Recently installed SSD, random freezes

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Recently installed SSD, random freezes

I just got my Kingston HyperX SSD today and installed it... so far things are alright, but I'm getting random freezes and hangs. It never did this with my other hard drive, so it has to be the SSD. It seems to happen more often when the machine is indexing or while installing things.

When I first started installing Lion on it, it did so pretty slowly compared to how I expected it to since it's an SSD. It took about a couple minutes before anything happened, then it would install and the bar move about a twentieth of the way then it would stop for about 3 minutes and then continue. I didn't think anything of this and thought it to be normal.

After stuff was installed, I opened up Activity manager to see what's up, and on the disk activity tab, I'd notice that whenever it froze up, there would be no read/write activity at all, which points the finger at the SSD. I could sit here and type this and never have it freeze up, but for instance when I open up System Preferences and click on a preference, it would freeze up for about 30 seconds to a minute.

I checked Kingston's website for any firmware updates and there are none as of yet, and I can't find anything with Google for my SSD.

Any thoughts?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7), 15" 2011 8 GB RAM 500 GB MomentusXT

Posted on Aug 15, 2011 1:04 PM

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Answer 1

bb426 Author

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Aug 15, 2011 6:42 PM in response to bb426

So I installed Windows 7 via Bootcamp to help troubleshoot the issue, and Windows 7 works perfectly, it's so much faster than Lion (on the SSD at least) and there's no hiccups or hangs or anything of the sort. I'm guessing this is a Lion problem then, which succks because I need to use Xcode for school projects 😟

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Answer 2

masoares

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Sep 22, 2011 5:23 AM in response to bb426

Hi, same thing here. How did you solve this!? Drive is great out of the mac on other machines, but it's a mess on my MBP (mid 2008).

Thks

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Answer 3

bb426 Author

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Sep 22, 2011 8:18 AM in response to masoares

Do you have the same drive as me?

Well if it's not working in your MBP either, it looks like it does indeed need a firmware update or something.

I haven't officially fixed it, but I removed the optical drive in my MBP and put the SSD in there and it works without a hitch. It's just a little slower than in the HDD bay because it only runs at 3 gigabit speed instead of 6. Though, I'm very happy that it doesn't freeze up anymore.

I went to both Apple and Kingston on this problem and exchanged the drive for a new one only to have the same problems. With many days on the books of trying to troubleshoot the problem (and it not being the MBP or the SSD), the conclusion is it's a software issue and a firmware update needs to come from someone somewhere. Or a new set of updated OS X drivers to address it.

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Answer 4

masoares

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Oct 5, 2011 3:43 AM in response to bb426

Sorry for the delay... MBP, Lion and SSD are giving me busy weeks! :/

I think we have the same drive. Blue, nice soft box... mine is 240GB, HFS+ journaled and encrypted. Right now on Firewire external box util theres a solution to boot from it. Also took a while to format, because Lion Disk Utility crashed a lot "waiting for the drive". (I think this Disk Utility problem, has nothing to do with the SSD drive, because I had the same problem with other drives while formating. Bugs !?)

I also went to both Apple and Kingston. From Apple, I'm still waiting for the "callback"... Better sit down while waiting! From Kingston, had some delay on e-mails, but they told me that drive was working on Lion 10.7.2. I told them mine was 10.7.1, the last public release. They said that I should get 10.7.2, because they tested the drive and was working perfectly. So, i'm waiting for Apple now to realease this version and give it a last try. Read somewhere it will be available on Oct 12 (?).

I'll update then...

M

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Answer 5

bb426 Author

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85 points

Oct 5, 2011 10:36 AM in response to masoares

That's the one! Super fancy case, very nice looking logo on the top. Really like the design. 120 GB drive.

You are on the same path that I took. It ended up being a very long path that was a waste of time. I didn't find out anything new other than the fact that there's no updates that can fix it yet. 10.7.2 won't fix it, I wouldn't get your hopes up. I have a feeling that a firmware update for the SSD is needed, that will most likely fix it. But Kingston told me there's no updates coming out anytime soon, especially because they said that Lion works just fine with it (according to them). For me, it doesn't on the 6 gigabit HDD bay, but it works fine in the Optical Drive bay. BUT, bootcamp works just fine for either bay. It's a software problem. I just really need an answer from someone instead of the same blame game.

I spent a ton of time on the phone and waiting and emails with both Kingston and Apple. I visited the Genius bar many times. Nothing wrong with the laptop, nothing wrong with the SSD. That leaves the software.

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Answer 6

Oct 5, 2011 11:48 AM in response to bb426

With a Hard drive, blocks from deleted files are not Zeroed, they are simply added to the free list to be over-written later.

But an SSD re-writes really large blocks internally, and if none are zeroed, each write operation becomes a read-modify-write, the slowest thing an SSD can do.

I use an SSD from Kingston that I paid under US$100 for just to try out. I do the following ritual from time-to-time:

Using a disk Utility (i use Drive Genius) defragment the drive. (This is not in itself helpful for an SSD without the following steps.) Then immediately Erase the free space to Zeroes.

What this does is provide free blocks that are already Zeroed, so that writes of new data can occur into an empty block instead of a full one.

