[Only for Phoenix / Phoenix Pro] firmware 3.1 released

[G.SKILL]

Hi all

I have already pushed sandforce many times about firmware upgrade tool and FW-3.1 issue.
I am really sorry about that.
I will ask them again and again.
this storage can be downgrade to FW_2.1 if you don't satisfied with 3.1.

[laimen]

Not only the partition problem

Finally I erased all partitons with Gparted. But still I can't my Phoenix Pro 120GB with ssdupdate on Win 7 x64 machine. Msachi and Intel RST 9.6 drivers showed no difference.

[skill_x]

new 120gbp2 with 3.1 firmware

i bought one fm-25s2s-120gbp2,the firmware have aleady 3.1.



and bios is GA-EX58-UD3R (rev. 1.0) F12i have no "smart command failed" error with achi on.

sorry for my poor english...

[sitchuwap]

Pagefile should be kept on the SSD??

hi guys I am very confused at this moment because i read alot of SSD tweaks such as "SSD Tweaks Ver 1.2 Thread" that covers old SSD Falcon.. my question is this on my SSD Phoenix Pro 60gb 3.1FW about Pagefile should be kept on the SSD?? Windows 7 is saying that Pagefile should be put in SSD.. but i know it will degrade your SSD very fast in OLD SSD Products example: falcon... but sandforce sf-1200 Controller has a TRIM support base on your OS installed. I am using Windows 7 64bit and turn of my Pagefile at this moment. to round up.. Pagefile should be kept on the SSD?? (sory for my grammar.. tnx guys..)

I am not satisfied to my SSD benchmark
Seq: Read: 200 MB/s
Seq: Write: 101 MB/s

using nForce 720a Chipset

[dimwit13]

Hello all, New here.
i just installed my new 60gb phoenix.
i did some research on installing/setting up a ssd, so i would have some idea on how to do it.
all went well, everything seemed fine-speeds seemed correct.
i was running firmware 2.1 and decided to upgrade to 3.1, this is when i had problems.
after the reboot-my drive was gone.
gone from the bios, gone from my computer (i booted into my hdd to see if i could find it-nothing) gone from device manager and when i went into my bios, it was showing my hdds and dvd drives as IDE-not sata as before.
it still had ACHI setting in the bios-i dont understand, please help.

thanx

-dimwit-

EDIT-reset my bios to default-ALL IS WELL!!!
i neew to clean everything out/format the system and start with a clean slate.
i will be back for more info when i raid.

again thanx

[FooDaddy]

Looks like I spoke too soon about the 3.1 firmware fixing the random reboots and the disappearing from BIOS issue.

It just doesn't happen as often now.

Any idea, kind G.skill people, when the next firmware update will hit? For what it's worth, I have G.skill RAM in every computer I own! You may now PM me the firmware.

[npolite]

So at this point should I just hold off on upgrading the FW? I am currently on 2.1 with my 120GB pro. Also I am running raid 1 on two other non SSDs so I don't have the option on AHCI but it is rather set to RAID. Will I be ok with upgrading the firmware?

Thanks

[superH]

I would recommend 3.1 firmware and Windows 7

Hola!

I installed Windows 7 on my new brand SSD from G.SKILL (that was shipped with 3.1) and yes, it gives more or less the performance showed at the specs.
- Compaq 610
- Intel ICH8M SATA AHCI
- FM-25S2S-120GBP2
- Win7-32 build 6.1.7600



I would recommend 3.1 firmware for clean Windows 7 installations.

[npolite]

Does anyone know how I can upgrade the firmware without the AHCI option? I have raid enabled and don't want to break the array.

Thanks

[G.SKILL]

Does anyone know how I can upgrade the firmware without the AHCI option? I have raid enabled and don't want to break the array.

Thanks

I think upgrade tool will not recognize SSD on raid mode.

[omnimodis78]

Don't write this firmware off just yet! I had problems too (read below), but some "tricks" might work, as it did for me, and the drive did increase speed and there are zero problems since the update.

