SSD + P67 Chipset + SATA 3 + Intel Rapid Storage (iaStor) + Win7 = Intermittent Freeze

I just bought Corsair Force 3 120GB SSD. It is a SATA 3 solid state drive and since I have Asus P8P67 Pro, it is natural for me to hook it up at SATA 3 port (the grey one), reinstall my windows 7 alongside with all the latest drivers. Unfortunately, I did notice that my system face intermittent freeze after I installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver. Update to latest version still doesn’t fix this problem.

Yes, the system is blazingly fast. Day and night different. Speed improvement is extremely significant. For those who already spend several hundreds buck on your CPU and GPU or even MOBO/RAM, do yourself a favor. Install an SSD to your system and you will amazed/stunned. Seriously LOL. By the way, back to the current topic, the intermittent freeze really annoy me. The whole system will freeze for 10 – 30 seconds. My casing’s HDD/SSD LED lit up like crazy. And I have to wait. No other choice.

So I give up. Even my system is properly configured (including Visual Studio and Adobe lengthy installation, I format and re-install my Windows 7 + all drivers except Intel Rapid Storage. Bamm, no more intermittent issue. But I do realize the copying speed between my E-SATA drive to SATA drive drop pretty significant. From 90 MB/s to 60-80 MB/s. I don’t feel any noticeable slowdown with my SSD. Windows Experience Index still report it 7.9. ATTO benchmark still give 500+ MB/s read (at best condition).

So, I do some googling and found these solutions:

Solution 1 : —————————————————————————————————-

The solution is easy!  The problem is, that the C300 SSD cannot handle the LPM-Feature from the Rapid Storage from Intel. Crucial, please check the firmware from the C300 about LPM and test it in your labs! Since Version 10 of the Rapid Storage LPM is enabled by default, when you make a clean new installation from the RST and that was the problem on my system. I deactivate LPM on all ports by modify the Registry and the problem was solved directly, the freeze-ups are gone – so easy is it! Also the speed from the SSD goes dramatically up!

 

The needed Reg-File to disable LPM on all Intel Ports it is easy to create. Create a new Text-File, copy and paste the following text and then name it for example “LPM.reg”. When you have save the file double click on the file, restart your System and that’s it. On the next boot up LPM is disabled. You can also disable only one or two ports and so on. Then you must delete the line from that port, who you don’t want to disable LPM.
Copy start at the next line:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]

“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port1]

“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port2]

“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port3]

“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port4]

“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5]

“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
Copy end up over this line:

 

 

Also you can do it by hand, thanks to Ady:

 

If there are no “Ports” under the iaStorV/iaStor Parameters, you will need to Manually Creating the Registry Location and Keys:

1. Go to Start-> Run..

2. Type in RegEdit and hit the Enter Key..

3. Go to the following Key location to insert or configure the registry keys for LPM:

Code:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\

 

 

4a. Right click “Parameters” select “New” then name it “Port0”.

4b. Left click “Port0” to open and in the pane with Name/Type/Data, Right click select “New” then “DWORD” and name the new value “LPM”.

4c. Repeat 4a/4b “LPMDSTATE” and “DIPM”.

 

5.  When you want to ad the other Ports also to registry, then repeat the steps from 4a to 4c and name it Port1, Port2, Port3, Port4 and Port5.

 

So, give it a try, i hope it works also at your side, not only just for me! I am disable LPM from now directly on any new installation!

 

Kind Regards
Zoorki
At the end – here are the text what Intel says about LMP in the Rapid Storage since Version 10:

 

Link Power Management with Intel® Rapid Storage Technology

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology implements the Link power management (LPM) feature described by the Serial ATA specification to overcome the power demand of a high-speed serial interface, SATA and providing the capability of SATA at the minimum power cost. LPM, when used in conjunction with a SATA hard drive that supports this feature, enables lower power consumption. LPM was initially enabled by default on mobile platforms starting with ICH6M with Intel® Matrix Storage Manager. Starting with ICH9R this feature has also been supported on desktop platforms with Intel® Matrix Storage Manager 7.5 release but not enabled by default. Beginning with the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology 10.0 release, LPM support is enabled by default on both mobile and desktop platforms. OEM’s who wish to modify the default settings for LPM on their platforms can follow the instructions in the following section(s).

