Corsair Nova 2 solution - Fix for poor performance

[Savage_Ursine]

Hi All,

************************************************************

First off, a disclaimer: I have used this procedure to get my limping drive back into full swing, however it uses a dangerous hack - the Corsair Nova 2, Patriot Memory Torqx 2 and the MyDigitalSSD bulletproof SSDs all share the same controller set - a phison PS3105 - you will be applying nonstandard firmware to your Corsair drive, say goodbye to any warranty and you do this at your own risk.

It worked for me, if it doesn't work for you it's not my problem. Just sayin'

************************************************************


This issue has been driving me *insane* since the day I bought a Corsair Nova 2 drive, After my OCZ Vertex 2 went pop today, I had motivation to fix my Corsair drive - I thought I'd post here for the world to come and have a look!

The Issue: Corsair Nova 2 : freezes, locks up, slow throughput, poor multitasking, generally being a god awful drive. (This also applies to the Patriot Memory Torqx 2 range of drives - they're identical by the look of it.)

Solution: Non Corsair firmware from a drive that still uses the same controller.

It seems the guys over at MyDigitalSSD are the only guys that are actively still developing firmware for the Phison PS3105-S5-1 chipset.

If you look at this thread here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...sd-msata-ssd-64gb-very-bad-performance-2.html

They have firmware upto version 15 of this controller, apparently way beyond anyone else seems to be bothering with. If you follow the instructions there, the V15 MyDigitalSSD firmware will load onto the Corsair Nova 2 - they're in effect the same disk internally.

BE WARNED! Following that proceedure will wipe your SSD clean.

NOTE: YOU MUST PUT THE DRIVE IN AHCI MODE FOR THIS TO WORK

Updating the MyDigitalSSD mSATA firmware using Windows PE

1.Downloading a smallish (140MB) WinPE ISO image

2.Created a bootable USB stick with isotousb pointing to the WinPE ISO image as the source. Ensure you select the bootable option.

3.Extract and copy these files to your USB stick's root (\) directory:

* oledlg.dll from here
* UpgradeFW_S5FAM014(PreFormat)(mSATA).exe from here
* UpgradeFW_S5FAM015(PreFormat)(mSATA).exe from here

4.Boot the USB stick into WinPE, run UpgradeFW_S5FAM014(PreFormat)(mSATA).exe or UpgradeFW_S5FAM015(PreFormat)(mSATA).exe which completes successfully and requests you power cycle the machine.

5.Reinstall Win7 or restore your backup and test to see if the stuttering is now fixed.

There have been some mixed results as far as I can see, but it worked for me, hopefully it'll help sort out your crippled drive too...

Have Fun

 

[kobatz]

Thank you verry much for this!
I own 2 of them(tried raid) and like you, had no multitasking and bad perfomance after some time(no multitasking,lag,hangs).
I had flashed one of them with newest firmware(like you instructed) and drive is performing like a beast!
Will do this to second after some time passes and i am shure the first drive is performing like in the begining Thank you again
I am so glad that our hopes for this drives are not gone and people still develop firmware for them

ps. I had to put my drives in ide mode(they where in ahci) so i could flash it

 

[sleepcrash]

Registered to reply and thank OP

This worked perfectly for me and my Corsair Nova 2. I'd been pulling out my hair trying to figure this one out and this did the trick. Thanks!

 

[Milli]

I also registered to thank you. Basically the Nova 2 with Corsair's firmware is unusable. How Corsair can get away with this is unacceptable.

I would like to add to your tutorial. MyDigitalSSD has put up a page with the newest available firmware:
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/my...im-and-2.5-inch-sata-ssd-firmware-update.html
One file that includes the WinPE image, dll file and firmware.
Now they do warn not to flash from the USB stick but to copy it to WinPE's ramdrive (which is good advice btw).

Apparently FW16 will be released soon.

The MyDigitalSSD firmware comes straight from Phison. Your Corsair SSD keeps it's model number so that's nice. The fact that Corsair doesn't put this firmware as an official download is just outrageous.

 

[hanhwe.kim]

hi,

I am new here. I have a Corsair Nova 60GB which I was using on a Lenovo X60 I had for many years. It was running XP. It was running delightfully fast for a few months but had begun stuttering. I tried partition alignment which seemed to work well for a week but the problems came back (Chrome would show not responding often).

I ghosted the contents of the drive and then ran the S5FAM015 upgrade. I restored the ghost image back to the drive. But now my computer can't boot from the drive.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks!

 

[Milli]

hi,

I am new here. I have a Corsair Nova 60GB which I was using on a Lenovo X60 I had for many years. It was running XP. It was running delightfully fast for a few months but had begun stuttering. I tried partition alignment which seemed to work well for a week but the problems came back (Chrome would show not responding often).

I ghosted the contents of the drive and then ran the S5FAM015 upgrade. I restored the ghost image back to the drive. But now my computer can't boot from the drive.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks!

If you really have a Corsair Nova 1 and not a Nova 2 then you can throw the drive away because the Nova 1 and 2 are completely different drives.

