Asrock Extreme 7 Gen 3 SSD or controller problem

[T-J Steele]

I simply don't know what to do anymore, scrapped 2 SSD Drives (brand new drives) with this board.

Here is a rundown of my System:

Asrock Extreme 7 Gen 3 MB
Intel i7 2600k Processor
16Gb PC3 16000 Patriot Viper Extreme Ram
2 x WD 1Tb Black Edition HD
2 x Radeon 6870 Video cards
OCZ Vertex 3 60Gb SSD - Just fried tonight
OCZ Vertex 3 120Gb SSD - Fried 2 days ago
Thermaltake 850 Watt PSU
ETC, ETC

I setup the first 60 Gb SSD Drive as boot device about 2 month ago. Set BIOS to AHCI and installed Windows 7 Enterprise. Everything went fine for about 3 weeks then started getting BSOD. Read somewhere that changing to IDE in the BIOS would help and it did. Purchased second drive to replace the first which was too small. Verified in BIOS SATA settings and installed Windows 7 Enterprise again on this new drive. Took about 1.5 hours which i found very unusuall for Windows 7 and just as unusuall for SSD. Installed all drivers and updated windows as well, took most of the day. Boot time was about 5 to 6 minutes. Erased the drive and re-installed Windows 7 Pro this time. Same results. Checked Event Viewer and was full of ATAPI errors on Dev0 or something like that.

Removed drive from system completely and re-installed Windows on 60 Gb drive (in 15 minutes) etc with no errors. Ran OCZ Toolbox and couldn't detect the 120 Gb drive anymore after re-installing it as storage drive. Tried to update firmware but kept failing after a few packets, tried to secure erase, didn't work. RMA'd drive today. Started getting BSOD on computer again last night (this is the 60 Gb SSD) while playing BF3. This was a brand new install from a couple days ago. Happened 3 times. Tonight, BSOD 4 times back to back without running any programs or games or anything and all of a sudden, unable to boot. No operating system found. BIOS unable to detect SSD drive. Second drive fried.

I built this gaming system to replace a 6 month old AMD Asus Crosshair IV system that was overheating constantly but i think i got worst instead of better. I just don't know what to do anymore. Now i'm gonna go connect a sata HD and re-install Windows ago for the 20 time in the last few days.

Is the problem with the controller on this board or what. MB seems different also. After booting the system, i get light on the various switches and post on the mb but everything goes blank after a few seconds. I can't really remember if it was always like that but it doesn't look right. By the way, i also updated the BIOS somewhere in there as well so it's up to date...

Please help...

[profJim]

It is unlikely that you got two bad drives in a row, especially with the Vertex3 ssd's that have been around for a long time and should have mature firmware.
Have you searched or posted in the OCZ ssd forum?

What is the port name/number that you used with each ssd?
Which bios version are you currently using?
Are there any recent hardware changes in your system?
How old is your Thermaltake 850 watt power supply?

[T-J Steele]

It is unlikely that you got two bad drives in a row, especially with the Vertex3 ssd's that have been around for a long time and should have mature firmware.
Have you searched or posted in the OCZ ssd forum?

What is the port name/number that you used with each ssd?
Which bios version are you currently using?
Are there any recent hardware changes in your system?
How old is your Thermaltake 850 watt power supply?

I just started searching last night after the crash for an answer.
The Firmware on the drive is 2.22 which is the latest. It is plugged into the SATA 3_0 port (the gray one), The second drive was plugged into the SATA 3_1 port. They were originally plugged into SATA 3_A1 and A2 ports but changed them to what they are now after the previous issues (when it took 1.5 hour to install Win 7).

The BIOS version is the latest from the Asrock website for my board which is P 2.10 dated 2012/04/24 as reported by AXTU. Date on website shows 2012/05/10???
There is no new hardware change since the SSD'd. Are you kidding, i'm broke now trying to get a good working gaming PC, lol.
The only thing i was thinking about also, is the power supply. It's about 3 years old or so. I didn't want to replace the Thermaltake case either cause i plan a desk/pc mod and needed 2 PSU's for the entire system. I don't have another PSU to try either.
I installed all new software and drivers from the Asrock website as well but never installed any of the XFast drivers, VGA stuff, any Rapid storage stuff either so in other words, no fluff, just the basic stuff... Rapid Storage cause nothing but BSOD anyways so stayed away from that.
All other drives are working perfectly, it's just the SSD's for some reason that give me issues...

[SaphireX]

Hi TJ
I read thru some of your other posts in the forum and it still sounds like either maybe you have a bad board or there are bent pins on the CPU or in the socket. The fact that you've gone thru several SSD's and basically have had problems as spelled out in earlier threads seems to point that way...Hopefully ASRock can cross-ship a replacement board, since you are still under warranty
Good Luck
SaphireX