New Paper Weight... not even good for that...

[HindSight2020]

Tech support requested.

Let me start off by saying that I have purchased numerous G.Skill products and have never had any complaints. I do regard G.Skill products highly and have recommended all purchases. That being said, I have recently been disappointed with a product that I purchased in July of 2009.

I purchased this solid state drive on 19 July 2009 (From NewEgg). When I initially installed and loaded the OS, everything worked wonderfully. I've never had to upgrade the firmware or make any changes/tweaks. The SSD was used for the OS, one video game, and two other programs. Nothing else.

Approximately, one week ago, the computer failed to start up. I received a dreaded blue-screen-of-death upon boot-up and after I did a reboot, the computer was unresponsive. I was able to find another HDD that I formatted and installed a new OS on. During the installation, I tried to access the SSD; I was not able to. The install prompted that there was an error trying to access that drive. I then formatted that drive, twice; retried to install after making a partition. Nothing. Again, I was given the "error trying to access drive."

I then tried to access it through my laptop, with an external adapter. At first it was not able to read/display the SSD. After a few mins, and a reboot of the laptop, the SSD was available. I was prompted to format the drive before being able to access it, so I did. Then, I was not able to access it after that - again, "error trying to access drive."

After I had formatted the SSD through my laptop, both quick and full formatting options, I figured I might as well try it back in the desktop to try to install the OS again. I turned the computer off, disassembled the computer, installed the SSD (at this point, it was the Video card, ram, CDRom drive, CPU fan, and power supply attached to the computer, along with the SSD), and tried to install the OS again. Same outcome as before. The SSD was not able to be accessed.

I've tried it on at least two other computers, making it a total of four different computers trying to access/utilize this SSD; none of them have been able to.

As I stated previously, this product had been working fine. Never had any problems. Prior to that day. It's been just over a week now and I've had to find another, less than stellar, hard drive to install the OS and other programs on. Although, I would like to stand by your product and continue to recommend such purchases, it is hard to do so with this type of performance.

Please inform me on how to go about replacing this product, as I do not see the need to purchase another. The MTBF is 1.5 mil hours, which, if I'd have my computer running 24/7 for the past 7 months, it would be about 4,464; not even close to what it claims - but, I'm sure you're aware of this.

I'm still waiting on a reply from G.Skill, so I posted here...

[Tradesman]

Not sure what model you have, but many have firmware updates available. Also not sure how you tried to contact GSkill...their tech support normally works M-F appr 8-4 PST, so if by phone it will prob be Mon before you hear back, if by e-mail, they have a glitz in their e-mail system that is affected by certain e-mail providers and (I believe) if you used the rma@gskill.com address, it is through China....might want to try the ustech@gskill.com address.....again, will prob be Monday at the earliest, they handle e-mail request as they come in, so if there was heavy activity, it may be another day or two.

[HindSight2020]

Cheers!

It's the G.SKILL FALCON FM-25S2S-64GBF1 64GB.

Thanks for the emailing advice. The initial contact was through email - I used the first address - I'll try second one if I don't get a reply within the next couple days. Thanks again (:

[ace-a-rue]

it does appear that your drive bought the "farm."

have you tried to install firmware 1819 using the other OS with the drive attached to the motherboard?...if not, give it a try...don't forget to install the "Firmware" jumper that comes with the SSD drive before attempting the firmware update, otherwise it won't flash the firmware.

[HindSight2020]

What do you mean by, "bought the 'farm'"?

I haven't tried to do any firmware updates, since it wasn't able to be read at all after several attempts. It may be a couple more days still before I get a chance to update the firmware - 14hr shifts are killin' me.

[HindSight2020]

I'm assuming this is where to get the firmware upgrade.

What are the factory settings for the jumpers? As I recall, the jumpers were not pre-installed, out of the box; and I don't remember seeing anything in the documentation.

Cheers.

[ace-a-rue]

a jumper should have been included in the packing box in a separate small clear plastic pouch.

AND, yes, that is the firmware that i am talking about.

[ace-a-rue]

and bought the "farm" was an acronym for a possible dead unit or about to die.

[Schwanke78]

I have to agree with ace-a-rue if the drive does not flash to the newer firmware, then I believe it's done for.

[kkara4]

i agree you should try and flash your firmware. if that fails your drive is done. if the bios detects the drive is there then there is definitely hope.

[ace-a-rue]

I'm assuming this is where to get the firmware upgrade.

What are the factory settings for the jumpers? As I recall, the jumpers were not pre-installed, out of the box; and I don't remember seeing anything in the documentation.

Cheers.

just to clear up the jumper issue: there is a two prong factory jumper, which is recessed, right next to the power plug or the sata plug...when you put the included jumper on, it is out of the SATA mode and reveals the bios...from there, you can flash it with the firmware...your board bios should be able to see the drive but now it is called "YATAPDONG BAREFOOT"...in this mode, your partition is hidden, like there is nothing there; once you flash everything is gone, so back up your OS and files on the SSD drive before proceeding.

also, once the firmware update is complet, do a a TRIM on the unit....good luck!..i hope this procedure puts your drive back to good working order.

[Ginsok]

I'll be watching eagerly as I may be able to purchase a drive second hand but hearing from peoples experiences it has been a little discouraging to say the least.

[ace-a-rue]

i have two 128g falcon, version one drives...both are working fine except for an occasional 10 second pause problem...i believe it is a chipset intergration problem in mix with the drive firmware...my wife has the 2nd one installed on an Abit IP35 Pro board and she has not complained to me about any problem or even a pause problem.

the latest Indilinx software utility shows the health of my 2 Falcons as 99% and 100%..i saw a user with 92% health rate....does that mean he abused the drive more than i did???...don't know the answer to that one!

i have recently initiated most steps on the 1st page of this SSD forum...those recommendations minmize writes to the SSD drive, therefore, extending the life of those memory chips on the drive.

just make sure you follow those guidelines.

ace

[Ginsok]

i have two 128g falcon, version one drives...both are working fine except for an occasional 10 second pause problem...i believe it is a chipset intergration problem in mix with the drive firmware...my wife has the 2nd one installed on an Abit IP35 Pro board and she has not complained to me about any problem or even a pause problem.

the latest Indilinx software utility shows the health of my 2 Falcons as 99% and 100%..i saw a user with 92% health rate....does that mean he abused the drive more than i did???...don't know the answer to that one!

i have recently initiated most steps on the 1st page of this SSD forum...those recommendations minmize writes to the SSD drive, therefore, extending the life of those memory chips on the drive.

just make sure you follow those guidelines.

ace

But can I confirm you still suffer the problem which is common to all SSD users when you multi task in that the performance level drops due to the enormous amount of writes?

[ace-a-rue]

OH, i missed the first part, i was concentrating on the AMD problem: to answer, you need to tell me HOW you are measuring the degradation of the performance level...i don't do much in the multi-tasking to notice any degradation.


sorry, i haven't used an AMD cpu and chipset board since 2000.