Frustrating problem with my M6600

Thank you so much for the excellent research! I feel like a noob who just got schooled, but I really appreciate you finding this info for me. I'm going to update the firmware and see how it goes (I haven't updated it since I bought it, so probably a good idea anyways.) If the problem is still there, I'll definitely run WinDbg.

I've already emailed Crucial with the following question, but do you happen to know if decryption would be required before updating firmware on the SSD? I'm currently using Windows Bitlocker for encryption. I hope the answer's no, because it would take more than an hour to decrypt, and the computer would crash before it's done...

 

Er... I don't know, but I very much doubt it. The drive shouldn't care whether the data is encrypted or not - it's all bits, just arranged differently.

Good luck!

 

It was the SSD! I updated the firmware and the problem is gone. Thanks again, msjgriffiths!

I had some trouble updating the firmware. The instructions were to burn it on a disc, ensure the SSD is plugged into controller channel 1-4, boot from disc and run. But when I ran it, it said no controller found. I went to my friend's house and borrowed his XPS 17 with the older style hard drive controller, pulled his drive out, stuck mine in, booted from the disc, and 4 minutes later it was done.

 

I'm having the same issue with the Crucial C300 128GB drive. It's driving me completely nuts, and unfortunately there's no firmware upgrade for that drive.

If they weren't so fast I'd wait three years before buying another SSD. The first one I had was an OCZ (different system) and I had two of them fail, and didn't bother to RMA the last one because I can't stand the downtime. This thing has been reliable but hangs frequently. Something is also causing the system to spontaneously reboot as well.

 

I have an M4 256GB in my m6600 and was getting what sounds like a very similar BSOD with the gradual lockup you described. When it happened, it would almost always be 30-60 minutes after resuming from standby. I thought it could be M4, chipset, or nvidia drivers. I had good luck for a week after updating the M4 to the 0309 firmware but my error returned.

I grabbed the Intel_multi-device_A09_R307994.exe drivers from Feb 09 2012 and (knocks on wood) I haven't had a BSOD since. The odd thing is, I have downloads of a file with the same name from Sep 14 2011 & Dec 17 2011 and all have a different md5 hash. Unless I had 2 bad downloads this is terrible version control. The MD5 of the working version is 2D09D080C0F8357F55B80D6D96AD4C93.

The BSOD details were:

Code:

DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE    
0x0000009f    
00000000`00000003    
fffffa80`0ea72a10    
fffff800`00b9c3d8    
fffffa80`11ca62d0    
ntoskrnl.exe    
ntoskrnl.exe+7cc40    
NT Kernel & System    
Microsoft® Windows® Operating System    
Microsoft Corporation    
6.1.7601.17640 (win7sp1_gdr.110622-1506)    
x64    
ntoskrnl.exe+7cc40                    

EDIT: After 3 weeks my issue resurfaced. I hate intermittent errors. So far http://forum.notebookreview.com/gateway-emachines/667876-powermizer-manager.html seems to have resolved this issue for me.

 

Hi guys, I have M4 512GB - it shipped with 0309, I have run the updater to 0309 anyway, and it went through the motions. I still have this issue though (although in my case it is only on waking from sleep / standby). I have just updated Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers to 11.1.0.1006 (released 03/05 - 5th March). The only workaround for me is to remember to shutdown before each time I close the lid, but its very frustrating.

I have NVIDIA 5010m graphics with latest 295.73 drivers (pretty sure this is a red-herring).. Any other ideas ? I've looked into sleep modes / wake states (disabled c-states in the bios, and tried to find hybrid sleep which is absent). Not really sure what I'm doing with that stuff.

cheers

Clunes

 

It is possible that the wake from sleep problems are due to vbios downclocking that downclocks your GPU so slow to the point that it cannot wake from it. It was a problem with a couple MSI models a while ago.

 

Just wanted to write if someone had similar problem. I had a freezing on my M6600 too and my HDD was Crucial M4 SSD (128GB). I updated firmware and problem's gone.

 

I just wanted to add that I tried my Crucial M4 (FW 0309) in my M6600 and experienced freeze ups and very very slow windows resuming from sleep mode. I put the Samsung 830 256GB in, and have not had any issue. It's fast, really fast.

 

My 256GB M4 SSD (000F) has been rock solid and very fast since Day 1 inside my M6600.

Scott-