LeanWolf

Hey again!

So I've got my new updated rig up and running (turns out it WAS the power supply on my old rig that had died). Anyway now I have a Corsair F60GB SSD with with my OS (Win7Pro x64). The problem is that every time boot up windows fails to load and I'm fairly certain its because the SSD takes too long to start up/get detected. I push ESC to restart and it always loads up fine the second time.

I've checked over at Corsair and it might have something to do with problems with Sandybridge and SSDs, but they don't seem bothered with updating the firmware for anything but their latest sata 3 drives.

I thought I'd ask here because most here seem to have latest hardware rigs so maybe you could shed some light. Anyone else experiencing this?

Also: my boot screen always goes to my second display (my tv) until windows logon appears on the monitor. It never did this with my old rig and is somewhat annoying combined with the boot problem. Anyone know a fix for this?

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Judas

try a different DVI port for the primary display..

as for the SSD issues... Many motherboards have a delay option for detecting..... it sounds exactly like you said.... it's not detecting it, by default most are either 0 seconds or 35 seconds (35 being utterly rediculious)..... set it to 5 should do the trick.. but an SSD shouldn't take that long... odd..

Also ... make sure your running in AHCI or RAID mode on the controller... you definitely don't want it running IDE.... (IDE is default)

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mkk

Have a look at the motherboard BIOS updates and if there are any, see if they mention some drive related improvements.

Tipstaff

SSDs are instant on though (or at least fast before the drive detect), so unlike WD drives there is no "delay". You can try what was mentioned, but I doubt that's going to help.

One reoccurring issue I've had is with some older SATA2 Sandforce based drives not working properly on SATA3 ports/controllers. They just fail to run at all, or appear/disappear during boot. So, what I would do is switch the drive to another port. If I remember correctly the first 2 ports on that board, the white ones, are SATA3, so I would try switching the drive to the first black one (since they are using right angled connectors it's important to note that the bottom one is always the first port, in this case bottom white is 0, top is 1, bottom black is 2, top is 3, and so fourth), and at the same time move whatever optical drives you have to the very last black one (top port of the very last connector).

I would also look in the bios to see what your boot options are, specifically in your bootup list (if you followed my above suggestion you should do this anyways as the boot list will have changed). Take out anything except the SSD and the optical drive, and make sure the SSD is first in the list too. Things such as USB devices (card readers, flash drives, usb keyboard/mouse, and network boot) can all stall the bootup. I've seen computers just sit at post whenever an IBM USB mouse was connected due to the way the controller works in the mouse, and I've seen this happen with some fancier USB keyboards too.

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LeanWolf

Thanks for the advice guys; unfortunately I've already know about/tried all the things that you suggest

Judas: in BIOS (or UEFI as I have ) I don't see a delay for detect, but I have a delay for input that was set to 1. I believe its the delay for pressing the key to enter bios before loading the OS. I changed it to 5 and we'll see how it goes next boot.
Yes I know it must be in AHCI for trim to be working on my ssd

mkk: yup latest bios!

Tipstaff: well that's just the problem, if i enter bios on the first boot the ssd is not even in the list of available drives in the boot menu, which is why it fails to find an OS. On the reboot it reappears and works fine. Yes I know that its a SATA 2 drive so I didn't waste a precious SATA 3 socket on it. I disabled all other possible power ups (USB, mouse, lan etc), maybe I should turn some back on to give the SSD time to be detected

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temeteus82

update the firmware on the SSD since that is the only thing that you haven't done...

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LeanWolf

Thanks tem but I've checked that too (see OP).

Changing the delay didn't work because it checks for drives before asking for the key to get into setup.

So nobody else experiences this problem... anybody have their OS on a Corsair Force series SATA 2 SSD?

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mkk

On my experience using an F60 before I got my Agility 3 I'd suspect a weakness in the motherboard BIOS. I had something similar happen on cold boots with my previous Gigabyte P45 motherboard that they solved in the next BIOS. Maybe contact ASRock as the motherboard makers often have beta BIOS'es in store for various issues.

Matth

If you want a touch more delay, is there an option to verify all the RAM at each boot, that should spin it out a few seconds

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Mary had a little lamb,
Her father shot it dead
Now Mary takes her lamb to school,
Between two crusts of bread

LeanWolf

Thanks for another tip, I've set the Fast boot option for RAM to disabled. I'll see how that works on next boot.

