Sigh Intel 320 160 gig dies 2x in a week (8MB bug)

[Anonemous]

Getting so tired of this drive dying unexpectedly. Gonna RMA it but I guess I gotta email the Intel reps before I get the RMA#. How is the Corsair force 3 (there's a sale on it currently)?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2224934&highlight=anonemous

 

[Binky]

...did you upgrade the firmware? Wasn't this a fixed issue?

 

[zerogear]

This is a fixed issue. Firmware upgrade was available :]

 

[Anonemous]

This is not a fixed issue. I upgraded to the most recent firmware.

 

[Anonemous]

For anybody's reference Intel has 2 replacement plans: Advanced for $25 (non refundable)+cost of drive (refundable) where they preship you the replacement drive.

Regular involves you shipping it back to them at your own cost and getting the replacement 1-2 weeks later.

 

[Anonemous]

I backed up my data ever since it crapped out on me 2 months ago. But it has died 2x in less than 48 hours. Current fix for the 8MB bug is to secure erase if you don't know (just reformat) and all the SMART errors go away (as shown in the Intel toolbox).

 

[NP Complete]

Just to be clear - is this a single drive that's failed on you 3 times, or is it several drives that have failed on you.

If you've seen more than 1 failure, definitely RMA it. Bad parts do occassionally make it past QA, and it isn't worth your time to keep fighting a likely defective part that'll never work 100% correctly.

 

[Anonemous]

Just to be clear - is this a single drive that's failed on you 3 times, or is it several drives that have failed on you.

If you've seen more than 1 failure, definitely RMA it. Bad parts do occassionally make it past QA, and it isn't worth your time to keep fighting a likely defective part that'll never work 100% correctly.

It was one drive, but a secure erase (as recommended on Intel forums) fixes it and it would display no errors at all which kind of made it hard to RMA.

It looks like there's others with the same problem:


Not the only one... latest firmware 8MB bug...

http://communities.intel.com/thread/27601

http://communities.intel.com/thread/28538

http://communities.intel.com/thread/24339

Looks like the firmware causes more 8MB occurrences then it prevents.

 

[gevorg]

What power supply and motherboard do you have? Is it a laptop computer? I don't have a solution, unfortunately, just wondering if certain hardware setups are more prone to SSD issues.

 

[Anonemous]

What power supply and motherboard do you have? Is it a laptop computer? I don't have a solution, unfortunately, just wondering if certain hardware setups are more prone to SSD issues.

It's a laptop computer, envy 15. I had an Intel 510 drive on my htpc and it gave me no problems whatsoever so I jumped on the Intel 320 deals back in Nov. Turns out the 320 may not be as reliable as others have suggested. I tried to avoid sleep/hybrid sleep/etc. Shutdown computer when done and it still happened.

 

[ccbadd]

This is a fixed issue. Firmware upgrade was available :]

Intel only fixed some of the causes, but the bug does still exist. Just go look at Intel's forum.

 

[bryanW1995]

I guess I'm just lucky. I also jumped on that 320 series deal in nov, no issues at all. Don't know if this matters, but my drive already had the new firmware in it when I got it.

 

[Anonemous]

I guess I'm just lucky. I also jumped on that 320 series deal in nov, no issues at all. Don't know if this matters, but my drive already had the new firmware in it when I got it.

Is it in a laptop or desktop? Do you sleep/hibernate? Just be careful since the new firmware is a ticking time bomb.

 

[Anonemous]

Intel only fixed some of the causes, but the bug does still exist. Just go look at Intel's forum.

Yea, I know Intel has the best rep but it's crazy in the other thread when you mention a failure in Intel the first they say is "Oh you didn't update firmware" or it's just you. Then when you present all the failures in the Intel support forums they just say it's a small handful. I like Intel drives but with all these failures that have occurred on my drive, I would be cautious to recommend them to others.

 

[jwilliams4200]

I have no doubt that the Intel 320 still has some problems, and that you have had bad luck with it.

I don't mean to disparage your difficulties, but in order to get an idea of the likelihood of a bad experience for a buyer, it is interesting to look at the percentage of bad reviews (bad = 1 or 2 eggs, i.e., below-average rating) on newegg for some common SSDs with at least 100 reviews:

2% of 113 128GB+256GB Plextor M3 (combined for 128GB & 256GB to get >100)
3% of 175 120GB Intel 320

5% of 159 120GB Intel X25-M G2 (newegg #N82E16820167035)
6% of 386 128GB Crucial m4
8% of 199 120GB Intel 510
8% of 147 128GB Samsung 830 (combined all 128GB kits)

9% of 130 120GB Kingston HyperX
12% of 287 120GB Corsair Force GT
12% of 98 [all combined] Intel 520 (not quite 100, included anyway)

26% of 202 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS
27% of 603 120GB OCZ Vertex 3

Obviously, a casual sampling like this is not completely accurate since some bad reviews will be from clueless people (on average, though, that should not favor any product over another), but I think the general trends are quite useful. Note that these percentages are NOT your likelihood of having a bad experience -- they are actually the likelihood of newegg publishing someone's bad review. So the percentages are only useful for relative comparisons, not for predicting an absolute likelihood of trouble.

If an SSD buyer wants to minimize their chances of having a bad experience, it looks like the Plextor M3 or the Intel 320 are excellent choices, with the Crucial m4 and Samsung 830 a bit more troublesome but still looking like an okay bet. Perhaps the Vertex 3 models are better now than they were (due to improved firmware), but I for one would not risk my money on them (or anything from OCZ).

