# New Samsung 830 256GB SSD with minor problems...



## Mo786 (Aug 28, 2012)

Hi,

So I just bought this SSD about a week ago and have been using it for about 3 days so far. It seems really fast and all, but I have had a minor problem with it. I would be browsing the net normally then suddenly my mouse input would start lagging slowly then suddenly freeze. The computer would completely freeze and refuse to take any inputs from the mouse or keyboard.

I have checked for new FW updates via the Samsung SSD Magician Tool, but it seems I'm already running the latest firmware. 

When I first got my SSD I installed a fresh copy of Widows 7 on it then followed the following guide to optimize Windows 7 accordingly: http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds

Now the guide mentions to use the native AMD SATA controllers instead of any third party ones, which I did in the first place, however I just went into the BIOS and completely disabled the other 3rd part controller a few mins ago since the computer just froze for the 2nd time in 3 days.

Any ideas on what I should try doing or what might be causing this? Should I try updating my BIOS or something?

This is my setup atm:
*Motherboard:* GA-890GPA-UD3H (rev. 2.0) @ BIOS Version *FF*
*RAM:* G. Skill Ripjaws 12GB DDR3 1600MHz PC3-12800 CL9
*CPU:* AMD Phenom II X6 1055T @ Stock 2.8GHz
*GPU:* EVGA GTX 460 SuperClocked 768MB
*HDD:* 1x Seagate 320GB 7200RPM, 1x Samsung F3 Spinpoint 1TB 7200RPM, 1x Samsung F4 Spinpoint 2TB 5400RPM
*SSD:* Samsung 830 256GB
*PSU:* Antec EarthWatts 750 Watts

Here is my CPU-Z Validation if needed: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2492852

Please let me know if anymore information is required. Thanks in advance.


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## Flibolito (Aug 28, 2012)

Switched to AHCI and turned off indexing and defragging and all the SSD stuff?


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## Mo786 (Aug 28, 2012)

Flibolito said:


> Switched to AHCI and turned off indexing and defragging and all the SSD stuff?



Yup. All that was covered in the guide I said I followed.


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## manofthem (Aug 28, 2012)

Did you update Windows as well as make sure all your other drivers are up to date (motherboard, data controller, chipset, VGA, etc)?

I have 2 of them and have experienced no issues like yours.


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## Mo786 (Aug 28, 2012)

manofthem said:


> Did you update Windows as well as make sure all your other drivers are up to date (motherboard, VGA, etc)?



Yup. All updates are installed as of this moment. Latest drivers were downloaded from Gigabyte, AMD, and Nvidia respectively.


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## Widjaja (Aug 29, 2012)

Try running without any other SATA attached hardware besides your SSD.


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## Jetster (Aug 29, 2012)

Did you delete your paging file, make it smaller or move it to another disk?


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## Mo786 (Aug 29, 2012)

Widjaja said:


> Try running without any other SATA attached hardware besides your SSD.


Why would that matter? All the other devices were attached and running for years before I got the SSD. This problem just started occurring. Oh and it just happened for the 3rd time about a min ago -_-


Jetster said:


> Did you delete your paging file, make it smaller or move it to another disk?


I made it smaller at first, but then I went and changed it back to let Windows 7 automatically manage it after I started getting these problems.


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## Flibolito (Aug 29, 2012)

ok check power options and make sure the disk doesnt turn off at at all during idle. set it to never that might help.


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## Widjaja (Aug 29, 2012)

Mo786 said:


> Why would that matter? All the other devices were attached and running for years before I got the SSD. This problem just started occurring. Oh and it just happened for the 3rd time about a min ago -_-



Could be a conflict with one of the other SATA devices running through the SATA controller.


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## Mo786 (Aug 29, 2012)

Flibolito said:


> ok check power options and make sure the disk doesnt turn off at at all during idle. set it to never that might help.


That's one of the first things I do after I install Windows. I hate it when my HDDs power down and have to power back up before I can access them.


Widjaja said:


> Could be a conflict with one of the other SATA devices running through the SATA controller.


Hmm. Alright I'll give it a try.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Aug 29, 2012)

Oh jesus another one bit the dust with disabling shit they shouldn't be with an SSD. Do not disable prefetch, indexing, write cache, and all that shit that all the stupid guides tell you to do. Only thing you need to do is change the setting in the BIOS to AHCI and then disable defrag in windows. THATS IT! Disabling prefetch and all that shit will cause problems later on. Also disabling Indexing makes the system slower believe it or not. Leave all the shit alone only disable defrag!


