Intel SSD freezes my computer in low power/sleep mode

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MrMetal_53

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 21, 2006
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I just made the jump to Sandy Bridge from my E6750, and everything went smooth except for the formatting of my secondary HD. I've got a 120 GB Intel SSD for my windows installation and other programs, and a 320 GB maxtor for my games. After I got the computer up and running with windows 7, I went to format (from disk management) it the maxtor. I decided to do the not quick format (since I wanted it to check for boot sector errors). I noticed the computer was unresponsive around the 60% mark. I restarted, started the format again, and went to work for a couple hours. I got back, turned on my monitor, and there was no signal, but the computer was still on. So I restart and try it one more time, and this time it worked.

Is there any cause for concern because I couldn't get the HD to format correctly the first couple times? Does that mean that the HD is on it's way out?

System is as follows (stock except where noted):

Intel Core i5 2500k
MSI P67A-GD55
HD 6950 (840/1350)
GSkill Sniper 8GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB)
Corsair 620HX
Intel X-25M 120 GB SSD
Maxtor 320 GB

Let me know if I left out anything. Thanks for your help
 
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[Testing the Hard Drive]
Download the CD image of Hitachi Drive Fitness Test, burn the ISO file to a CD, and then boot from it, just like you would do with the XP/Vista install CD. Test the hard drive and see if any problems are found. DFT will run on most manufacturers' hard drives. Alternatively, you can use Seagate's SeaTools for DOS to test a Seagate or Maxtor drive. For a Western Digital drive, you could use Data Lifeguard Tools for DOS to test a Western Digital drive.
 
Doh, should have read the stick first, sorry about that. So I ran the test on my Intel SSD, and it said it failed. I'm thinking it might be the 2.5 to 3.5 adapter that I put it in; it looked like the sata cable was tweaking it down. I'm going to try to take it out of it and mount it in the adapter that came with the SSD. I'm currently running the long test on the maxtor to see what's going on.

I came across a setting in the BIOS that I was curious about. "SATA Configuration," right now it's set to IDE for me. Should it be set to ACHI? I googled it and people were saying that if you wanted to run it in legacy mode that you should run it in ACHI. Is this correct?
 
So the Maxtor drive was fine, but the Intel drive is failing the test. Is it possible it's failing the test because it's an SSD, or does that not matter? Does Intel have some sort of tool that can help me determine if the SSD is toast?
 
mrmetal_53 said:
I came across a setting in the BIOS that I was curious about. "SATA Configuration," right now it's set to IDE for me. Should it be set to ACHI? I googled it and people were saying that if you wanted to run it in legacy mode that you should run it in ACHI. Is this correct?
Click to expand...
It should be set to AHCI for longevity and performance purposes. So set it to AHCI ASAP. Before you do, however, read this thread first to get Windows 7 to work fine after you switch from IDE to AHCI:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=313676
mrmetal_53 said:
So the Maxtor drive was fine, but the Intel drive is failing the test. Is it possible it's failing the test because it's an SSD, or does that not matter? Does Intel have some sort of tool that can help me determine if the SSD is toast?
Click to expand...

It could be due to the fact that it is a SSD. Fairly sure Intel has a tool to test the SSD but forgot what it was called.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'm at work now, but I'll check them out when I get home. Is it possible that I'm having these problems because I'm running my sata drives in ide mode?
 
mrmetal_53 said:
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'm at work now, but I'll check them out when I get home. Is it possible that I'm having these problems because I'm running my sata drives in ide mode?
Click to expand...

For the hard drive, no. For the SSD, maybe.
 
Ok, so I followed the guide that Danny Bui posted on changing the SATA mode to ACHI from within the registry, and then changed the mode in the BIOS too. I downloaded the Intel Toolbox, and ran a full diagnostic scan on my SSD. The SSD passed the "Read Scan" but it froze when it was running the "Data Integrity Scan." :confused: I think maybe I should mention that I left the computer running it's test, and went to go do other things. It seems like the computer freezes when the computer tries to turn the harddrives off? In the current power profile I'm running, it is set to turn the harddrives off after 20 minutes. I'm going to turn it up to an absurdly high number and let the test run and see what happens.

On another note, after I enabled the ACHI sata mode in the BIOS, it gave me the option to enable or disable sata hot plugging for each of the various sata ports; without thinking, I enabled it. From what I understand, that just affects whether I can unplug the devices when the system is on, correct? I'm thinking I should probably go back into the BIOS and disable those; that setting shouldn't have any affect on the stability of my system, right?

EDIT: My computer just froze again, this time just sitting in windows while downloading something from steam. I'm really at a loss for what is going on here. The only thing that isn't at stock is my video card, but could that really be causing this?
 
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So something else I came across was that the default voltages set by they bios for my CPU and RAM might be off (too low). I came across a thread on here about c state settings and the poster determined that his voltages were too low. I'll check on that when I get home
 
Disabling hot-swap won't hurt your system
Set your video card back to stock.
Try reinstalling Windows 7 in trial mode on a spare hard drive to rule out the SSD.
 
