Optimus IV 15.6 - intermittent freeze

[strutsinaction]

Hi

I purchased an Optimus IV 15.6" back in May. I'm very pleased with the laptop but I have experienced an intermittent freeze. Very occasionally the hard disk light stays on and the laptop freezes for 60s or so and doesn't respond to mouse clicks, keyboard input etc. After this the laptop behaves normally again. Anyone else noticed this odd behaviour?

The laptop is running Win 7 64-bit, i7, 16GB, with Intel 240Gb SSD primary + Scorpio 750GB secondary.

I also bought an Optimus V 17.3" for the wife back in July. This has a 240Gb SSD primary, i7, 8Gb, Win 7 64-bit, but this has been fine.

Here's my Optimus IV spec in full:

Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 8GB)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1

Here's an Administrative Event log entry which seems to occur each time the laptop 'freezes' :

Level=Error, Source=iaStor, Event ID=9
Detail: The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

Any thoughts? Thanks for any advice!

 

[ubuysa]

First thing I'd suggest is that you backup your user data. Then check the HDD for errors, open a command prompt, switch focus to the HDD (so if it's your D: drive enter the command "D:" (without quotes)) and then enter "chkdsk /f" (again, without the quotes) when you get the message about scheduling a disk check at the next boot click Yes and then reboot.

The disk check will take a while, a percentage complete number is shown. Check the messages at the end of the test carefully, it will tell you whether any errors were found.

I no errors are found then we'll have to think of something else.

 

[strutsinaction]

I tried chkdsk /f and it showed no errors.

Googling 'Intel SSD freeze' produced a few interesting results. It appears that others have experienced a similar problem to me, for example:

http://communities.intel.com/thread/33510

The suggestion is that there might be an issue with LPM (link power management):

"Link Power Management can cause an SSD to enter a low power state (as LPM is meant to do) and can cause the controller to go into a "protect my data" mode wherein it will gracefully power down even though the system is still powered up and running. This leads to the drive disappearing from the system."

I'm reluctant to try out the registry fix at the moment as the issue for me doesn't happen very often. If it becomes more regular then I guess the registry hack might be worth a shot.

 

[ubuysa]

I tried chkdsk /f and it showed no errors.

Googling 'Intel SSD freeze' produced a few interesting results. It appears that others have experienced a similar problem to me, for example:

http://communities.intel.com/thread/33510

The suggestion is that there might be an issue with LPM (link power management):

"Link Power Management can cause an SSD to enter a low power state (as LPM is meant to do) and can cause the controller to go into a "protect my data" mode wherein it will gracefully power down even though the system is still powered up and running. This leads to the drive disappearing from the system."

I'm reluctant to try out the registry fix at the moment as the issue for me doesn't happen very often. If it becomes more regular then I guess the registry hack might be worth a shot.

I understand your reluctance to mess with the registry, it's not always a good idea to implement every registry hack you find on the 'net.

That said, if you backup your system and data, take a manual restore point, and manually backup the registry before you start you should be able to recover even if the hack proves to be less than ideal. It's worth a try anyway.

I'd be interested to know how you get on, my SSD is the first I've had so they're pretty new to me too.

 

[Pagey]

Don't intel have software to change the settings of the SSD?

 

[strutsinaction]

Don't intel have software to change the settings of the SSD?

You can use the 'Intel SSD Toolbox' to view the current SSD settings (download from Intel). This indicated that LPM/DIPM was enabled for my SSD, as expected. I couldn't see anything in the Toolbox to allow me to disable LPM/DIPM so I used the registry fix to disable it. Now, the System Tuner application in the Toolbox shows that DIPM is disabled and provides a link called 'Tune!' to enable it.

So, with LPM/DIPM disabled, I'll see if the SSD freeze issue has been solved. I'll report back in a few days!