It is possible this will give you a modest speed up. But Your Mileage May Vary.

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Answer 7

masoares

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Oct 5, 2011 2:37 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

bb426, what do you mean 10.7.2 won't fix it ?! You already tested a beta ?

Grant Bennet-Alder, I've been there:

1) dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/diskx, then new HFS+ partition, installed Lion, and the same problem all over again, everytime goes up 1-2MB/s, the MBP freezes for a while.

2) Erased again with Zeros, formatted NTFS, booted Windows 7 on same machine and everything ok. Formated HFS+, back to Lion install, and same thing happens;

3) New partition, erased free space with zeros, new Lion install, and same thing.

😟

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Answer 8

bb426 Author

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85 points

Oct 5, 2011 5:08 PM in response to masoares

No, I have a friend who installed it on my drive and tested it. He told me it still didn't fix it. 😟

Unfortunately, the best advice I can give you is to stop troubleshooting it, anything you do will produce the same result. Unless you feel like you can get results, I wouldn't try, because I have done everything under the sun to troubleshoot it. You will just end up wearing out your drive trying to reinstall and troubleshoot. The best explanation I can give is that there needs to be a firmware update on either Apple's part or Kingston's part, or fixed drivers for OS X. No one will give you a proper answer. You can either:

1. Wait for an update from someone, and keep bothering Apple and Kingston

or

2. Return the drive. Don't bother with an exchange, it will yield the same results.

I chose option 1 because I don't want to part with my drive. It works flawlessly in the optical drive of my MBP. I will wait for an update in the meantime, or, maybe not.

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Answer 9

Seehank

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Nov 17, 2011 8:45 AM in response to bb426

Hey guys!

I am in with you, but maby even worse. I installed the Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD into my MBP 13" 2011 (later) as a replacement to the optical drive (it is 6GB/s SATA). Previously I used SuperDuper to clone the current HDD to SSD using external bay. It run well from the external bay (taking into account USB2 limits) no problems I would see.

After putting the SSD into the MBP all **** broke loose. Exactly the same as bb wrote. Freezing, BSOD etc. etc. So I decided I will Format it, than install Lion clean and migrate data from the HDD. But I never made that. Neither using the Recovery HD (downloaded OS 4 times with error, every time 44 minutes than I gave it up). Than I tried installing from OS. Once I managed to make it into instalation(after boot), but he wouldnt create a Recovery HD and ended up with error and never made to that point since than... Also tried booting from USB with Lion OS instalation. No success.

I am not even talking about inability to Erase the SSD for some time (fixed by fomating to free space than back to ...Journaled... partition. Ofcourse after every unsuccesful instalation, the SSD would dissappear from the system and I had to Shotdown (reboot was not enought) and boot again, than I saw it...

I even thought my SSD is somehow damaged. Still not sure why this is happening. But now I do not see I will ever be able to install OS X Lion to my SSD before some upgrade... This makes me realy sad since I ve beel really looking forward to run the SSD :-/

I do not know if this is related but do you thing perhaps this firmware update might help?

I am running 10.7.2. all updates and everything the SSD is Revision: 320ABBF0

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Answer 10

bb426 Author

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85 points

May 19, 2012 3:36 PM in response to Seehank

The latest firmware update from Kingston solved this entire problem. You can't update the software in OSX... So either you need a bootcamp partition with AHCI enabled (need to modify partition map), or create a bootable disk or USB, put the drive in a PC and update it from there. Works great.

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Answer 11

masoares

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May 21, 2012 5:36 AM in response to bb426

Nope,... not for me! 😟

Which version ?

M

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Answer 12

Jul 27, 2012 3:58 PM in response to bb426

Same Problem HERE! System freezes randomly. I have the same SSD. Hyper X Kingston 120gb.

I'v just installed mountain lion. No fix as apple regards and I've just made a firmaware update of the SSD from windows 7 on bootcamp. Nothing changed.

Has anyone solved this in other way than changing the disk?

Does using the optibay instead of the HDD bay?

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Answer 13

bb426 Author

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Jul 27, 2012 6:40 PM in response to asterisco

You need to update your firmware. There is no other way to get around the issue unless you put it in the optibay (and sacrifice performance slightly). The only way to update the firmware is to put it in another PC with AHCI enabled, or put windows on the drive and enable AHCI through a modification and update it from there.

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Answer 14

Jul 27, 2012 7:01 PM in response to bb426

Thanks for your answer bb426.
I tried to do what you say throught this method > http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?87950-Enabling-AHCI-for-W indows-on-MBP-2011-now-possible

But I don't know if I succed on the firmware update. Where I can see if my firmware is the last one on mac OS?

After a clean Mountain Lion clean install, system appears better, but Safari 6 keeps on freezing. (Not firefox)...

Any ideas?

Thanks again for your help.

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Answer 15

bb426 Author

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85 points

Jul 27, 2012 7:10 PM in response to asterisco

That's the method I used, I've used it quite a few times now without any issues.

You can check the firmware in OS X if you open up System Information and click the Serial-ATA tab on the left side, click your SSD and look for revision, and compare the revision's last 3 numbers with the revision number on Kingston's website.

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