 

[Anonemous]

Well opted for the cross ship option and they said it's a new drive. Hopefully it works.

 

[bryanW1995]

Is it in a laptop or desktop? Do you sleep/hibernate? Just be careful since the new firmware is a ticking time bomb.

Laptop. Sleep/hibernate just like our other laptops (have 3 at the house). I believe that you are incorrect in stating that it is a "ticking time bomb". An OCZ is a "ticking time bomb". A 320 series, like other intel ssd's, has a .4% RMA rate, which is 10-20 times lower than comparable OCZ statistics that I have seen.

Well opted for the cross ship option and they said it's a new drive. Hopefully it works.

I think that this is the right move. Let them disect it for science and/or sell it as a refurb, you should be gtg with a new drive.

 

[Anonemous]

Laptop. Sleep/hibernate just like our other laptops (have 3 at the house). I believe that you are incorrect in stating that it is a "ticking time bomb". An OCZ is a "ticking time bomb". A 320 series, like other intel ssd's, has a .4% RMA rate, which is 10-20 times lower than comparable OCZ statistics that I have seen.



I think that this is the right move. Let them disect it for science and/or sell it as a refurb, you should be gtg with a new drive.

Well I hope you are backing it up just in case. It just seems odd that my case is almost the same as the other recent Intel 320 8MB cases, had new firmware, purchased less than 6 months ago, 8MB occurred within 3-4 months of usage.

Thinking back about it, I had 1-2 sudden BSOD /reboots occur a day prior to the 8MB bug. If you get a sudden bsod or reboot with those drives, I would start backing up just in case.

 

[bryanW1995]

Intel has sold a LOT of 320 series over the past year or so, especially during that crazy stupid BF sale last year. With the large number sold and the incredible quality reputation that they have, it's reasonable to expect that a higher than normal % of users (whereas with an OCZ drive it is likely just expected...) with issues would comment on it.

Wife uses the 320 series in her dv7tqe. She has a 3tb external and 750gb internal drive for data, ssd is for photoshop/editing/OS only. I only VERY rarely use it, and guests are always required to use one of our other laptops. As far as backups, I installed a fresh copy of win 7 home x64 when we got the laptop, ditto for lightroom/elements/etc etc, so it wouldn't be an undue burden to reinstall those if we were to have a problem in the future. In fact, she doesn't typically even use the 750gb internal hdd, so in a crisis we could always just install windows/etc onto that drive.

 

[jwilliams4200]

A 320 series, like other intel ssd's, has a .4% RMA rate,

Do you have any evidence for a 0.4% RMA rate for the Intel 320?

The usual survey of a large French retailer does not yet cover the Intel 320 (it takes about a year after first release -- they should cover it this May)

 

[MegaVA]

New firmware...old firmware it does not matter the drive is a dud. I have had three of these fail. Moved on to Crucial M4 and Samsung 830 series. [I love] intel for this debacle.

No profanity in the tech forums, guys
-ViRGE

 

[frostedflakes]

Intel only fixed some of the causes, but the bug does still exist. Just go look at Intel's forum.

My understanding is that it isn't a bug, per se, the 8MB thing is just what the controller does whenever it encounters an error that causes the firmware to panic lock. X25-M G1 and G2 had the 8MB issue as well if you Google it. Any number of firmware bugs can cause the drive to panic lock and enter this state.

If it's any consolation, I think the 8MB thing is pretty rare on these Intel drives. All you need to do is look at return rates for Intel drives to figure out they are very reliable and the number of users who do have problems are a tiny minority. But no drive is 100% reliable and firmware can never be 100% bug free.

I doubt a new drive will help much if you've already experienced the 8MB bug twice. To me that suggests there's some issue between the drive firmware and your system. Wouldn't be surprised if the replacement drive starts doing this on you as well. You might try getting in touch with Intel support and seeing if they can pass your problem on to engineering, maybe they'll be able to reproduce whatever is causing the drive to panic lock in your situation and incorporate a fix into a future firmware update.

 

[jpeyton]

Never had an issue with my 120GB Intel 320, before or after the firmware fix.

 

[jwilliams4200]

I doubt a new drive will help much if you've already experienced the 8MB bug twice. To me that suggests there's some issue between the drive firmware and your system. Wouldn't be surprised if the replacement drive starts doing this on you as well. You might try getting in touch with Intel support and seeing if they can pass your problem on to engineering, maybe they'll be able to reproduce whatever is causing the drive to panic lock in your situation and incorporate a fix into a future firmware update.

I think this is good advice. While the 320 does not seem to cause problems for many, there are a small percentage of people who seem to have problems. Probably there is some problem when the Intel 320 is used with a certain motherboard with certain BIOS version, or possibly the 320 might be sensitive to a certain kind of glitch from certain PSUs. Whatever it is, I guess that people who experience the problem once (or twice) are much more likely to have the same problem again. In which case the best course of action is either to get the situation escalated with Intel, or to get a refund and try another make of SSD (I'd suggest Plextor).

 

[bryanW1995]

Actually, a switch to a 330 or 520 series might actually work better since those aren't based upon the x25m series controllers.

@jwilliams4200: I don't have the data on the 320 series, I thought that I saw it in a recent list posted somewhere either here or in one of Anand's numerous articles on the subject. However, it sounds like we can just wait a couple of weeks for the data to pop up. It will be insteresting to see if this "8mb bug" pushes the RMA rate up on the 320 series, or if it is just a case of a few isolated but still serious issues that have received a lot of attention b/c of the extreme quality reputation that intel enjoys.