G.Skill Titan SSD not recognized in Studio XPS 16

I just got my 1640 and stuck in my G.Skill (who puts a "." in their name?) booted up and the BIOS says no HDD installed. I removed and reinstalled the drive, no love. Then I just removed all the screws, letting it hang, and it recognizes the drive. Reinstalled with screws, no love. Let it hang again, it recognizes it. At this point I suspect the housing is warping it causing problems, but even with a single screw very loose, it doesn't recognize the drive as being installed.

So I either suspect warping or some kind of electrical short, and based on the "loose screw" test mentioned above, probably electrical short. The original drive, a Seagate Momentus 320GB 7200RPM worked fine. Also, the G.Skill worked fine, all fastened in, in my Macbook.

Soooo...any ideas? I'm planning on trying some kind of insulated mount, but I'm not sure what I need to do that. Nylon screws? Maybe Fry's has some.

Disclaimer: I know the 1640 has an option for a sweet Samsung 256GB SSD now for cheaper than the G.Skill, but it wasn't an option when I ordered.

sonic.wind

 

OK, thanks for everyone's input. I wouldn't say I've solved the problem, but I've definitely isolated it. Through various experimentation, it's definitely some kind of contact/short issue. In order to "install" the drive at this time, I am unable to screw the housing from Dell into the G.Skill. Instead I've used scientific elastic adhesive product (electrical tape) between the 'Skill and the housing and also around the 'Skill and the housing and then attached the housing as normal to the notebook. I know this is a highly delicate and intricate procedure that noone but a trained monkey would want to execute, but if anyone else needs instructions I can provide pictures.

It's not like a mummy, it's just enough to attach and insulate it at the proper place, so I'm not expecting heat issues, but I will monitor it.

Vista is now installing. Gee, I hope my data doesn't just go capoof some day.

 

Ok another update here. I know I'm talking to myself, but I want to record it here for future generations. It's not a short, which is kind of good. It's warping. I went and got some nylon screws to mount the disk so I could do away with the electrical tape mounting option and bam, drive not recognised again. After much fiddling, I noticed if I held the SXPS by a corner when booting it would recognise it. It was "de"-warping it. So I analysed this some more, and sure enough if I manually de-warped the board, it would be recognized and when I removed the nylon screws mounting the board to the bracket and just used electrical tape, which would give when fastening the bracket to the SXPS I get no problems. SSDs are generally less solid, or at least have less need to be solid than an HDD, I guess. The G.Skill is in a very light weight plastic case. Let the modder beware.

 

Awww sonic, thanks for taking one on the chin for the rest of us. You saved us all tons of trouble. +! for your effort.

 

You promised some picks, so why not ?

 

You want pictures of my electrical tape installed SSD? ha ha, I was just joking about that. Just imagine the HDD "housing" (it's just a thin strip of aluminum that goes around 3 edges of the HDD) on the SSD (Hey, why do we call them solid state DISKS, there is no disk) and then 2 pieces of electrical tape wrapped around the housing and disk together. Then screw the housing into the SXPS as normal.

If I come up with a more professional install, I'll take some picks if you really want them.

 

how is the performance on ur laptop?
i am think to get G.Skill Titan 256G to replace my intel 80G.
any advice?

 

Here is the deal. The G.Skill is "good" under normal conditions provided you use all the configuration and tweaks, which are easy to apply. However, I was unable to run a VM, because of the known studdering problems that occur if you get too much going on. However, if you also buy and install a program called MFT from EasyCo, your machine will fly like you just doubled the RAM and the processor speed. Not just did the VM work well, but my machine in general suddenly became the fastest machine I've ever had, including desktops. (I am not an extreme PC kind of guy, but I do always have the lastest stuff and buy a new notebook and pc at least once a year.)

I am still in the processes of benchmark testing, but in general the Samsung SSD is better than the G.Skill, though I'm not sure with MFT if you could tell the difference. But I am going to go with the Samsung + MFT and sell the G.Skill.

The Samsung being only available at the moment if you buy a whole laptop (I just returned my original SXPS) may not be an option. 256GB is really a minimum for me. This makes the G.Skill a pretty good option. It is identical to the Apex which is $400+ more. The OCZ Vertex will be coming out any day, which will be around $900, I guess, will be a better drive than the G.Skill/Apex, supposedly, but $500+$200 for MFT is still cheaper than $900 for a Vertex and would probably be faster anyway.

The Samsung has about an effective cost of $600 as a $400 upgrade from the minimum HDD on a Dell notebook.

 

hmm, i am not a pc extreme and my laptop doesn't even support more than 130MB/s transfer rate. so, at this point, I would say: Lenovo Thinkpad X61t sucks.... Yea, I am a thinkpad guy. so I feel Samsung 256G or Apex is a waste of money on my laptop coz my Intel SSD can only perform max 130mb/s reading. So, Yea, Lenovo capped the SATA transfer rate on my machine.
Reason why I need a larger SSD coz Vista eatting up space fast, so 80G is not enough for me, I only have 25G left with recovery off. and I do have some "big program" such as Photoshop and AutoCAD. no other softwares.
When you mention the tweaks, are those tweaks from OCZ?