Sandforce SSD sometimes not detected?

[CurseTheSky]

About a month ago, I upgraded my boss's computer with a G.Skill Phoenix Pro 120GB SSD. He loves it, but we're running into a problem from time to time. Randomly, when he turns on or restarts the computer, it'll give him a "no OS detected" error. When we check the BIOS POST message, it detects his other two spindle drives but not the SSD. After restarting several more times, the SSD will be detected once again and we can change the boot order back to booting from the SSD rather than trying to boot from the spindle drives.

We're trying to figure out exactly why this is happening. I saw someone mention something like this with their Sandforce-based SSD a while ago, and I'm wondering if it can be fixed by something as simple as a firmware update. Since I'm not 100% sure the SSD is the culprit, I'd prefer not to just RMA it right off the bat.

Here are the specs:
Q8400 (stock clocks / volts)
ASUS Striker II Formula (780i SLI) + "X-Fi" sound card that came with it
2GB DDR2 (Corsair, standard voltage)
120GB G.Skill Phoenix Pro
Western Digital 500GB Blue
Western Digital 74GB Raptor
DVD-RW drive (SATA)
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W (tested voltages with DMM, all good)
Windows 7 Pro x86

Any ideas? Again, I'd really prefer not to RMA the SSD if there's something else we can try first. Right now, I'm not sure if the SSD is the problem, or the motherboard.

 

[alaricljs]

My Dell D820 laptop also randomly doesn't see the SSD. Oddly enough if I stick a bootable USB flash drive in and reboot it will always detect the SSD, whereas a straight reboot may not. I have never had the laptop not see the SSD coming out of "sleep" tho. I have a Vertex 2, so also SF based.

 

[Emulex]

yup junky firmware for sandforce. need to update the firmware or return it.