Intel x25-m Firmware problems

Howdy folks

I'm trying to update the firmware on my x25 to the newest version, which adds Trim to the drive.

Unfortunately there is a known issue where systems using Nvidia chipsets cannot install the firmware because the update cannot detect the drive.

I've tried one suggestion of taking the drive out and connecting it to the external eSATA port. For some folks this worked because the external port worked off a separate chipset. For me it hosed my bootfiles requiring the Win7 DVD to fix it.

Anyone have any ideas on how to work around this? I badly want to get this firmware going for Trim support.

I'm feeling pretty pissed that I shelled out roughly $500 for it and it doesn't work with Nvidia...thats a pretty major company to lack compatibility with.

 

why not try it in a different laptop or desktop? You shouldn't have this problem then... also have u tried it with your laptop yet? Just in case if it works...

 

It's been in my laptop for a month or so. That is where I've tried it many times with no luck. I've moved it to each drive bay, to the external SATA port, all nothing.

I think I'm going to stick it in the wife's laptop. It is also a Dell, but I didnt see anything in the system tools to say it was an Nvidia chipset.

 

I also tried to the Intel SSD Toolbox 1.2.

It installs, but each drive listed says "error connecting to drive" after it in the list.

 

I'm not sure, but is it possible that the Update will only work in IDE mode?

In that case NVidia might not support it, but I may be wrong.

In terms of updating the Firmware - any Intel based computer will do, desktop, laptop doesn't matter.
Maybe try a friend's laptop?

 

As far as I know, the mode doesn't matter.

But yeah, you can flash the firmware using any other SATA laptop or desktop with an Intel chipset. I believe Intel recommends not flashing it from an eSATA port though.

 

Ughhh, flashing firmware always gives me the goosebumps. It is such a delicate process and it could brick the device. Good thing yours is still under warranty, although not all warranties cover flashing errors.

Try it in the Dell.

On another note, while Nvidia is a major computer component company, they are not as big of a player in the chipset market, where they play mostly to niches.

 

the driver in flasher iso files is just a dos driver with very limited compatibility, the best bet is intel disk controller based machine.

 

the dell has an intel chipset most likely unless it's a SLI laptop like an M1730...

 

My solution was indeed to pop it into my wife's Inspiron 1525 and flash the bios there.

Went very fast, then just swapped the drive back to my m17x. Trim is working, but in order to use the Intel Toolbox I had to change the drive controller to the generic Windows 7 drive controller instead of the Nvidia Drive Controller.

As long as the controller is Nvidia based the toolbox will throw an error and not access your drive.

 

I had to get rid of that Nforce serial ATA controller and let the default Windows AHCI driver install. That nforce driver was bottlenecking the drive. The default MS driver is actually an Intel driver from 2006.