128GB M4 dead?

Panda90uk · 15 Jan 2014 at 11:40

The 128GB M4 in my desktop appears to have died. It's no longer being picked up by the BIOS when attached to either of the two SATA controllers even when used with a known working set of power and data cables. For the past couple of weeks I've been noticing some occasionally flickering where the whole screen would go from displaying normally to black and back again without the monitor disconnecting. Last night, the screen displayed colourful static and never started working again. After this, the SSD was no longer detected by the BIOS.

I assumed the flickering was a GPU issue and I thought I had solved it by an update to the 13.12 catalyst drivers.

Could the flickering be related to the SSD or do I likely have two separate issues?

wazza300 · 15 Jan 2014 at 16:16

tried leaving it unplugged from any power for 30 minutes then try?

Panda90uk · 16 Jan 2014 at 16:45

I didn't get a chance to try it yesterday but suffice to say it's now been more that 30 minutes. It still wasn't detected. I've got it in the expansion bay in my laptop right now to see if having it attached to power for 30 minutes or so will coax it back to life as I've seen suggested.

linktoinsanity · 16 Jan 2014 at 17:20

Try power cycling the drive (my 256GB M4 in my laptop has done this before).

To do this plug the power lead in, but not the data cable, boot it up and leave it running for 30 minutes or so. There are threads on the Crucial forums about this.

Dervious · 16 Jan 2014 at 21:45

Try leaving it powered off for 30 years and buy a Samsung.

JOKE !

Dervious · 16 Jan 2014 at 21:51

More seriously.....

What is the point of leaving the SSD powered down for 30 minutes ?

I know that a quick off/on can leave an electronic item effectively powered up (due to residual charge being held in capacitors), but most items will fully power down (discharge capacitors) within a second or two, or at the most a minute. My Samsung TV's standby light stays on for around 15 seconds when mains power is removed, but that is rather unusual. Most electronic items will be "properly off" within a second.

Panda90uk · 16 Jan 2014 at 22:48

Thanks linktoinsanity, power cycling it fixed it and I've got back into windows. I'd forgotten that you're supposed to leave the sata cable disconnected to do that.

linktoinsanity · 28 Jan 2014 at 18:08

Panda90uk said:
Thanks linktoinsanity, power cycling it fixed it and I've got back into windows. I'd forgotten that you're supposed to leave the sata cable disconnected to do that.

No worries, glad you sorted it. )