Intel X25-M G2 Help

[Nfes64]

I've been having serious issues with my X25m g2 ever since I purchased it.

To begin with, I upgraded the firmware to the latest, then installed Win7 x64 on my VAIO NR11Z, T7250 processor, ICH8M chipset [Cpuz reads the chipset as GM965, the southbridge as 82801HBM (ICH8-ME)].

When I first booted, I noticed that defragmentation schedule was not automatically turned off, like it should be for SSDs as far as I am aware. Write caching was enabled. Then the problems started - upon reboots, seemingly randomly, the computer would hang during the windows 7 icon animation - the hard drive would display no activity for about 2 minutes, and then load as normal. This was very unusual, and seemingly random. There are no hard drive options in my VAIO bios.

I then quickly reformated and tried again, this time installing NO drivers or updates (as opposed to the last time when I did), but the problem was still there. So i thought that there was some incompatibility with my chipset and the mAHCI drivers, so I reformatted yet again, and installed the intel matrix storage drivers. This cured the problem of random reboot hangs, but over time, despite running the intel optimizer, performance degraded and degraded. I tried once again to install msahci and measure performance - still degraded. Adittionally, lately the toolbox seems to throw errors about files and asks to run checkdisk, but checkdisk comes out clean.

Does anyone have any ideas what to do? I am naturally frustrated and annoyed at the poor performance. Whats more, the degradation is noticable in real terms and not just in benchmarks.

 

[blackangst1]

Have you tried re-flashing the firmware? Maybe it was corrupt?

 

[Nfes64]

Have you tried re-flashing the firmware? Maybe it was corrupt?

How would i go about doing that, now when you insert the firmare upgrade disk it says firmware up to date!

 

[blackangst1]

How would i go about doing that, now when you insert the firmare upgrade disk it says firmware up to date!

My bad, youre right.

Dunno :hmm:

RMA?

 

[Nfes64]

My bad, youre right.

Dunno :hmm:

RMA?

The problem is, I don't know whether the ssd is good or not - it could be just a fault with chipset/VAIO's AHCI implementation, or it could be a genuine ssd fault - I have no other computer at hand to test it with...

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced similar problems, or if any ssd experts had any advice...

 

[Beautiful_Life]

1. Windows 7 won't turn off disk defragmenter service even it it detects an SSD. According to what I hear, it will simply not run the defragmenter even if the service and schedule is on on an SSD. If there are a mix of SSD and HDD, then it will just run on the HDD. Personally, I only know it will not diasable the service or the schedule automatically.

2. Write caching will be enabled. Nothing wrong there. Intel recommend you to leave it on anyway.

3. I've experienced the 2 minute hang on the Windows logo during boot. Mine was more like 10 minutes. This happened on my 3rd clean install of Win 7 to the SSD. The problem was MS Security Essential didn't complete it's update and initiate properly when I installed it. My computer hanged and I did a a forced power off. This started the problem.

I fixed it by going into safe mode, did all the updating and got MSE running properly.

This problem could be due to any other program or service that doesn't load properly or causes a hang during the boot process

4. How exactly does the performance degrade?

 

[taltamir]

1. Windows 7 won't turn off disk defragmenter service even it it detects an SSD. According to what I hear, it will simply not run the defragmenter even if the service and schedule is on on an SSD. If there are a mix of SSD and HDD, then it will just run on the HDD. Personally, I only know it will not diasable the service or the schedule automatically.

That is a good thing if it was true. But its not how it works.
Windows 7 schedules automatic defrag for your HDDs while leaving your SSDs alone. You CAN tell it to defrag an SSD and it will do it. I just verified it (by running it for the first time every on my intel G2 SSD... for a few seconds then I stopped it of course... I did wait for it to get into the defrag mode instead of just analysis. it jumped to 5% done in about a second... real fast ah heck)

3. I've experienced the 2 minute hang on the Windows logo during boot. Mine was more like 10 minutes. This happened on my 3rd clean install of Win 7 to the SSD. The problem was MS Security Essential didn't complete it's update and initiate properly when I installed it. My computer hanged and I did a a forced power off. This started the problem.

I experienced that with installations of certain windows update. However, I experienced it before using an SSD as well. I think it takes less time now with an SSD actually.

 

[Nfes64]

The performance degradation goes as follows (using AS SSD benchmark):

Sequential times: 230/80 - nothing wrong with the write times, but it's odd people are getting 250s for their read times. Its not really a problem if just that was the problem.

4k speeds: are 15Mb/s for read and 30mb/s with write (this is on a clean install of windows 7 with microsofts ahci driver), which is significantly lower than what other people are getting for 80gb intel g2s. (normal is 20/40)

4k-64thrd times: 130/60 - the 60 is exactly what others are getting, but most are getting around 150 for their read times. Not a big deal, more worried about the 4k times, but it again seems to be indicative of something not being quite right...

EDIT: Pictures speak a thousand words, have a look at my results: http://communities.intel.com/thread/11751

Also, with time, the benchmarks get lower (eg 4k write speeds drop to 20!!), irrespective of using the SSD Optimizer...

 

[Beautiful_Life]

Nothing wrong with your scored. Your southbridge is limiting your speed.

Most of the benchmarks you see are using ICHR10.

 

[Nfes64]

That's good to know! Anyone else here have any benchmarks of x25-m g2 under ICH8M?