 

[ubuysa]

You can use the 'Intel SSD Toolbox' to view the current SSD settings (download from Intel). This indicated that LPM/DIPM was enabled for my SSD, as expected. I couldn't see anything in the Toolbox to allow me to disable LPM/DIPM so I used the registry fix to disable it. Now, the System Tuner application in the Toolbox shows that DIPM is disabled and provides a link called 'Tune!' to enable it.

So, with LPM/DIPM disabled, I'll see if the SSD freeze issue has been solved. I'll report back in a few days!

Where are you seeing the settings for LPM/DIPM in the SSD Toolbox? I can see the drive details but I've no idea what the value of the various Hex bytes actually mean.

 

[strutsinaction]

Where are you seeing the settings for LPM/DIPM in the SSD Toolbox? I can see the drive details but I've no idea what the value of the various Hex bytes actually mean.

Under Drive Details, Word 78, Bit 3 (Device Initiating Power Management (DIPM) Supported (for Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB).

Then, after disabling LPM/DIPM via the registry hack, I see under System Tuner the following:

"Action required - DIPM is not enabled. Intel recommends enabling DIPM on Intel SSDs."

So far today, with LPM/DIPM disabled (port 0 only so far), I have not had the SSD freeze. I'll keep watching out for it and also check the system logs.

Also, I noticed that my wife's Optimus V uses the 'Intel 8 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller' whereas the Optimus IV uses the 'Intel 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller', with different drivers. We both have the same Intel SSD + Win 7 but her system logs don't show any SSD freeze.

 

[ubuysa]

Under Drive Details, Word 78, Bit 3 (Device Initiating Power Management (DIPM) Supported (for Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB).

Then, after disabling LPM/DIPM via the registry hack, I see under System Tuner the following:

"Action required - DIPM is not enabled. Intel recommends enabling DIPM on Intel SSDs."

So far today, with LPM/DIPM disabled (port 0 only so far), I have not had the SSD freeze. I'll keep watching out for it and also check the system logs.

Also, I noticed that my wife's Optimus V uses the 'Intel 8 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller' whereas the Optimus IV uses the 'Intel 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller', with different drivers. We both have the same Intel SSD + Win 7 but her system logs don't show any SSD freeze.

Word 78 (Serial ATA Features Supported) bit 3 is labelled DIPM and the bit is set on my system (which probably means it is supported). Word 79 (Serial ATA Features Enabled) bit 3 is also labelled DIPM but on my system the bit value is 0 (probably meaning it's off). These are reasonable assumptions but what is your reference (ie. documentation) for interpreting these values?

BTW. I've made no changes to my SSD setup since getting my Optimus IV so it was like this when it came.

I'm just curious, and this is an interesting learning experience.

 

[strutsinaction]

Word 79 bit 3 is set to 0 which I also assumed to mean 'disabled'. Do you see an orange exclamation mark next to the System Tuner button in the Toolbox? As indicated earlier, this wan't present before I applied the registry hack.

Just to recap, here's the registry hack I applied (using advice from numerous postings on various forums regarding Intel SSD freezing):

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

The advice seems to be to apply this to Port0-Port5. So far I've only applied it to Port0 (I assumed that the SSD would be associated with Port0). Still no freeze up today so far but I won't be convinced this has fixed the issue for a day or so.

Looks like your Optimus IV spec is similar to mine except you're running Windows 8. Maybe you can check your event log and search for iaStor to see if you have had an SSD freeze event at some point in the past? It's under Event Viewer->Custom Views->Administrative Events with Level=Error, Source=iaStor, Event ID=9. I've just counted mine - I've had 70 such errors since 12 May.

 

[ubuysa]

Word 79 bit 3 is set to 0 which I also assumed to mean 'disabled'. Do you see an orange exclamation mark next to the System Tuner button in the Toolbox? As indicated earlier, this wan't present before I applied the registry hack.