Quick background: mobo has latest BIOS version, using MS AHCI, no programs were running, and I knew what I was doing. Firstly, I did everything as per instructions (even though it's pretty straight forward). I ran the update tool, but while it was updating, it took a little longer than what I was expecting ~1 minute (I have the 60GB drive). And then all of a sudden I got the BSOD. During boot, the drive wasn't listed at all, so I got a disk-error and I could go no further than that error prompt. I did a warm-boot a few times but it did not fix the issue, kept getting the disk-error message. After a few tries, I just shut the system off, and did a cold boot. This worked, and Windows loaded. For the record, I did not have to do anything in BIOS, I just simply powered off the computer and did a cold boot. Once in Windows, I ran the update tool again to confirm which firmware was in use. It was 3.1, but I felt uneasy about leaving it at that given that it crashed during/right after it completed (if it, in fact, really did complete it) the update. So, I ran the update again, and it resulted in the exactly the same thing...BSOD, had to cold boot to get the drive recognized again. This time, I loaded Windows in Safe Mode, ran the tool and did the update yet again, and this time it worked like a charm! It installed in about 10 seconds (no more than that), then the tool closed, Windows rebooted normally, and eveything was great.

WEI score for the hard drive went from 7.4 to 7.6, and while that's great, I can also say that nothing at all seems slower, in fact, it "feels" snappier - though, I admit, that might just be the placebo effect. I did a fresh install of Windows, and now all is well.

AMD Phenom II X4 940BE @ 3.6Ghz | Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 (Rev 2.1) | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 1GB | 8GB G.SKILL DDR2-1000 4x2GB | Corsair 650TX psu | Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer | G.SKILL Phoenix Pro 60GB SSD & 3.5TB combined HDD | Windows 7 Ultimate x64

[Ken429]

Destroyed my Phoenix Pro 120 updating firmware to 3.1?

Tried to update the firmware on my drive from 2.1 to 3.1. Everything seemed to go ok until I got a bad image record or something like that during the update. Now the drive is not recognized by the BIOS and I am dead in the water. Any idea on the the #$%% I did wrong and/or what do I have to do to recover the drive. I did back it up using Acronis Home 2010 so I can go back to a good old reliable HD if needed. I have update Bios's and firmware many times on this system without a problem. Is there a standalone something that can be used to get this thing back? Help would be appreciated.

[G.SKILL]

Hi Ken429,

Can you use this SSD now?
could you remove the storage and install again.
let me know the result.

[Ken429]

Ok. I was wrong - the BIOS still recognized the SSD drive it just would not boot W7. I restored my system to run off a HDD. I connected the SSD drive as a non-system drive. Re-downloaded 3.1 update and used Winzip 15 to unzip (used JZip the first time). Ran the firmware update and in a matter of seconds it was done and system rebooted. Switched back to the SSD drive as the W7 boot drive and it booted!! Strange but happy.

Then I ran ATTO Benchmark and the WRITE performance was marginally slower under 3.1 versus 2.1. However the READ performance was marginally higher.

I should have quit at this point! I ran the AS SSD Benchmark and the scores went from READ 168, Write 205 and OVERAL 464 under 2.1 to READ 157, Write 137 and OVERALL 376 under 3.1!

What the heck is going on? Is it just a quirk in the AS SSD Benchmark 1.5.3784.37609 or did I make a mistake fooling around with the 3.1 firmware update or is the drive messed up?

[omnimodis78]

@Ken429, I suspect you might have to do two things to get your drive to perform the way you'd like it to (and it makes sense to do this regardless), firstly, you should do a secure erase of the drive (see thread Parted Magic ,Save your low performance SSD), and then do a clean install of Windows. In my case, after getting the drive to work again after the firmware update, the WEI went from 7.4 to 7.6, but then I did the secure erase and reinstalled Windows, and the score jumped another point, so it went to 7.7! I haven't done any other benchmarks as I don't care to, but given the WEI score, and just my own impression that the drive is snappier, I'm content.

And to those who keep thinking that your drive is fried after the firmware update -- PLEASE do a full shut down of your PC and then do a cold-boot! It seems that simply rebooting after the firmware update results in BIOS not recognizing the drive. No big deal - just do a cold-boot.