How to diagnose an SSD?

[monoVertex]

Hello guys.

I have a desktop configuration with a Kingston SSD as the primary storage drive, on which I have Windows. The SSD has been bought in May 2013, so it's still in warranty although I'm not yet sure what is the problem.

Yesterday my computer started freezing up after a random period of time from when it booted up. The freeze started with an unresponsive program, but the cursor could still be moved around and other programs were responsive. The Windows GUI (the charm menu, start panel, etc) quickly became unresponsive too and in the end all the programs froze up and the cursor as well. I could never open the Task Manager when this happened. This happens regularly after every boot. It never happened before yesterday.

The weird thing is: if I push the reset button after such a freeze, the SSD no longer appears in BIOS and I can't boot at all from it. If I instead push the power button, forcing the desktop to turn off and then turn it on again, it appears just fine.

I have ruled out the GPU by using the integrated GPU and disconnecting the card, I have also ruled out the RAM by using memtest86.

I tried different SATA cables for the SSD, I tried different ports, I tried different power cables and I also disconnected the other HDDs.

The Kingston toolkit and another diagnostic utility, HD Sentinel say my SSD is completely healthy, when I can boot up from it and it doesn't freeze. I have also searched for a firmware upgrade, but none seems to exist.

In the end I wanted to reinstall Windows to see if that's the issue, but the installer froze up on the "Preparing files for installation" step.

I finally took out the SSD and put a normal HDD instead and installed my entire system over again. It has worked just fine until today, running through the night and until now. So I guess I can safely say the SSD is the problem. I ruled out the PSU because the HDD supposedly uses more power and the PSU is relatively new, large enough to power everything.

Now my question is, can I do anything to diagnose what is actually wrong with my SSD? I want some way to convince myself completely that the SSD is faulty before sending it in warranty.

I googled a lot, but everyone seems to have a problem a bit different than mine and most of them have their SSDs failing when brand new, so that's obviously a manufacture problem. Mine worked just fine for some months already, but it's not yet old enough to fail from over-usage. My case is also properly ventilated so it never heated up, I monitor temps regularly.

My specs:
Kingston V300 Now SSD
Windows 8.1
Intel i7 3770K
AsRock Z77 Pro4 motherboard
2 x Corsair Vengeance 8GB @ 1600 MHz
Sapphire Radeon HD7870 2GB 256bit

 

[Varine]

I assume power options are set to high performance and the SSD isn't powering down for some reason, and have plenty of free space?

Updating the BIOS might help if you haven't yet, there could be some compatibility issues.

 

[monoVertex]

I always keep the desktop on High Performance plan. Besides, if it had been the plan, this would have happened earlier as well. Besides, this doesn't explain the not showing up in BIOS or the freeze during Windows setup.

I'm also thinking about power line fluctuations, but this should have affected all the components and it does not explain why nothing else in the house was not affected by it. Plus, monitors are plugged in the same multiple outlet (not sure how it's called) and they were just fined.

As I remember the BIOS was up to date, but I'll check that and come back.

 

[Varine]

Only thing I can really think of off the top of my head other than bad cables (but you checked those), but if you send it back under warranty and get a new one that does the same thing at the very least you would have it narrowed down to your end.

The only other thing would be an issue with garbage collection, but that wouldn't affect BIOS (I don't even know if that would make it freeze, I don't know much about SSD's) and I'm guessing you're smart enough to keep up on basic shit like that.

 

[monoVertex]

Not sure what you mean. From what I read, isn't GC handled on the hardware's end and optimized with the TRIM command? The diagnostic programs told me TRIM is enabled, and I'm not sure if there's anything I should to "keep up on it".

EDIT: I read some more and it seems it varies from SSD to SSD. Apparently GC needs a very low idle level to work on some SSDs, while on others it works with Windows booted up, logged in and just not doing anything. I'm currently researching how can I do this manually on my SSD.

From all the behavior, it really seems like the computer suddenly hits some bad sector / block (whatever you call those on SSDs), which might be explained by invalid data caused by not running GC.

PS: I did have free space on it, about 30GB out of 120, constantly. I used it for the Windows installation and my Drive, which is about 3GB.

EDIT 2: Apparently, to run GC on an SSD that probably never did run it, I should connect the SSD only to power, no SATA connector and leave it for 6-8 hours. I just put the SSD back in the desktop in that configuration, hopefully it will solve it. I will try tomorrow to install Windows again and see if the freezes happen again.

 

[Varine]

Well, hopefully it does. I'm out of ideas.

 

[monoVertex]

Yeah, hopefully it does, because I'd hate to deal with warranty stuff. Romanians are really bad at this, they all have bad support -.-.

Thank you for all the help!

 

[The Helper]

Its probably your control card. That is where your disk drive cable will plug into the motherboard. Either that or the drive is bad.

 

[monoVertex]

Not sure what the control card is supposed to be, as the SATA connectors are directly on the motherboard, but if there was something wrong with all the SATA connectors, then my other HDDs would have acted up as well. If only one SATA connector was bad, then switching would have fixed it, but it didn't.

So I think it's safe to say that the motherboard is fine.

I still don't know if the garbage collection thing worked, I just woke up and will try to install Windows again on the SSD and see if everything's OK.

EDIT: It didn't work . I managed to fully install Windows and the AMD driver, but when I wanted to start installing upgrades it crapped out again. I then tried leaving it not logged in, another technique for garbage collection, but it shortly froze up on that screen as well. I'll send a message to the vendor's tech support and probably send it in warranty tomorrow.

 

[Varine]

That sucks man. Especially after the effort. Let me know what they say, now I want to know what it is.

 

[monoVertex]

That sucks man. Especially after the effort. Let me know what they say, now I want to know what it is.

Well, the vendor simply replaced it after about a week and the service didn't specify what it is. I guess some of the flash memory cells got bad, but we'll never know.