 

[hanhwe.kim]

If you really have a Corsair Nova 1 and not a Nova 2 then you can throw the drive away because the Nova 1 and 2 are completely different drives.

Hi Milli,

I have a Corsair Nova Series 2 60 GB. The box is green. CSSD-V60GB2 is what the drive says.

I can see it and from the Win PE and the partitions show up as valid in that environment. It even shows the master boot record is OK for win XP in WinPE. But when I try to boot from the SSD, I get the blinking cursor in the upper left corner.

Thanks!
Han

 

[Milli]

Hi Milli,

I have a Corsair Nova Series 2 60 GB. The box is green. CSSD-V60GB2 is what the drive says.

I can see it and from the Win PE and the partitions show up as valid in that environment. It even shows the master boot record is OK for win XP in WinPE. But when I try to boot from the SSD, I get the blinking cursor in the upper left corner.

Thanks!
Han

This firmware update destroys all the data on the drive. Savage_Ursine mentioned this in his tutorial. I hope you didn't have anything important on it but you'll have to reinstall your Windows.

 

[hanhwe.kim]

This firmware update destroys all the data on the drive. Savage_Ursine mentioned this in his tutorial. I hope you didn't have anything important on it but you'll have to reinstall your Windows.

Data was backed up in my ghost file. I can get it easily. Thank you for your concern, Milli

Anyway I found out the problem. The firmware update is for Win7 ONLY!
The drive will NOT WORK WITH XP after the update. I could not find the original Corsair firmware anywhere on the web so I bit the bullet and migrated to Win7.

I had been putting off migrating to Win7 for years. Once I installed Win7 my SSD seems to work well. Now I am busy adjusting the settings to get Win7 interactions to behave as much like XP as possible. I hate learning new tricks... I also have a ton of software to install... but with an SSD running at proper speeds, it will be less painful.

 

[hanhwe.kim]

First a big thank you for this thread.. my SSD is back to fast and computing is a joy again - even if I have to deal with the quirks of Win 7. I am always amazed at how Microsoft changes things just enough to throw off users of legacy systems.

One more thing... I tried running AS SSD. Before this, I could not even get AS SSD to complete because it would take too long! But this time it finished(almost) and my SSD's score was 151. A modest score but I would have been happy with a discount SSD with 60 GB that is 5-10 times faster than my old HDD. But right before AS SSD finished the access time test, I got the BSOD.

Has anyone else seen this happen? I am using Win 7 SP 1, on a Lenovo X60 with 2G of Ram and Corsair Nova 2 60GB with S5FAM15 firmware.

 

[Milli]

First a big thank you for this thread.. my SSD is back to fast and computing is a joy again - even if I have to deal with the quirks of Win 7. I am always amazed at how Microsoft changes things just enough to throw off users of legacy systems.

One more thing... I tried running AS SSD. Before this, I could not even get AS SSD to complete because it would take too long! But this time it finished(almost) and my SSD's score was 151. A modest score but I would have been happy with a discount SSD with 60 GB that is 5-10 times faster than my old HDD. But right before AS SSD finished the access time test, I got the BSOD.

Has anyone else seen this happen? I am using Win 7 SP 1, on a Lenovo X60 with 2G of Ram and Corsair Nova 2 60GB with S5FAM15 firmware.

Which bios version are you running on your X60? If it's lower than v2.19 then you might want to upgrade your bios.
Which AHCI driver did you install?
I suppose that there are no yellow marks in device manager?
When you got the bluescreen, which dll or error did it mention?

Thanks for the added info about the loss of WindowsXP compatibility. Sounds strange though. Did you only try to recover your image or did you also try a blank reinstall?

 

[hanhwe.kim]

Which bios version are you running on your X60? If it's lower than v2.19 then you might want to upgrade your bios.
Which AHCI driver did you install?
I suppose that there are no yellow marks in device manager?
When you got the bluescreen, which dll or error did it mention?

My bios is Version 2.08. I will see if I can upgrade it.

The only AHCI drivers I have are the ones that come with Win 7(if that is where it comes from). Device Manager under the "System" Control Panel says I have a Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller version 6.1.7601.17514 dated 6/21/2006.

There was a bios setting I set to AHCI when I first got the SSD but I do not remember if that said anything.

Thanks for the added info about the loss of WindowsXP compatibility. Sounds strange though. Did you only try to recover your image or did you also try a blank reinstall?

When I tried to use Win XP, I had only ghosted the entire disk image and I did have the CD's for a blank install (this would mean reinstalling XP from DVD's, right?). The computer came with XP installed and I do not believe it came with the media for an XP install. I think I used to have a "recovery CD" but lost it years ago.

Thanks!

 

[Milli]

My bios is Version 2.08. I will see if I can upgrade it.

The only AHCI drivers I have are the ones that come with Win 7(if that is where it comes from). Device Manager under the "System" Control Panel says I have a Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller version 6.1.7601.17514 dated 6/21/2006.