Instructions to disable/enable LPM

After system is setup with OS and Intel® Rapid Storage Technology installed, follow the below instructions to modify the default LPM support.

NOTE: Beginning with the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology 10.0 release, the registry keys are no longer populated in the Windows registry by default. The RST driver does not require the registry keys to be present to support the default settings.

1. Go to Start->Run
2. Type in RegEdit and hit the Enter Key.
3. Go to the below mentioned location to insert or configure the registry keys for LPM
NOTE: OEM’s need to configure the LPM settings by port. Ports are numbered starting with zero (please refer the desired platform EDS for the number of ports supported on that platform)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\iaStor\Parame
ters\Port0\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\iaStor\Parame
ters\Port1\
…
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\iaStor\Parame
ters\Port5\

4. Now add the following registry keys under the registry location mentioned in step3, if they are not available (These registry keys are not available by default, they can be added by using utomated scripts, .reg files, executable utilities, etc). If you find the below registry keys already available, you can modify the values for desired support. Values are modified on a port by port basis so modify all ports that you wish the changes to be supported on. **

“LPM”=dword: 00000001 {dword: 00000000->Disable; dword: 00000001->Enable} [default = Enabled]
“LPMSTATE”=dword: 00000000 {dword: 00000000->Partial; dword: 00000001->Slumber} [default = Disabled] (Note: the driver ignores this key when the LPM key’svalue is not set to 1. So when LPM value is 0, this value is N/A.)
“LPMDSTATE”=dword: 00000001 {dword: 00000000->Partial; dword: 00000001->Slumber} [default = Enabled]
“DIPM”=dword: 00000001 {dword: 00000000->Disable; dword: 00000001->Enable} [default = Enabled]

**Warning: If you edit the registry incorrectly, you can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Intel does not guarantee that problems that are caused by editing the Registry incorrectly can be resolved.

 

Original Link

 

Solution 2 : —————————————————————————————————-

Two days ago, my Media Center Extenders became extremely non-responsive when I tried to play recorded TV. Perhaps playing TV would have been impossible, but I did not wait that long before restarting the Media Center PC.

That restart failed, with the Windows logo staying on the screen indefinitely. Attempts to fix the boot process from the Windows boot menu proved useless as that diagnostic revealed no error. Running a similar diagnostic from the Windows 7 install DVD provided me with a boot issue to fix and Windows restarted, but was sluggish when accessing my recorded TV.

A diagnostic run on that drive revealed nothing.

A look in the Windows Event log revealed a series of the following errors that began several hours before the nonresponsiveness:

Source: iaStor

Event ID: 9

 

The device, DeviceIdeiaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

Some web searches revealed substantial frustration with this problem dating back to the introduction of Windows Vista, but also suggested that updating Intel’s disk drivers might solve the problem. At least sometimes the problem is related to hard drives and LPM (link power management):

 

A change was made by Microsoft* in the Windows Vista setup process. The result of this change is that the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager LPM registry settings that were intended for mobile installations are added for desktop installations as well. These LPM registry settings are added for both the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager RAID driver on the Windows Vista installation disk, as well as for any drivers added during the installation process.

Various desktop Serial ATA devices such as hard drives and CD/DVD drives have been reported that do not comply with the Serial ATA LPM device specification and display erratic behavior when LPM is enabled.

Given that the hard drive in question was a new “green” drive. I suspect this may have been part of the problem. A new set of Intel drivers addresses the problem by disabling LPM. I installed these drivers (for the Intel Matrix Storage Manager (my system is RAID capable, although I do not use RAID)) and the problem has not recurred in the last 48 hours.

 

Original Link.

 

Solution 3 : —————————————————————————————————-

The one I use currently : Do not install Intel Rapid Storage driver. No problem what so ever.

Note: I will eventually install Intel rapid storage driver and perform another benchmark and implement solution no 1. Stay tuned.