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## Jetster (Aug 29, 2012)

Here is the story or the back and forth with prefetch adn superfetch as well as other issues with SSD http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx


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## Flibolito (Aug 29, 2012)

I was an early adopter of SSDs and disabled indexing/ prefetch and always maintained very good performance and never ran into any issues. 3 years running almost and my intel X-25 is still kicking wicked strong.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Aug 29, 2012)

Basically Windows does everything on its own when its installed to the SSD. Windows knows so leave it alone.


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## Mo786 (Aug 29, 2012)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> Oh jesus another one bit the dust with disabling shit they shouldn't be with an SSD. Do not disable prefetch, indexing, write cache, and all that shit that all the stupid guides tell you to do. Only thing you need to do is change the setting in the BIOS to AHCI and then disable defrag in windows. THATS IT! Disabling prefetch and all that shit will cause problems later on. Also disabling Indexing makes the system slower believe it or not. Leave all the shit alone only disable defrag!


But even the Samsung Magician Tool told me to disable prefetch and indexing. I didn't mess with the cache. I messed with the size of the pagefile. Disabled superfetch, indexing, prefetch and defrag. Turned off hibernation and limit the amount of system restore points to be made. I'm not saying your theory of making Windows slower isn't true (this is my first SSD so idk), but would that stuff actually cause the freezing problem that I'm having?


Jetster said:


> Here is the story or the back and forth with prefetch adn superfetch as well as other issues with SSD http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx


Just looked at it. Was able to tell some of the info is a bit outdated, but it seemed to recommend turning off most of the features I turned off (except for paging which I probably shouldn't have messed with). But can changing the size of the page file actually cause the freezing problem?


Flibolito said:


> I was an early adopter of SSDs and disabled indexing/ prefetch and always maintained very good performance and never ran into any issues. 3 years running almost and my intel X-25 is still kicking wicked strong.



And I believe you. Any idea what my problem might be?


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## manofthem (Aug 29, 2012)

Like I said earlier, I have the same ssd. I also have let Magician tool do its auto tune thus disabling whatever it says to, I have followed that same guide several times that you followed, and I have run with the pagefile off and sized to 2000mb. I have not had the freezes that you have had due to ssd problems. I have had other issues like OC unstable or memory timings unstable resulting in freezes and such.... 

Have you ruled out every other possible hardware/software/driver problem?  And when you installed, did you install with only the ssd attached, no other hdds?


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## Flibolito (Aug 29, 2012)

Try other USB ports. Such as the ones directly on the motherboard or the ones on the case, also the PS/2 legacy port with the proper attachments might make the problem go away. well get to the bottom of this might just take a little time. I would also try reinstalling the motherboard Drivers one at a time.


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## Mo786 (Aug 29, 2012)

manofthem said:


> Like I said earlier, I have the same ssd. I also have let Magician tool do its auto tune thus disabling whatever it says to, I have followed that same guide several times that you followed, and I have run with the pagefile off and sized to 2000mb. I have not had the freezes that you have had due to ssd problems. I have had other issues like OC unstable or memory timings unstable resulting in freezes and such....
> 
> Have you ruled out every other possible hardware/software/driver problem?  And when you installed, did you install with only the ssd attached, no other hdds?


Well my RAM is originally at 1600 MHz, but the Phenom II memory controller only supports up to 1333 MHz natively. I have been running it at 1600 MHz for maybe over a year now without any problems, so I doubt that's the problem. My GPU is also factory overclocked and hadn't had any problems with it other than overheating when playing Civ 5 for extensive amount of hours nonstop.

I don't know what other software to rule out. It's a fresh copy of Windows 7 with the basic stuff installed on it (firefox, steam, windows live messenger, media player classic, poweriso, thunderbird, office 2007, and a few steam games). As for hardware, nothing really changed. I simply added the SSD to all the other components I've had running for over a year. Unless the SSD doesn't like the SATA controller or the driver of it, I don't know what the problem could be.

And yes, I installed with the SSD and the DVD Rom attached. I unplugged all other storage devices.


Flibolito said:


> Try other USB ports. Such as the ones directly on the motherboard or the ones on the case, also the PS/2 legacy port with the proper attachments might make the problem go away. well get to the bottom of this might just take a little time. I would also try reinstalling the motherboard Drivers one at a time.



What do USB ports have to do with this? I've been running this same setup for over a year with no problem. This only started about 3 days ago when I added the SSD to my setup.

As for the drivers, I only installed the important ones which were: NEC USB 3.0, Nvidia GPU drivers, AMD AHCI, onboard sound, LAN, and the 2nd 3rd part SATA controller drivers. HOWEVER, I have completely disabled that controller from the BIOS after reading that it might cause problems with SSD. Please note that I NEVER plugged my SSD into the 3rd party controller. The only one enabled atm is the AMD one and it is the only one that shows up in device manager as well.