There was a bios setting I set to AHCI when I first got the SSD but I do not remember if that said anything.



When I tried to use Win XP, I had only ghosted the entire disk image and I did have the CD's for a blank install (this would mean reinstalling XP from DVD's, right?). The computer came with XP installed and I do not believe it came with the media for an XP install. I think I used to have a "recovery CD" but lost it years ago.

Thanks!

Updating the bios on a X60 is very easy and can be done in Windows.
I've read that the X60 has problems with Intel's RST drivers (but I can't confirm this) and can only be used with Intel's AHCI 8.9 drivers (Lenovo offers these on their website). But Intel's 8.9 drivers don't support TRIM so I would just stick with the MS driver (which supports TRIM) that you are using ATM.

 

[hanhwe.kim]

Once again a big thank you to this forum.

Update on my adventure: After updating bios, and many other Win 7 security patches and updates on my x60, AS SSD benchmark worked without BSOD. The score was only 121 but after struggling years with a sluggish hard drive, my computer is a joy.

 

[DrUnreal]

S5FAM017_FW Really Good

Thank you so much for finding a compatible firmware!! The Corsair NOVA had me for months...

I used dd on linux to clone and later restore data. Downloaded S5FAM017_FW.zip from http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/my...im-and-2.5-inch-sata-ssd-firmware-update.html and updated my Corsair Nova this evening and got a whopping 6.8 WEI for the disk on my Atom N550 netbook. (Before this update this disk was horribly slow and stalled all the time even though WEI was giving me 5.9 for the disk)

Worth noting is that when Windows booted first time after flashing the FW it identified the drive as a new drive and loaded new drivers. I assume the identity of the disk changed with the FW update.

Now I almost like that stupid drive!

/F. Jonsson

 

[pandronic]

I also have a Corsair Nova 2 and I'm struggling with performance. While somewhat acceptable for light usage, as soon as I start multitasking or doing something more intensive everything grinds to a halt, with pauses and hangs of up to a couple seconds.

I have a GA-G31M-S2C motherboard (ICH7 chipset I believe), I've tried upgrading the BIOS using Gigabyte's own @BioS utility from F6 to F8 (strangely my motherboard is now reported as an GA-G31M-ES2C). Everything looks pretty much the same in the BIOS and the performance is similarly bad.

I'm not so sure that my board supports AHCI, as there is no such option in the BIOS to enable. In this conditions is the upgrade to the firmware linked in this thread still feasible or even useful? Or is there another solution worth considering? I've linked to a few of screenshots of my BIOS and from AS SSD:

https://imgur.com/a/R3J1A

Any input is appreciated. Thanks

 

[kobatz]

I also have a Corsair Nova 2 and I'm struggling with performance. While somewhat acceptable for light usage, as soon as I start multitasking or doing something more intensive everything grinds to a halt, with pauses and hangs of up to a couple seconds.

I have a GA-G31M-S2C motherboard (ICH7 chipset I believe), I've tried upgrading the BIOS using Gigabyte's own @BIOS utility from F6 to F8 (strangely my motherboard is now reported as an GA-G31M-ES2C). Everything looks pretty much the same in the BIOS and the performance is similarly bad.

I'm not so sure that my board supports AHCI, as there is no such option in the BIOS to enable. In this conditions is the upgrade to the firmware linked in this thread still feasible or even useful? Or is there another solution worth considering? I've linked to a few of screenshots of my BIOS and from AS SSD:

https://imgur.com/a/R3J1A

Any input is appreciated. Thanks

Enhanced should be ahci mode for your motherboard

 

[pandronic]

Enhanced should be ahci mode for your motherboard

Well, I've tested it with all those settings and the situation seems to be the same. Here's a screenshot of AS SSD and installed drivers:

https://imgur.com/kQbIK

The question is now ... is it worth finding another computer with AHCI and updating the drive to MyDigitalSSD v17 considering the fact that on my computer it will still run in IDE mode?

 

[kobatz]

Well, I've tested it with all those settings and the situation seems to be the same. Here's a screenshot of AS SSD and installed drivers:

https://imgur.com/kQbIK

The question is now ... is it worth finding another computer with AHCI and updating the drive to MyDigitalSSD v17 considering the fact that on my computer it will still run in IDE mode?

Just enable enchanced mode,boot windows pe and flash new firmware,verry simpleYour ssd like mine will fly after flashing...cheers
Like i said your motherboard does support ahci and even it does not support it your ssd will be 10x better with new firmware...

 

[pandronic]

Just enable enchanced mode,boot windows pe and flash new firmware,verry simpleYour ssd like mine will fly after flashing...cheers
Like i said your motherboard does support ahci and even it does not support it your ssd will be 10x better with new firmware...

Yeah, I wasn't sure if the firmware upgrade would work on IDE mode as the MyDigitalSSD site said it needed AHCI as well as the original poster, while you said it only worked on IDE for you. Confusing stuff. I'll give it a try. Hope I don't brick my SSD