Just to recap, here's the registry hack I applied (using advice from numerous postings on various forums regarding Intel SSD freezing):

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

The advice seems to be to apply this to Port0-Port5. So far I've only applied it to Port0 (I assumed that the SSD would be associated with Port0). Still no freeze up today so far but I won't be convinced this has fixed the issue for a day or so.

Looks like your Optimus IV spec is similar to mine except you're running Windows 8. Maybe you can check your event log and search for iaStor to see if you have had an SSD freeze event at some point in the past? It's under Event Viewer->Custom Views->Administrative Events with Level=Error, Source=iaStor, Event ID=9. I've just counted mine - I've had 70 such errors since 12 May.

I agree it's a reasonable assumption (bit 3 being 0) but I'd be happier to see some documentation.

I have no iaStor errors in the Event Log at all, and it goes back to 11th May 2013. I've never had a "freeze" either. And there is no Orange exclamation mark next to the System Tuner button in the SSD Toolbox, Clicking on that shows Superfetch/prefetch and DIPM are optimised (ReadyBoost is shown as Service not found and Defrag is shown as none of course). I do run the SSD optimiser on a weekly schedule, perhaps that's why I don't get these problems?

Interesting stuff. Thanks.

 

[strutsinaction]

Yes, fascinating stuff indeed! If disabling LPM/DIPM doesn't work for Port0 I'll restore the registry (which will enable LPM/DIPM again) then try the SSD Optimiser (which I've never run).

If that doesn't fix the freeze then I'll update Port1-Port5 as advised elsewhere and try again.

I'll keep you posted!

 

[ubuysa]

Personally I'd go with the Optimiser before a registry hack. The Optimiser is the official Intel tool for managing Intel SSDs after all.

+rep deserved and given.

 

[strutsinaction]

Quick update. My laptop didn't freeze once since I disabled LPM/DIPM via the registry hack (5 days ago). To check this really did fix the issue I decided to remove the registry hack this morning and see what would happen. Sure enough, within a few hours of enabling LPM/DIPM I got an SSD freeze (iaStor error event). So, I'm convinced that the registry hack works.

I've left LPM/DIPM enabled and have just run the Intel SSD Optimiser as suggested by ubuysa. Let's see if this also fixes the SSD freeze issue. I'll report back later...

 

[strutsinaction]

Unfortunately, I've just had an iaStor error event (LPM/DIPM enabled and SSD Optimiser has been run). So, for me, it appears the only fix for my SSD freeze issue is to disable LPM/DIPM via:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

I've applied the registry hack again so hopefully that will be an end to the iaStor errors.

 

[ubuysa]

Thanks for that, and +rep for your good work and for reporting back.

The only major difference between your Optimus IV and mine is the version of Windows.

I just looked to see whether I have those registry settings on my Windows 8 system. Not only do I not have them but my registry config is different to yours. I don't have the key HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor at all. What I do have is two keys called HLKM\......\iaStorA and HKLM\......\iaStorV, neither of which contain the keys you describe (LPM, LMMDSTATE, DIPM). So it would seem there is a Windows 7 and Windows 8 difference here?

Interesting, thank you!

 

[strutsinaction]

I have iaStor and iaStorV. On my wife's Optimus V + Win 7 I see iaStorA, iaStorF and iaStorV.

Just out of curiosity, under Device Manager, what driver do you have configured for the 'IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers' -> 'Intel 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller' ? Is it the Intel 11.0.0.1032, Intel 12.0.01082 or a Microsoft driver?

 

[ubuysa]

I have iaStor and iaStorV. On my wife's Optimus V + Win 7 I see iaStorA, iaStorF and iaStorV.

Just out of curiosity, under Device Manager, what driver do you have configured for the 'IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers' -> 'Intel 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller' ? Is it the Intel 11.0.0.1032, Intel 12.0.01082 or a Microsoft driver?

My driver is the Intel version 9.3.0.1011, dated 28/8/2011. It seems to be working fine for me so I see no point in updating it.