X220 freezes and locks with 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD

I have a clean Win 7 UEFI install on the 240GB Vertex 3 SSD in X220.

Occasionally Windows freezes for 30sec - 1min. Mouse moves but nothing else does. Eventually it resumes, except once when I had to reboot.

I know about this page: OCZ Vertex 3 Freezes, Locks Up, Stutters and Crashes | Geek Montage

I did everything except the registry keys which I am afraid to screw up and the hot plugging enabling which setting I can't find.

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

The worst that will happen is you'll have to re-install Windows.

 

Hey there Nick,

I think the registry edits are what you need, possibly in addition to a couple other steps. I dealt with a very similar problem a few months ago on a customer's PC. Here's what I did to solve it (check out the Disk corruption, LPM, and the iaStor.sys factor entry).

Let me know if this helps!

 

Typically I see OCZ and SandForce not playing nice with the latest IRST.

 

I applied the reg and will report here if freezes are solved.

Sadly, I got such a lockup while formatting a second partition and I had to do a hardware reboot. Now partition manager refuses to create the second volume and complains of an "out of sync" object.

I think I will have to repartition&reinstall the whole drive. Hopefully this will solve this new issue.

I wonder if going back from UEFI to legacy BIOS helps with the freezes?

I do have the latest IRST. Any ideas of how to improve that area?

Thanks!

 

OK, I gave up UEFI (even if this may not have been the culprit) repartitioned the drive and applied the reg entries.

I am happy to report that freezes are SOLVED!

Glad it worked but damn ugly bugs though...

 

In this case, it's not OCZ or SandForce. It's the well known issue with Intel's latest RST driver. Unlike previous RST versions, the driver now enables "Link Power Management" by default. This is meant to reduce power consumption, but is causing issues with basically all SATA III SSD. At the lowered power state the interface apparently cannot handle the much higher data throughput with SATA III.

 

having same issue with my 240gb vertex 3

 

Miguel,

would suggest you to head over to the OCZ forum;
Guide Im seeing fresh posts about stuttering/stalling/bsod on vtx3/ag3/solid3 and some vtx2 but have you guys read the stickies?

I spent a while reading the stickies
SandForce - Vertex2/LE/Pro, Agility2, Vertex2/Agility2 EX Drives, REVO and HSDL drives

But it's rather messy with no consolidated release notes.
At this point I have no clue whether firmware release 2.36 (flashes to 2.06) solves the freezes - ie you'd need to go through the posts.

 

i manually added the ports key (0 to 5) into the registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\PortX (x=0 to 5)), also added dworld LPM, LPMDSTATE and DIPM. Finally ran this:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port1]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port2]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port3]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port4]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

and hasnt freeze for a bit.. will post if this fixes it...

 

I'm just curious, how did you get the Vertex 3 into the X220 in the first place?

 

Thanks Miguel - have you flashed with 2.36FW to v2.06?

 

Will let you know when I receive it from UPS this afternoon!


Sorry couldn't resist - I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbHI1yI1Ndk

it in.

 

mine came with 2.06

 

Lucky you! btw, if there are any further FW updates, you'd have to go the Linux route to update, if you are using the Vertex as the main OS drive.
Or - take the drive to a desktop, set up AHCI mode and update.
Cheers~

 

Hi friends, just a gentle note, if your V3 firmware is 2.02 and you are not facing any issues, try not to upgrade your firmware to 2.06 yet. I've spent the last few days reading through the OCZ forums and the general opinion on there is that 2.06 brings a fresh wave of BSOD / disk not detected issues.

I'd advise you to head over there and read more if you are experiencing issues.

 

Hi,

I'm about to buy ultra portable laptop with Sandy Bridge and upgrade it with Vertex 3.

X220 is among my main interest but I need to ask. How did you put Vertex which is above 9mm in height into the X220 which has 7mm max drive bay?

Did you need to "break" anything. Are there any inconveniences left after such operation?

Cheers,

 

These drivers won't load onto my W520. I haven't yet tried the X220 but it is working fine.

Message is "computer does not meet the minimum requirements for running the software."

 

@tamashumi:
the Vertex3 will fit; you need to angle it into the drive bay - it won't slide horizontally in at first because of the tiny indents on at the bay opening.

 

Many thanks to everyone for posting I stumbled onto this thread, and now my X220 is no longer a semi-brick. I too had mouse pointer hangs; I had to do a hard re-boot every 5-10 minutes.

I had no problems until I abandoned UEFI (hey, reduced my boot time by 2 seconds, and when 2 TB SSD's become available, I would've been all set!), and re-loaded my legacy BIOS Win 7 image. After that, I started getting mouse pointer hangs every 5-10 minutes. I ran Geek Montage's code, and so far, so good.

I checked, and my RST driver is up-to-date.

I've also taken SSD optimization steps outlined on Tom's Hardware, except I haven't disable System Restore.

I also found the links to OCZ's forums helpful:

Guide How it is very easy to cause severe issues with a brand new SandForce based ssd drive

What other steps can I take to insure system stability, and to optimize performance?

System: X220, Core i7 2620M, USB 3.0, Corsair Force Series 3 120GB (post-recall model)

 

In Win 7, does turning off "Link State Power Management" improve stability or performance for a system with SATA III / SSD ?

 

Do'h!

LPM = Link Power Management. I was looking at Win 7's Power Settings for PCIe.

 

Update: turning off LPM did vastly increase my system stability, but I still get hangs / BSOD's every day or two. Others are having problems with the Corsair Force 3 120GB, so a faulty drive is starting to appear to be the culprit, although chipset, SATA 3 controller, and / or driver or BIOS might be the problem.

System: X220, Core i7 2620M, USB 3.0, Corsair Force Series 3 120GB (post-recall model)