24 hours.

The one and only thing which changed is that I plugged in my USB3 1.5TB 9SCAN4-500 Seagate Expansion Portable Drive to the system. The only thing I did with regard to this drive is to look at the files on it in Windows Explorer - I didn't open any files on it.

At present I am switching (on the monitor) back and forth between my old and my new system.

Whilst working on my old system I heard the Windows startup tune from the new system. I thought, "That's strange" and when I looked at the new system I was informed that the system had recovered from an error.

Long story short, when I ejected the USB Expansion Drive the system had a BSOD and the culprit was identified as the SamsungRapidDiskFltr.sys

Every attempt to reboot resulted in a BSOD after about 30 seconds or so. It was only when I managed to disable the Rapid Disk "feature" (took me three BSOD's before I managed that) that the system has returned to its benign state.

Obviously that feature is going to stay turned off indefinitely. The things is that my system is about as bare bones pristine as it gets. Nothing has been updated or installed over the past few days that the system has been running (24/7 with Rapid Disk enabled) until I plugged in the external Harddrive yesterday evening.

I have looked for "Samsung Rapid Mode BSOD" and found that this seems to be quite common, although the references I found were for the 4.4 Version of DiskMagician whereas I am running the 4.6 version.

My new system:
PSU: Corsair AX860 (NOT the "i" version)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK
CPU: Intel i7-4770K
GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 280x Vapor-x OC
RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400 (4*8GB modules)
SSD1: Samsung 850 Pro 256GB
SSD2: SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB
SSD3: Toshiba Q Series 128GB
Harddrive: None installed yet, waiting for the replacement of the two Seagate 8TB ST8000AS002 which were delivered DOA.
Keyboard: DasKeyboard 4 USB3 (no external drivers needed)
Mouse: Logitech G700S Gaming Mouse (with drivers and Logitech Software installed, the Software does not load up at boot).
CPU Cooling: Corsair H100i (Corsair Link software NOT loaded at boot)
Wifi: Mobo WiFi/Bluetooth card and drivers installed (disabled on Boot).
Headphones: Logitech H800 cordless USB (not plugged in, only drivers installed)
Webcam: Logitech 910C (not plugged in, only drivers installed)
Scanner: Canon USB2 CanoScan LiDE 700F (not plugged in, only drivers installed)
USB Speakers: SoundScience QSB 30W (no external drivers needed)
Monitor: ASUS PB287 (old system connected via DisplayPort 1.2 and new system connected via HDMI)
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

As you can see from the list of hardware in or attached to the system there is nothing there which could be considered second rate or inferior. All the hardware was installed with the latest drivers/utilities and the BIOS was the first thing I updated to the latest version. All the hardware I have has gone through the gamma-testing phase (gamma-testing is where hardware/software is sold to unsuspecting customers so that the manufacturers can find out what is really buggy about their stuff and fix it whilst the poor dupes who have bought it are fobbed off, misdirected or downright lied to by the customer "support" people).

I have no RAID installed nor do I envisage any form of RAID (all drives run in AHCI mode).

I would advise anyone to stay well clear of the Rapid Disk "feature" for their Samsung SSD as it should be obvious from my experience that it is not ready for prime time if it fails so miserably on a quality PC with no legacy clutter, installation remnants or craplets installed.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Your experience is interesting, an no less totally puzzling to me.

I've been running RAPID on three systems, variously over a year's time without any problem attributable to it, yet while I was keen to see if any would develop.

Most of the posts about RAPID in the forums followed a theme of skepticism as to its benefits, but I'd never seen anyone indicate that it was a source of instability.

It's not necessary, and you don't need to use it. In fact, if you did insist on the "benefits" of the bundled RAPID program, you could pay the price of a couple Mexican carry-out dinners for an alternative without any proprietary limitation of SSD make, model, number of disks or caching strategy.

But -- personally -- I would look into this problem a bit more. If nobody else encountered it, and if I had been able to use it on a system with Win 7 Ultimate 64 without issue, there are any number of reasons for your BSODs and indications, none of which necessarily derive from a bug in the software itself.

 

[jkauff]

I don't think you can assume it was RAPID. That might just be the first driver that got taken down. I've been running it since it first became available, with no problems whatsoever.

 

[DaveSimmons]

> CPU: Intel i7-4770K

Stock speed or overclocked?

> RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400 (4*8GB modules)

A memory test might also be a good idea.

 

[Nec_V20]

Your experience is interesting, an no less totally puzzling to me.

I've been running RAPID on three systems, variously over a year's time without any problem attributable to it, yet while I was keen to see if any would develop.

Most of the posts about RAPID in the forums followed a theme of skepticism as to its benefits, but I'd never seen anyone indicate that it was a source of instability.

It's not necessary, and you don't need to use it. In fact, if you did insist on the "benefits" of the bundled RAPID program, you could pay the price of a couple Mexican carry-out dinners for an alternative without any proprietary limitation of SSD make, model, number of disks or caching strategy.

But -- personally -- I would look into this problem a bit more. If nobody else encountered it, and if I had been able to use it on a system with Win 7 Ultimate 64 without issue, there are any number of reasons for your BSODs and indications, none of which necessarily derive from a bug in the software itself.

It is weird however the Blue Screen unmistakably identified "SamsungRapidDiskFltr.sys" as the culprit. Not just in one Blue Screen but in every one of the ten or more that I experienced until I managed to turn Rapid Disk back off again.

One of the things which did occur to me is that perhaps the Virtual Memory (pagefile.sys) which was located on the Samsung SSD became corrupted.

In the past I have found this to be the cause of many strange errors and crashes.

I have relocated the pagefile (Virtual Memory) to a different disk, and will be running the system for a few days and testing it further to see if there are any instabilities. If it is running stably I might consider giving Rapid Disk another go.

I don't think it counts as an "assumption" jkauff when "SamsungRapidDiskFltr.sys" is mentioned as the culprit on the Blue Screen.

With regard to a memory test, this was one of the first things I did after installing the system.

As I stated in my post I had had the system running 24/7 and I had run a number of tests on the system including running OCCT 4.4.1 (which is also memory intensive) for 12 hours without an error.

No the system is not overclocked, I don't have a need for overclocking. If I do find something where the CPU is being saturated I will fall back on that potential.

The first step would then be to raise the OC of all four cores to 3.9 GHz when they are active, before raising the OC any further.

Actually when I do have the system burned in the first thing I will be doing is to see how far I can undervolt the CPU and still be able to keep the other settings.

 

[Jim1900]

I can confirm the problem with Rapid Mode cache 4.6. I am presently using a Samsung 850 EVO, but previously used an 840 Pro, and both exhibit the problem. I get freezes and BSODs under specific circumstances, and have had to reinstall the OS (Win7 64-bit) more than once.

My system is a Haswell i7-4771 on a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H motherboard, using various memory modules to try to improve stability (nothing overclocked). It turns out that the Rapid Mode cache is stable on my system only with the Intel AHCI 12.9.4.1000 drivers for the disk controller; anything later in the 13.x.x.x or 14.x.x.x series causes the problem after a day or two of use. And if you make the mistake of installing a new driver before shutting down the cache, you will get a BSOD immediately. That is probably true of some other drivers as well (video, maybe audio, etc.), so I made a point of always shutting down the Rapid Mode cache before making any changes.

It is possible that the OP had the USB problem because his system tried to load in the drivers when he inserted the Seagate portable drive, though I have not had the USB problem yet. In any case, I just don't use Rapid Mode cache anymore, and the problem is solved.