I have a rather noob question: I'm running AHCI but not using RAID, so do I need the Intel storage manager driver? After OS installation I installed the INF drivers and that's it, do I need anything else?

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temeteus82

Got Force 3 GT with OS on it. No issues running AHCI mode

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Tipstaff

Time and again I've had nothing but problems with Corsair Force drives. My own F115 is fine, but I've had too many issues with F60's and F120's that I gave up on them (BSOD's galore, disappearing partitions, hibernation issues.. bah).

I was talking with my biz partner, and he reminded me about something. We had this very same issue with 2 x F120 drives that I bought at the same time (apparently were from the same batch). They refused to consistently show up in the bios on the couple of Intel's own P67 boards he tried them on. Boot up, there it was, reboot, gone, reboot, nope, reboot, yep. In any case he was about to take them back when someone with an older chipset (a 40 series) asked for a couple drives, and sure enough they worked on that system flawlessly, so it was win win, bye bye drives.

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Matth

It seems the only Intel storage driver is the "Rapid Storage Technology", merging RAID & AHCI - for anything from Atom netbooks upward.

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Mary had a little lamb,
Her father shot it dead
Now Mary takes her lamb to school,
Between two crusts of bread

LeanWolf

Nope disabling fastboot didn't fix it.

It's very odd, the drive works flawlesslessly, it simply isn't found on the first boot. It's a consistent annoyance that eats into my otherwise very quick bootup time.

Matth: so.. is that a yes or a no?

can nobody answer my noob questions? are they not-so-noobish after all or perhaps too noobish?

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Tyrsonswood

Just a thought..... have you tried a different power plug on that drive? Not one on the same cable, but on a different cable entirely.

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LeanWolf

That's an idea.. i currently have all 3 HDD on one cable and the DVD alone on another. I'll try anything at this point, thanks

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Tyrsonswood

It "shouldn't" make any difference, but that 12v rail could powerup slower than the MOBO power...... Not normal, but possible.

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Matth

I'd install the Intel Rapid Storage drivers, they probably make better use of the chipset than the MS-AHCI driver that would be used without them.

Comparison: MS vs. Intel RST 10.5 AHCI drivers for... - Crucial Community - This was MS-AHCI versus RST 10.5 - Sometimes ahead, sometimes not... RST is now up to 10.6 versions (or leaked alpha 11)

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Mary had a little lamb,
Her father shot it dead
Now Mary takes her lamb to school,
Between two crusts of bread

Tipstaff

Don't think this will help. The issue is during bootup, before Windows is even loaded.


Best 3 pieces of advice I've seen:
- backup the drive (image it to file), flash the drive with the current firmware, do a secure wipe of the drive, then dump the image back.

- update OR downgrade the motherboard bios (going one step down at a time)

- From Corsair: "RMA" <---cheeky

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PinzaC55

When my PC is booting it shows "No Hard Drive Detected" for a second then opens up. Doesn't seem to be a big deal whatever causes it.

LeanWolf

Not likely then, as the problem was there with another PSU before I upgraded.. still I'll try it when I get around to opening her up.

Makes sense, thanks.

Probably, it was more of a side question I was curious about.

The MB only has 2 available BIOS, and the update is only a minor usb mouse fix, and I've tried both. Checking Corsair I see a firmware update has just been released, no changelog though.. I'll see how that goes..

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temeteus82

I would assume if there is update in firmware there might be the fix fro your issues. As Math said Intel's own drivers are far better for the ICH10 controller.

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LeanWolf

Well the new firmware didn't do it, but I managed to find something that fixed it! In bios each HDD has the option to enable staggered spinup, enabling this for the SSD (which doesn't spin but whatever) seems to have solved it. Yay.

I have another noob question though: the very first thing that appears on my post screen is "Error: HECI protocol not found!".

Having googled about it seems that all newer intel processors come with some kind of inbuilt remote access technology that requires so called 'management engine' drivers. Do you guys know anything about this? I had installed the driver but the error didn't go away and so I uninstalled them because I don't want yet another way to remote access my pc anyway.

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Judas

yes... the intel management engine interface drivers and such SHOULD automatically download from windows update and install, however if they do not.... it's best to go get them from intels download center.

it's a bit of annoying app/system if you have no use for it.

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