G74Sx-XR1 - Intel 320 series SSD Freezing

[Retired]

Hi,

I'm new to these forums but have always liked asus products. Over the summer, i bought myself an Asus G74Sx and I bought a Intel 320 series 120 GB SSD on the side. Even I'm doing very simple tasks like opening Firefox or Outlook, my laptop will freeze for about 2-5 seconds. and when I'm playing TF2 or BC2, it will randomly freeze 2-5 seconds as well. If i bring up resource monitor, it appears to be that the SSD has a 100% highest active time. When I boot off of my HDD, i have none of those problems.

Any ideas on how to resolve my SSD issues? I have it updated to the lastest firmware, Intel SSD Toolbox and optimized configs.

And also, every now and then, my Wifi stops working, so I have to disable and re-enable it..not a big deal, but I was wondering if there is a solution to it.

[ScottinSoCal]

Id guess your SSD is getting ready to fail but hasn't quite made up its mind yet. That's a symptom of SSD failure - it's trying to access data, but can't.

And I'd get an Intel PCI Express half height card to replace the Atheros crap that shipped with the laptop. It was a definite budget move on Asus' part, and not up to the standard set by the rest of the hardware in the laptop. Remove all the Atheros drivers and software before you power down to change the card. You can access it through the rear panel, on the left side. A single (very small) phillips screw releases the current board. Pull the edge up and pull straight out to remove it, reverse the procedure to install the new card.

[BrodyBoy]

ScottinSoCal wrote:
And I'd get an Intel PCI Express half height card to replace the Atheros crap that shipped with the laptop. It was a definite budget move on Asus' part, and not up to the standard set by the rest of the hardware in the laptop. Remove all the Atheros drivers and software before you power down to change the card. You can access it through the rear panel, on the left side. A single (very small) phillips screw releases the current board. Pull the edge up and pull straight out to remove it, reverse the procedure to install the new card.

While I'm no fan of Atheros cards, I wouldn't be so quick jump to Intel in this case. In the G74, the Intel driver exhibits persistent latency issues...this seems to occur in all the Intel cards, as far as I can tell.

I like Intel cards a lot, but until Intel gets the driver problem straightened out, that caveat should be appended whenever we recommend swapping to an Intel card in the g74.

The latest Atheros driver apparently resolves a similar latency issue in the stock card.

[JRd1st]

BrodyBoy wrote:
While I'm no fan of Atheros cards, I wouldn't be so quick jump to Intel in this case. In the G74, the Intel driver exhibits persistent latency issues...this seems to occur in all the Intel cards, as far as I can tell

I did have latency spikes from my intel 6230, but I don't have them anymore, so don't overgeneralize. 😄

[Retired]

Hmm...Someone I know bought the same laptop and config as me when I got mine.. He has the same problems with his laptop too.

Intel wifi sounds good but it depends on how much it costs...The atheros is lasting for now... but when it dies or I get fed up with it, I'll for sure get an Intel card. The G74 makes it very easy to install hardware, so that won't be a problem. But I'm updating the driver for it right now.

[BrodyBoy]

deltra wrote:
Hmm...Someone I know bought the same laptop and config as me when I got mine.. He has the same problems with his laptop too.

I wouldn't assume that the drive is bad. Rather, it's probably just some messy software in Asus' bloat-laden installation. I'd recommend doing a clean Windows installation. Along with the latest firmware for your SSD, I'd be very surprised if that didn't resolve the problem. If you don't want to do that, you could try making sure all the existing drivers are up-to-date, and uninstalling some of the bloatware.

So....messed up installations on the SSD-equipped configurations. I guess we need to add one more to the list of "Ways Asus ships bad installations." (It's getting to be a long list.....)

PS: You said you're updating your Atheros driver. That alone could possibly resolve the problem. Report back after that update.

[Retired]

BrodyBoy wrote:
I wouldn't assume that the drive is bad. Rather, it's probably just some messy software in Asus' bloat-laden installation. I'd recommend doing a clean Windows installation. Along with the latest firmware for your SSD, I'd be very surprised if that didn't resolve the problem. If you don't want to do that, you could try making sure all the existing drivers are up-to-date, and uninstalling some of the bloatware.

So....messed up installations on the SSD-equipped configurations. I guess we need to add one more to the list of "Ways Asus ships bad installations." (It's getting to be a long list.....)

PS: You said you're updating your Atheros driver. That alone could possibly resolve the problem. Report back after that update.

When I first go the laptop, I did a clean install to the SSD(since I bought it seperately), and it was freezing, so I did a clean install again. Also, I did a clean install on my friend's laptop, when we got it. So thats 3 tries on 2 different systems, but no luck. Prior to installing the OS, I updated the SSDs to the lastest firmware (and they still are the lastest firmware today). I'm checking all of my drivers right now, and they all seem to be up to date except for Intel SSD toolbox, I just installed v3 from v2, I ran an optimization, hopefully that will do something.

When I tried to install the atheros drivers, I get an error that says " Please make sure you have finished any previous setup and closed other applications" So I rebooted my laptop, but still no luck. The wifi card isn't a big deal, its only a bit annoying once in a while when u have to disable/re-enable

[JRd1st]

deltra wrote:
I'm checking all of my drivers right now, and they all seem to be up to date except for Intel SSD toolbox, I just installed v3 from v2, I ran an optimization, hopefully that will do something.

When I tried to install the atheros drivers, I get an error that says " Please make sure you have finished any previous setup and closed other applications" So I rebooted my laptop, but still no luck. The wifi card isn't a big deal, its only a bit annoying once in a while when u have to disable/re-enable

Can you uninstall Atheros? You can also do it from the device manager. The bad atheros driver IS a big deal.

[Retired]

JRd1st wrote:
Can you uninstall Atheros? You can also do it from the device manager. The bad atheros driver IS a big deal.

Good call. I was able to update it through Device manager. Intenet seems to load a tad faster too. Thanks!

As for the SSD, I seem to freeze for a lesser amount of time with Intel SSD Toolbox optimization v3. I did run a full SSD Diagnostic Scan and it came back successful. According to SMART, my SSD still is very healthy.

[BrodyBoy]

JRd1st wrote:
I did have latency spikes from my intel 6230, but I don't have them anymore, so don't overgeneralize. 😄

Yes boss! 😉

I've found many threads and scores of users posting complaints about this particular problem with Intel drivers, with no resolution yet defined. I'm glad you found the fix. 🙂