Crucial M4 256GB SSD Lockup

I have had a Crucial M4 256GB SSD for a few months now. Was working great on my R4 with Windows 8.

Yesterday when I switched on the machine, Windows started booting and after some 3-4 minutes bluescreened and repeated. When the Win8 repair started up, it was unable to do the auto repair or even manual repair.

The F12 diagnostic screen showed a DST Short Self Test error.

My M4's firmware was 0F (so i think solved the 5184 bug), but I made a manual USB fw upgrade to the latest 040. Even then the system didn't start.

So I tried installing Windows 8 again off a USB. The installer took about 15 minutes to show me the drives and partitions. I did a complete delete and recreate of the partitions and started installing Windows 8 again.
And now it started working perfectly again.

my machine is now back to a fully working state. F12 Diagnostics and CHKDSK show the drive has no errors. So my questions are:

1. Any idea why this happened?
2. What should I do to ensure it doesn't happen again?

 

Try updating to firmware 040H
Crucial.com Product Downloads - Firmware Updates

 

Keep regular backups, the M4 uses the micron asynchronous memory chips, slower IOPS and less reliability. I have heard issues with the M4's dying, so just beware and keep backups.

Ideally, ebay it ASAP and replace it with something Sandforce/LAMD/Samsung based with Toshiba Toggle nand (for example, Corsair Neutron = LAMD controller, micron memory; Neutron GTX = LAMD controller, Toshiba memory - GTX is $30-40 more expensive for the same 240GB drive, but is much faster and has almost twice the MTBF rating, same with OCZ MAX-IOPS drives, the MAX IOPS editions switch from the stock micron to the Toshiba).

 

So your solution is to sell a possibly problem hard drive.....and make it someone else's problem? Do you have any integrity at all? And anyway that's what warranty is for. My m4 512 gb ssd died last month. Rma.. Got a new one.

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2

 

Thanks for the replies, guys. i did put the 040h firmware on it. luckily my data is on a different drive and backed up to the cloud automatically.

Will keep it for now. If it happens again i'll RMA it.

 

What's I've done before is if something failed I RMA'd it then sold the replacement off to someone else (usually locally in case something was off about the replacement). Then I got something different.

Not quite the same deal but way back I had Kingston ram that had an odd issue with World of Warcraft (original installer was weird about Ram). For some reason I could install the game fine in forced single channel mode but it wouldn't instal properly while in dual channel mode. Ram tests came back with nada. I eventually got replacement Ram from another company after Kingston stated they would not Rma initially. The replacement sticks worked fine in dual channel mode and the game installed fine after that. After that I got them to Rma it and sold the replacement sticks to a friend (mostly because he didn't play World of Warcraft).

 

Regular backups and constant updates are your friends in this type of situations. Let's cross our fingers so that it does not happen again.