Intel 520 SSD / Asus P5Q Deluxe - possible compatibility issue?

Hey, is anyone out there using an Intel 520 SSD with an Asus P5Q Deluxe?

Trying my second new drive (240gb), & still can't get it to get it to work successfully. At this point, really wishing I'd gone with a Samsung 830, as I've since noticed a couple P5Q folks are using one (or at least that I'd bought from Amazon rather than newegg -- replacement only, no return.. ).

Basically, with the first one out of the box, I was seeing total instability, VDS errors, wouldn't even allow me to intialize the drive. With a new replacement, it comes up ok as often as not, but like with the first, often after a couple of boots the controller will pause for a long while when trying to enumerate the drive at boot, and then fail to recognize it (will usually work again immediately when switching ports). Alternately, when it successfully recognizes it, if I've set it as the boot drive & boot from it, it will run nicely for a while, but eventually it will BSOD (e.g. KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR, at least the one for which I checked out the dmp file).

As one alternative approach, I purchased a cheap (Syba) ASM106x based SATA 3 controller PCIe card, updated its fw and tried it with that -- and lo and behold, the exact same behavior.. worked a couple times, then on the next boot, the bios of the ASM106x card, when trying to enumerate the drive, hangs for a long while, and then fails to find the drive. I even tried updating the mobo bios to a modded BIOS with an updated Intel O-ROM that supposedly would have better SSD compatibility, but no luck.. at any rate, the fact that the onboard ICH10R controller and the separate ASM106x controller card both independently fail in the same way, makes me really doubt that it's the controller.

But if it's not the controller, not sure what it might be (power? though my other mechanical drive is doing just fine, and it's an 880 watt Hiper supply, with standard set of components, should have plenty of juice). So now I'm wondering if I somehow have ended up with a second bad drive -- Intel support is doubtful of that happening twice and thinks it's the mobo/configuration (but they are still willing to replace it for me).

Anyone have any idea what else it could be? (And is anyone using *any* sandforce 2200 based SSD on their P5Q Deluxe?)

Thanks much in advance,
Adam

PS Alternatively, assuming I don't solve the issue and it's not the drive itself, if anyone's interested in buying an essentially new Intel 520 240 gb, let me know. (Bought for $345, will listen to offers..)

I was running a 520 240GB quite happily on my P5Q Pro Turbo.

You sure you don't have a dodgy SATA or power cable and that you are using AHCI?

Mark

If both are failing in exactly the same way, it is likely not the controller itself (but could be PCIe issues elsewhere). Here are some things to try:
1. New SATA Data Cable
2. New SATA Power Cable (Off a different PS trunk if possible)
3. Make sure you are in AHCI mode.
4. On that board, make sure you have express gate disabled
5. Update yoru BIOS to latest OFFICIAL BIOS (Which version of the P5Q do you have, Deluxe, Premium, Pro etc) which fixes boot issues in various P5Q releases.
6. Update to the latest RST drivers if you have them installed.

mwroobel said:

If both are failing in exactly the same way, it is likely not the controller itself (but could be PCIe issues elsewhere). Here are some things to try:
1. New SATA Data Cable
2. New SATA Power Cable (Off a different PS trunk if possible)
3. Make sure you are in AHCI mode.
4. On that board, make sure you have express gate disabled
5. Update yoru BIOS to latest OFFICIAL BIOS (Which version of the P5Q do you have, Deluxe, Premium, Pro etc) which fixes boot issues in various P5Q releases.
6. Update to the latest RST drivers if you have them installed.

Click to expand...

Had already tried 1 & 3 - 6, but re 2 -- the initial power cable I was using was a single cable that had two SATA connectors which I used for my mechanical drive also. Earlier I'd once tried changing to a different power cable -- but one with a regular molex connector using the molex-SATA adapter that came with the drive -- and it didn't help.

Last night, though, I finally tried switching to the supply's second separate SATA power cable -- I'd held off on trying that before because it was pinned behind the mobo and needed some case surgery to access it, and had told myself the initial check of that other cable was good enough. But sure enough, that may be the ticket -- hasn't failed yet to be recognized coming up after a number of restarts, and no BSODs etc. (Have been on the ASM106x SATA III card, incidentally; may switch back to the onboard Intel SATA II since the perf actually seemed better with the latter.)

Man, I wish I'd gone to that trouble earlier, given how much more time I spent trying other solutions!

Thanks much for the replies.

Cables will do it every time. I have even seen a cable which was never moved, never flexed or even touched fail in a machine after 6 months of working fine.

Yeah, it's enough to start making one paranoid.

In this case, I wonder if that the other power cable (these are all coming out of the Hiper supply's medusa's head of cables) is coming from a different rail in the supply (?). But here's where my ignorance of power & electrical matters comes into play..

It could be a different rail, a bad connector, problems with the physical wire, bad solder joint etc.. Just tape over the bad connector and avoid using any of the connectors on that trunk if you can.

Well, the connector worked fine with my other drive, & given that plus the issue also having reproed with another separate cable using the molex-SATA adaptor (as well as when switching between the two SATA connectors on that same double connector cable), is leading me to think it's a different rail. Particularly having had both the hdd and ssd on that same double cable (probably I should have tried using the ssd in isolation for a while; had occurred to me, but I needed access to my files on the hdd so held off on that.. another example of insufficient attention to the power aspect when trying to resolve this whole thing. Lesson learned, I hope.)