Sandforce 2281 firmware

[86waterpumper]

I have a OWC mercury pro 6gb 128gb drive. I have gotten some random bsod with it so far. Some days it won't do it at all, other's it might do it two or three times. I have not lost any data or anything catastrophic but it's pretty lame to have a 300 dollar harddrive acting this way. I know that patriot has released a new firmware for it's drives with this controller. Is this brand specific or would it work on any drive with the 2281 controller? Nothing seems to be getting done about the issue and it gets frustrating. I was also curious if anyone else with this drive was having the same thing? I know alot of the ocz users have...

 

[groberts101]

It's that particular controller and changing mfgrs to circumvent these issues has been tried many times before with some users moving away from them completely.

OWC sell's so few compared to others and has a miniscule forum(more like a blog) environment to really make most aware of similar issues to OCZ. You just see more post's about the OCZ issues as they are the dominant mfgr of those controllers and have an extremely open and large forum environment so it's purely a perspective thing for sure.

If you post your full spec's I can give some basic workaround rec's to start you off towards potential stability. Many of which have helped others in the past.

 

[86waterpumper]

Alright thanks! The owc drive has firmware version 319ABBF0. I am running a z68 system asrock pro-3m board with latest bios and a 2500k. Windows 7 64bit for the os. I have superfetch and indexing and defrag and all that turned off and I'm running the ssd in ahci mode. I have 8gb ram (mushkin). The psu is a x-400 seasonic. The only other harddrive is a samsung f3 and I have one sata dvdrw burner. Let me know what other info you need? The system will go in and out of s3 standby perfectly. I am o/c now with stock voltage but only to 4.2 ghz. However this happens with stock multipler settings also. The stability is rock solid running prime 95 or intel burn test etc. The bsod seems to happen totally randomly but I know it is the ssd because one time when I was in google chrome it even gave me a file write error before it did it and this was before I even added the f3 drive.

You are right about owc. I spoke to a tech and they claimed to know nothing at all about the 2281 bug. They said it was news to them and the drives were rock solid. I wonder how many of them they have sold? I know alot of their sales are to apple users, so I'm not sure how many of those people have had issues...Even the new firmwares from ocz and patriot still have not solved the issues correct?

 

[groberts101]

ok.. first is to properly baseline the drive and system. A bit of work to do but if you're heart is set on using this controller on that board?.. you need to use very deliberate process of elimination.

First things first. Make a backup of the current install with W7 or whatever tool you prefer(I use Acronis to backup/recover images). Then be sure to use a sata3 specified cable(might need to try a couple as there have been some bad one's out there so far and some even cause downclocking to sata2 speeds and should not be underestimated.

Next is to make absolutely sure you have the latest bios revision(even check to see if you can get your hands on a beta version using the latest Intel 11 series OROM.

Then secure erase the drive and reflash the firmware from the first 6G sata port. Can't speak for OWC's methods, but OCZ allows you to backflash and force a reflash of the current installed firmware so you'll want to check on your options there.

Clear the CMOS(if you can't update the bios with anything newer),set the bios to use S1 sleep and reinstall Windows from scratch. No drivers.. no updates.. no apps. Just a barebone's default install(pre-SP1 is best). Now install the Intel RST sata drivers and do the "LPM registry mod" found via google and here.. http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-S...eze-ups-in-Windows-7-solved-for-me/td-p/38766. IIRC, it originated at the Crucial forums from similar freezing issues.

Next is to run WEI(Windows Experience Index) followed by a hard shutdown/reboot. Then set the W7 power options to a balanced power plan and let the drive sleep/resume at least once. This is to properly sync up the ACPI tabling between the OS and the boards CMOS.

Retest stability and post an AS SSD for us to see.

Some more obscure workarounds would be to disable the page file completely and shut off TRIM commands from W7 as shown here.

How to enable TRIM Command in Windows 7 with a Solid State Drive

To enable or disable TRIM Command, you will need to open an Elevated Command Prompt window.

How To Open an Elevated Command Prompt window: Click on Start Orb > Type "CMD.exe" in Search box > Right click on "CMD" and select "Run as Administrator" (If you receive a prompt confirmation, click YES)

How to Enable TRIM Command

In the Elevated command Prompt windows, type the following:

fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

How to Disable TRIM Command

In the Elevated command Prompt windows, type the following:

fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

How do I know if TRIM is working in Windows 7?

In the Elevated command Prompt windows, type the following:

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
Results explained below:
DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled)
DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)


Keep in mind that this may seem like a lot of work to accomplish but is actually faster to do than tweaking.. testing.. crashing/freezing.. tweaking some more and so on.

Also be aware that once the ACPI tabing has become damaged/corrupted?.. there is often no quick tweaks/workarounds of the issue with some of the above mentioned steps being needed. You can also go to the OCZ forum and see what they are concluding as some of the underlying issues/workarounds with these platforms/drives. Many of those same fixes will apply to that drive since it uses the same controller.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...-Agility3-Solid3-support-and-discussion-forum

Good luck with it

 

[86waterpumper]

I don't mind some work in getting it to run right and I appreciate the tips. The issue I've got is that I don't think owc even has a new firmware out at this point. So I guess I will just have to wait until they do, and then at that point do the secure erase and reload etc. I am running a certifed sata3 cable, and asrock website shows the last bios release to be what I am running which came out first part of july. Hopefully they will update it again soon

You keep talking about "that controller" Is there some known flaw in the intel controller? I have always been told it was far superior to those on amd boards etc. It seems there is alot of different info around.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

I don't mind some work in getting it to run right and I appreciate the tips. The issue I've got is that I don't think owc even has a new firmware out at this point. So I guess I will just have to wait until they do, and then at that point do the secure erase and reload etc. I am running a certifed sata3 cable, and asrock website shows the last bios release to be what I am running which came out first part of july. Hopefully they will update it again soon

You keep talking about "that controller" Is there some known flaw in the intel controller? I have always been told it was far superior to those on amd boards etc. It seems there is alot of different info around.

Not the Intel controller, he's referring to the SandForce controller in your SSD. The Intel SATA controller is indeed superior to AMD's.

<--- Has built a couple of H61, Q67, and Z68 machines with Crucial, Intel, and Kingston (V100+, Toshiba based SSD, not the regular V100) SSDs with no troubles at all.

 

[86waterpumper]

Oh yeah well obviously I am stuck with the controller on the drive itself...At the time I bought mine there were stories out about the intel ssd drives having bricking issues, and the new crucials were not out so there was not good performance alternative. I spoke to the tech at OWC before I ordered and he claimed their drives had none of the ocz problems and I guess I bought the story especially since my owc 40gb previous generation drive has done so well. I hope the new samsung drives coming out will be like their last ones and be a better option but I'm stuck with what I've got I guess.

 

[groberts101]

might want to take a gander at the workarounds linked here to hopefully alleviate your issues. Regardless of brand using these same SSD controllers.. the underlying issues are sure to be very similar.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2152264