BSOD caused by OCZ Vertex 3 SSD Fix out now!!

[Ratbone]

Hi All,

After being plagued by Blue Screen of Death since delivery and one RMA later (thinking it was a hardware issue) with a persistantly blue screening system I started researching the problem on the net.

And I'm happy to say I have found and fixed the issue..... IT is the OCZ Vertex 3 SSD which is the culprit.

The latest OCZ Hard drives come with firmware version 2.11 (at least up to 3 weeks ago when my system was delivered). There is a bug in that version of firmware which according to the release notes of Firmware version 2.15 says:

RELEASE NOTES:

Issues resolved since version 2.13:
 Fixed a rare condition that may cause Windows Blue Screen error when the primary configured drive woke up from either a SATA slumber mode or S3/S4 modes
 Fixed a rare condition that may cause Windows Blue Screen error when the drive was
configured as primary with OS installed
 Fixed a corner-case issue that may cause the drive to stutter or Windows freezing screen
when a media read error occurred
 Further improved robustness of Secure Erase operation to prevent possible low-level data
structure corruption
 Significantly improved TRIM handling to enhance system stability.

Whoever has an OCZ Vertex Drive will need to go to the download website:

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ssd_tools/OCZ_Vertex_3,_Vertex_3_Max_IOPS,_Agility_3,_Solid_3,_RevoDrive_3_and_RevoDrive_3_X2/

and download the Toolbox to upgrade the firmware AND PLEASE READ the instructions:

WARNING: If the OCZ drive is the Primary OS drive then the Firmware Upgrade will not work. No problem there is a bit of workaround to do.

This is how I did it:

Since I have a secondary D: drive (1Tb), I installed Windows 7 on it as well and then installed the Hardware drivers (Network drivers are the only ones needed for the SSD firmware upgrade since internet access is required for the firmware download.
The system now became a dual boot Windows 7 system. I booted on the D: drive and change the Drive letter on the C: drive to G: to fool the Toolbox in thinking it is not a Primary OS drive. I ran the Toolbox (as per instructions) and upgraded the firmware to version 2.15.
I then changed the drive letter of the SSD drive back to C: and then rebooted back to the Primary C: drive OS.

My system is now a dual boot system and Hurrah!!! the BSOD is past tense.

With regards managing the Dual Boot Menu I used BCDEDIT command line.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2676-bcdedit-how-use.html

 

[Tracker]

Last week after a bout of BSOD's ruining a Star wars session, i decided to reinstall my entire operating system onto one of my Traditional HDD's, after much faffing around with bcd's and a small hardware crash (where i had to manually unfreeze the cpu via the QPI reset button, where several hard resets, including unplugging and leaving for an hour failed). Haven't had a BSOD since and this is despite pushing the hardware HARD (and it's the first time it's been happy since receiving the thing a few months ago!), it's nice having it actually work, but there is such a speed difference going back to traditional HDD's that it's a real downer (specially given the cost of the SSD at the time..)

I'm going to give this a try as i'm at my wits end with the thing, having had the motherboard replaced, sound card replaced, and having had several RMA's... the only thing keeping me sane is PCS's excellent support.

Thankfully i've already taken the steps to boot from my mechanical HDD, as above ;3 which saves a lil time at least.

 

[Frenchy]

I think I may try this too. Im sick of my BSOD's Ive been told to update in the past but not had time, got couple of days to myself though now so gonna give it a go.

 

[ianbel]

I'm having the same sort of problem but with a 120GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, still trying things out ATM

 

[Tracker]

Hmm, i try to use the tool and apparently "No OCZ Technology drive found" yet device manager clearly recognises my OCZ-VERTEX3 ATA Device! Not sure what to do about that.

~Edit, i just went with the Linux booter.

Now i've jumped from v2.06 to 2.15.. Now all i need to do is figure out how to repair the booter and make it boot from my SSD again and i can give it a go! xD

Well i was on star wars again until the early hours of the morning.. and after about 4-5 hours plus the install (reinstalling the game onto my ssd) not a single crash in sight! Fingers crossed this keeps up