G Skill Phoenix Pro 120Gb SSD & G73 Problem

Anyone using this drive? G Skill Phoenix Pro 120Gb SSD? I just got it from new egg for $195, but I cannot get my BIOS to detect it except intermittently. I ran it long enough to install windows and establish it had great perfromance. (205Mbps before optimizing or doing any tricks) But now I cannot get the BIOS to detect it at all. I've read around G Skills forums. Sounds like it happens sometimes. RMA? Anyone else use this drive ok?

 

Did you check to see if the SSD has an updated firmware?

 

Also see if the computer will recognize it if you change your SATA setting to IDE instead of ACHI. The G73's in our facility sometimes have this issue with the Crucial C300 drives as well. Usually if we change to IDE reload, then back to ACHI and reload we can get the drive to stick. Typically this only happens when running two SSD's though. You can also try removing your secondary HDD to see if that has any effect on the drive being read.

All in all some SSD's can be tricky with this laptop. The only ones that we havent had problems with so far are the Intel G2, OCZ vertex, and the Corsair 240gb drive.

 

I picked one of these drives up also for $195 from newegg.com. Mine should be here today. My g73 is out for repair, so it may be a few days before I get a chance to try it out.

 

I have the exact same ssd drive and had the same issues until I updated to latest bios from asus.... Hope this helps...

 

I am glad to hear it works for someone. I think mine just had bad firmware or was defective (I hope). The bios would only occasionally detect it and I have the latest Asus bios already
(211 to my knowledge). Did you upgrade your G73 bios or something else? Would you mind telling me exactly what you had to do?

Let me know how yours turns out. I RMAd mine back to newegg. Hopefully the next one works better. I managed to install Windows and the asus driver DVD but then it starting freezing up and then I couldn't get the bios to read it at all. My ocz vertex still works perfectly though. I'll post an update when I get my new drive back. Hopefully we will both be up and running soon.

 

I almost bought one of these the other day... I was so tempted but because it didnt let me use my $10 off any HDD coupon that I earned from a previous purchase I was all sad and decided newegg didnt deserve my money when they are being so uptight with the coupons

 

I tried IDE Achi swap but nothing changed. Hopefuly it was just as bad drive.

 

I also bought the drive from Newegg recently for $195.

I have the same problem but on an Asus U6V. It just hangs when it tries to detect ACHI Port 0 (were the SSD is). I tried IDE mode, no luck, more hanging. Tried updating the bios from 207 to 214. Also no luck. It works perfectly on my friend Toshiba laptop with the same PM45/ICH9-M chipset.

Stumped, should I just sell it to my friend or RMA the drive.

 

i did have an ocz vertex 2 (240GB) in the asus, but swapped it to my 8740w.

4/5 cold starts the bios would not recognise the drive. no idea why.

Switching it from IDE back to AHCI would work, but once it was powered off - no dice.

have no solution for it, but i got to the first reboot of a win 7 install, before the bios started playing up. so i gave up on trying to get it working.

(this was with bios 209) i've not tried it with 211, because i didn't see anything in the bios update notes that the sata polling had been fixed.

it seems the drive is 'timing out' like in the old days with 40 vs 80 pin IDE drives.

but you're not alone in SSD woes, i had the same. Put it in my 8740w, no issues at all with detection.

 

I'll add to the list. G73JH and also bought the newegg shell shocker gskill pro120gb. Installed it yesterday, set it up in Win7, backed up and recovered OS. After a few reboots bios (211) stopped recognizing it in either bay. ACHI and IDE had no effect. Will try it in my desktop this afternoon before RMAing.

 

Please let me know what happens.

 

This doesn't sound to promising for me when I finally get my machine back. As of now it's getting a final inspection and awaiting shipment.

 

I'm worried also. I hate to buy a new drive that can't be returned (only exchanged for the same part). My Rma drive arrives Monday but I cannot install it until Tuesday (and if my wife goes onto labor it could be weeks, we are due with our 2nd any day). I've already starting thinking of how to off load it if it doesn't work. I'm going to wait and see what happens, but I'm very disappointed in G Skill. The drive is either completely incompatible with the G73JH (although there is one person with a working one on here) or G Skill released a batch of bad drives. Either way we are seriously inconvenienced.

Keep posting what happens, hopefully we can find a solution. I started a thead on G Skill tech forums and they seemed suprised about the problem. Read it here.
Phoenix Pro 120gb not recognized by Asus G73 laptop bios - GSKILL TECH FORUM

 

Everything works great for me here.... I updated to 211 and its been flawless ever since... One suggestion is maybe the bios reset button under the laptop??? I had to do the button on my G50vt to get this drive to recognize in bios.... Its worth a shot???

 

Good idea, I'll try it once I get my drive.

 

Installed the gskill pro in my desktop and it's fine. Bios and win7 sees it fine. I'll keep it in my desktop if I have to but I'm going to keep trying to get it to work with the G73.

 

gskill now works fine in my G73JH. After testing in my desktop I tried it again in the G73. Reset CMOS before installed it. Imaged and recovered C: and using SSD as I type this. Less than an hour start to finish.

 

Great news. I hope mine works also. I never reset the bios before I rma'd it so I'll never know if that was the problem or if the drive was bad. I'll try out the new one first without reseting to try and isolate the problem. If it doesn't work but then does after a reset we'll know for sure. I wish I had tried reseting the CMOS before I RMAd, maybe I could have saved $9 shipping. Live and learn. At least we help other people who have the same drive. Thanks for posting and I am glad it works for you. Let me know if anything comes up.

 

So I got my RMA'd drive back. I was curious to see if my Bios detected this drive without needing to be reset or anything. Sure enough they did. I don't know if that means the original drive was defective or not. Fortunately this one is working well and using as I type this. Ironically GSkill released a new firmware on Sunday evening. I upgraded to that before installing windows and have not had any issues at all with this drive. It benchmarks about 50mbps faster than my 30gb OCZ Vertex (1).


If anyone does get this drive and your bios don't detect it, try reseting the bios, if that doesn't work, try updating to the 3.1 firmware. You'll have to install it in a working computer with a free sata port to do so.

 

Awesome. I hope my drive works. I haven't even taken it out of the package yet. I'll update firmware before I install. Supposedly, my laptop is back on it's way to Best Buy. So hopefully, tomorrow I will be able to go pick it up.

Quick question, how do you "optimize" the drive? I see in your pic you have it labeled as such.

 

I performed all of the changes listed here...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-intel-series-4-5-965-chipsets-jjb-tweak.html

and here
The SSD Optimization Guide | The SSD Review

Honestly they didn't really do anything though as you can see in the picture I posted. Mainly you want to disable the pagefile and hibernation, this will save you a good 6-12GB of space.

 

Got my laptop back yesterday. I had the same issue as you. At first I could load windows onto the drive, but then I could not boot with that drive. I then updated the SSD firmware to 3.1, and re- installed windows. Now everything works as it should.

 

Don't think this has anything to do with the g73. I have had to rma twice with that ssd. Both times the drive worked for a while then stopped being recognized by my EVGA x58 ftw3 motherboard, my Gigabyte EP45-UD3p motherboard and my brother's acer AX3910-U3012 computer. These drives have a ridiculously high failure rate. Just read some of the newegg reviews. I know this is an old thread but just in case anyone finds this thread while considering buying one of these garbage drives, I wanted to save them some money and hassle.

 

Yeah, mine works fine now, but since I had to RMA it, I recommend OCZ or intel.