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## Flibolito (Aug 29, 2012)

because you said the freeze starts with mouse and keyboard lag and then seems to not take any input from either. trying out the front ports might trigger it not to happen just trying to rule stuff out and get closer to the problem. it's fast and really easy and worth a shot in my opinion i had funny usb ports act up on my friends gaming rig before and it turned out that using the front usb case plugs eliminated the problem. we never figured out what it was though.


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## theonedub (Aug 29, 2012)

I like to try the simplest solutions first. In this case I would check the SATA cables, first to make sure they are all snugly installed and not loose or being pulled (esp if you are using straight SATA plugs where 90* ones would be more appropriate), then even consider replacing the SATA cables. 

A few weeks ago I was having this random mouse lag and a couple system freezes- thought either my SSD or HDDs were dying. Swapped my cables and the issue was gone and hasnt come back. 

Might be worth checking out since this all started after you were inside the computer upgrading and moving drives and cables around.


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## Jetster (Aug 29, 2012)

I think your issue is not related to the SSD settings. Just my thought. Your thinking this SSD stuff too much. The artical I posted was about Microsoft enabling W7 to turn those features off automaticly with using an SSD. Then they changed it back. Personally I would do a clean install again. I think you just have a corrupted file


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## Phusius (Aug 29, 2012)

*Sees AMD CPU combined with Nvidia GPU, leaves topic.*


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## Mo786 (Aug 29, 2012)

Flibolito said:


> because you said the freeze starts with mouse and keyboard lag and then seems to not take any input from either. trying out the front ports might trigger it not to happen just trying to rule stuff out and get closer to the problem. it's fast and really easy and worth a shot in my opinion i had funny usb ports act up on my friends gaming rig before and it turned out that using the front usb case plugs eliminated the problem. we never figured out what it was though.


Alright. I doubt it's it, but we'll see.



theonedub said:


> I like to try the simplest solutions first. In this case I would check the SATA cables, first to make sure they are all snugly installed and not loose or being pulled (esp if you are using straight SATA plugs where 90* ones would be more appropriate), then even consider replacing the SATA cables.
> 
> A few weeks ago I was having this random mouse lag and a couple system freezes- thought either my SSD or HDDs were dying. Swapped my cables and the issue was gone and hasnt come back.
> 
> Might be worth checking out since this all started after you were inside the computer upgrading and moving drives and cables around.


Well when I first installed it I took the SATA cable that was being used for my main drive and plugged it in to my SSD. I have changed it yesterday and installed a brand new one just to rule out that possibility. All cables are nice and fit.

I would like to mention that I'm running on the SSD alone without any other SATA components of any sort. I left the computer running over night and it not froze yet. It might still freeze though since it seems to do it when I use it and not when it's idle.


Jetster said:


> I think your issue is not related to the SSD settings. Just my thought. Your thinking this SSD stuff too much. The artical I posted was about Microsoft enabling W7 to turn those features off automaticly with using an SSD. Then they changed it back. Personally I would do a clean install again. I think you just have a corrupted file


That will be my 2nd to last resort. (last being RMA)


Phusius said:


> *Sees AMD CPU combined with Nvidia GPU, leaves topic.*


......


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## Mo786 (Sep 13, 2012)

Alright guys, sorry for the (very) late reply, but I had been trying a few different fixes to see if the problem can be resolved.

Here is what I have tried:

I have tried disconnecting ALL other SATA components except for the SSD and running the computer without turning it off for 5 days. The first 3 days were consecutive without turning off the computer at night, and everything ran fine without any problems. Then for the last 2 days I decided to turn it off at night, and it was still fine without any problems.

After seeing this, I decided to replug all EXCEPT my old OS drive back in (replugged 2 SATA drives, eSATA bracket for external HDD, and my optical drive). It ran fine for the first day, but then it froze again the second day.

Not sure if this means the cause is from one of my SATA components or not. Now to remind you guys, I have been running with this setup for about a year before I got this SSD and did not receive this problem AT ALL!

Most of the previous errors from event viewer are gone except for the ones that I get telling me my system has shut down unexpectedly and this is due to me turning it off by holding the power button when it freezes.
Here are the errors in case you didn't see them before:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/40710/old error.PNG
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/40710/old error 2.PNG

However, 2 new errors have shown up. One showed up for the first time today and it is this: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/40710/error 1.PNG

As for the other one, it has been happening for a few days, but I was able to track it down to my Zune Dock which is connected to the back of my PC for power. This error shows up every time at startup and doesn't seem to affect my PC at all since it only occurs at bootup and no other time. Here it is: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/40710/error 2.PNG

Now I have heard that it may be the USB ports, well I highly doubt that because I have my power button set to turn off the PC when pressed. I did this on purpose to rule out the USB port being an issue. The computer doesn't respond to the power button either when it freezes.