Danny Bui said:
Disabling hot-swap won't hurt your system
Set your video card back to stock.
Try reinstalling Windows 7 in trial mode on a spare hard drive to rule out the SSD.
Click to expand...

I disabled hot swapping and set my video card back to stock. I also set my CPU voltage to a constant 1.2V and RAM to a constant 1.5V. I'm running a blend test for Prime95 , the highest core temp has been 54 C as shown by real temp. How long should I let it run for to rule out the CPU? And is Prime95 a good way of testing the memory, or is MEMTEST better?

I'll keep the Windows 7 in trial mode option in my mind to try next. I'm hoping that the above will fix my problems?
 
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Memtest is far better for testing RAM. Run those test for 24 hours straight
 
Danny Bui said:
Memtest is far better for testing RAM. Run those test for 24 hours straight
Click to expand...

Alright, thanks for the info. I ran prime and memtest for a couple hours each last night, and I had zero problems with them. I'm going out of town tonight, but when I get back on sunday, I'll start running those tests. I guess I'll bump the thread when I get back. Thanks for all your help
 
I turned the computer on for a couple hours after work (got home early from work) and after being on for a couple of hours, I realized it froze again. So I guess I need to run those stability tests over night when I get back to see what's going on. The more I think about it, the more I think it is the SSD? When I was taking the SSD out of the adapter I bought to put it in the standard Intel adapter that came with it, and I noticed that the SSD itself (or at least the casing of the SSD) was physically warped. I can take some pictures when I get back this weekend, but that seems odd to me
 
So I bought a new SSD from amazon, and when I went to reformat the secondary HD, it froze again. The computer seems to be fine when I'm busy working on it, but as soon as I leave it, it freezes. I really think it is a problem with sleep mode or a low-power state mode. Possibly a problem with hibernate? I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of frustrating. Do you guys have any ideas about problems with computers going into low-power mode? Is there a setting that needs to be activated or deactivated for SSDs?

In the mean time, I'm going to run Memtest overnight and see what happens.
 
Is AHCI enabled?

To be honest, outside of a laptop, I haven't dealt with PCs going into low power.
 
Danny Bui said:
Is AHCI enabled?

To be honest, outside of a laptop, I haven't dealt with PCs going into low power.
Click to expand...

AHCI is enabled, although I was having this problem in IDE mode too. I'll run memtest for 20 hours or so, but I don't think it's going to show anything. I really think it is a problem with intel c-states or a low power mode. I came across some information about turning s3 sleep mode off during my research last night, so I'll have to look into that. Maybe someone else can chime in regarding that issue and ssds.

On a side note, are there any hds that come close to providing the performance of ssds? I really wanted to go with an ssd for my new build, but if it turns out to be more of a hassle than a boost, I might just forget about it.
 
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mrmetal_53 said:
On a side note, are there any hds that come close to providing the performance of ssds? I really wanted to go with an ssd for my new build, but if it turns out to be more of a hassle than a boost, I might just forget about it.
Click to expand...
Nope. Not even close.
 
mrmetal_53 said:
On a side note, are there any hds that come close to providing the performance of ssds? I really wanted to go with an ssd for my new build, but if it turns out to be more of a hassle than a boost, I might just forget about it.
Click to expand...
Depends what you mean by "performance." Sequential read/write isn't as much of a difference between HDD and SSD (although they are still better), but SSD's random access just stomps on HDD. If you install Windows on an SSD, you will notice the difference.
 
A short stroked Raptor would be the closest you can get to a SSD but for the price one may as well get a SSD. A short-stroked regular HDD is very cheap and can be about as fast a Raptor making a great boot drive, but it's still quite far from the SSD's random access.

And as mentionned above, the difference in sequential read/write isn't significant for most users and it is the access times that make SSDs feel so good.
 
Look for "Power Options" in the w7 control panel.

Look around and change all the power settings to make sure the computer's always on and disable hibernation.
 
Old Hippie said:
Look for "Power Options" in the w7 control panel.

Look around and change all the power settings to make sure the computer's always on and disable hibernation.
Click to expand...

I think that's the trick. I disabled hibernation and left the computer on overnight. I woke up this morning, and it was frozen, but it froze after many hours (I know because the stream game I started downloading when I left the computer on was 75% done). I noticed the mouse and keyboard weren't on when I woke up, so when I restarted, I looked in the power settings and turned off usb selective standby or something like that. I think the problem was that when my computer turns the monitor off, it also turned the usb devices off after a while, and since they were off, I couldn't wake the screen. Thus the computer seemed "frozen." Anyways, I'll update this thread when I get home to a hopefully un-frozen computer ;)

Is there a problem with ssds and hibernate, or is it just my drive?
 
Many SSDs are temperamental about low power.

If you're using w7 there's many different power settings.

Look around.
 
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Looks like that did the trick! I turned the computer on around 6 am, and got home around 6 pm and it was still on! I've got it overclocked and I'm running stress tests now :) Thanks for all the help
 
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