Now I have been thinking of uninstalling the AMD SATA driver and using the Microsoft one to rule out the driver being a problem. However, if it is a problem, won't that degrade my SSD performance if I used the SSD with the generic Microsoft drivers?

What do you guys suggest I do? The SSD is only about 2 weeks old, and I want to be able to get down to the bottom of this before a month passes so that I can get a replacement from Newegg in case the problem is from the SSD itself.

Sorry for the long reply and thanks to all that have tried to help so far.


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## Mo786 (Sep 13, 2012)

Anyone?


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## Widjaja (Sep 29, 2012)

Process of elimination.
Shut down, plug one of the components you installed, start and test.
It appears you have reinstalled sata related things again so it currently appears sata related.
Either way I would reinstall windows or at least find a way of making windows run on AHCI again.


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## listener (Oct 11, 2012)

I have similar problems here, but with an Intel CPU and Intel Chipset. My spec.:
CPU: Core i5-3570K
Board: ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
GPU: Gainward GTX570 GS GLH
RAM: 8GB Corsair Venegance
SSD: Samsung 830 Series 256GB
HDD(1): 1 TB Seagate
HDD(2): 320 GB Seagate
DVD: LG
PSU: Corsair HX 750
Wifi: TP-Link Wifi card

However, at the time I bought the SSD, I still had my nForce 780i Board running and encountered no problems up to the point when I installed the SSD. Previous system spec.:
Board: XFX 780i
CPU: Core2Quad Q9450
RAM: 8GB Mushkin (4*2 GB) 
HDD: 2 * 320 GB Seagate (one with P-ATA)
The rest was the same. 

I have/had freezes during watching movies and playing games. On the nForce board, the SSD was connected with the SATA II Port 0 and on the Intel Board with Port 0 of the Z77 SATA III Controller. For testing purposes I also replaced the PSU with my Backup PSU (700 W Tagan), but the freezes remained. To be honest, I've done enough trouble shooting. A little excerpt of things I tried out:
1. Different Drivers (Intel RST/Standard Microst), with and without LPM
2. Used Process Monitor (little tool by sysinternals) to capture the state of my computer shortly before the crashes (nothing unusual; at least it didn't look unusual to me) 
3. SSD only (run into a crash while downloading a big file and playing HL 2 Fakefactory Mod 11)
4. HDD only (well... worked perfectly)
5. As mentioned above, I replaced the whole hardware
6. Windows Event logging diving (Only found the Power Event)

My conclusion: Tomorrow, I will go back to the store and have my Samsung SSD replaced with a Crucial M4.


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## mediasorcerer (Oct 11, 2012)

I would try one more clean install, and erase it twice when you reformat, with only ssd mouse keyboard dvd drive securely connected,  if your machines been running fine for a while on your old hdrive, then i can only presume that somehow during the *win installation process * something in registry has become corrupted? hope you dont mind me putting my 2 bob in here,. sounds like an rma job personally!

ps.ps. just read an article about problems with latest crucial m4 firmware btw. lots of people complaining on forums so it said.


P.s. i just picked up a 128 gb one of these samsung ssds yesterday.


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## Widjaja (Oct 11, 2012)

Maybe a bad batch of Samsung SSD 256Gb 830s were released.
Either way, hopefully the replacement is in working order.


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## Phusius (Oct 11, 2012)

Had 0 issues with my 830 256 GB, had it for a month or two now, no regrets at all.


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## listener (Oct 13, 2012)

So... my SSD was broken. I got it replaced with another 830 and it seems that everything is runnig fine now.

@mediasorcerer
Your suggestion was my last repair attempt .


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## mediasorcerer (Oct 14, 2012)

I'm glad it's worked out for you, i got a samsung 128 a few days ago and it's very fast, and comes with good software package too, i know the read speeds are not quite as competitive as some other drives[but still stupid fast lol], but samsung are using there own proprietary firmware and that's what got me, good one, i'm very happy for you, nothing worse than spending all that money, they are complicated devices and i'm sure all brands have a few failures etc. good result!!!
I reckon samsungs done a gr8 allround job with the 830.


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## Widjaja (Oct 14, 2012)

mediasorcerer said:


> I'm glad it's worked out for you, i got a samsung 128 a few days ago and it's very fast, and comes with good software package too, i know the read speeds are not quite as competitive as some other drives[but still stupid fast lol], but samsung are using there own proprietary firmware and that's what got me, good one, i'm very happy for you, nothing worse than spending all that money, they are complicated devices and i'm sure all brands have a few failures etc. good result!!!
> I reckon samsungs done a gr8 allround job with the 830.



Good to see another one who bought an 830.
I have to agree with the software package actually being useful and yes the performance is very good.


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