OCZ Synapse cache 128MB not working

[Asvin]

I don’t think this OCZ synapse cache is every going to working with either laptop or desktop system. This SSD have now really annoyed me a lot. Either I will stop using computers or I will have to get rid or this SSD. About some few months ago I made a purchase of new Synapse 128Mb cache as I was hearing a lot about its positive features and functions. But I think I should also have learnt about its negative things that are in excess. Anyways after buying it I installed it into my computer, let me tell you that I have a ACER M5800 system with 780MB Hard drive. As far as I know my computer system was up to date with all the updated drivers and updates, and I never had any issue with it. But then as expected I installed the Synapse drive into it and no doubt it worked great for next few days with an awesome performance and mindblowing speed. But after a week it started hanging up with unrecoverable reboots and DOS messages regarding the synapse problem messages. Not just this I also faced other issues like getting blue screen, unable to get into hard disk and ultimately I removed the drive from the system. And the issue remained unsolved as I was not bothered about the system because I was supposed to get new Dell 9100. Later on got the Dell system, started with all the basic activities like installing basic software, office and other thing and at last installed the great SSD drive Synapse cache. As in the first case it worked great during the initial phase with everything at its top notch but then everything opposite, other software and application started opening slowly like Microsoft office word use to take some 10 to 15 seconds to open up as normally it use to take just 1 or 2 seconds. People think the problem is with the system but let me tell you both my system were great with no overclocking or downclocking. Is there anyone who can help me out please.

[Dannai7]

I don’t even have any idea how many people have trouble with the synapse drive, and the most common problem all of them have is with the SSD not working at all or its not being detected in the BIOS. I am one amongst them and let me tell you there is nothing in this world that can this drive issue fix and solve the problem. Ask me, I have tried every possible thing but nothing worked for me. you know I use to blame all my other hardware parts of my system for the problem without knowing that this SSD was the main cause, first I thought that the problem was with the video card or there might be some conflict but then I found all my equipments working at their standard speed. I installed all the necessary most recent updated and latest drivers. When checked the synapse firmware found that it was already updated with 2.15 versions. Then I downloaded the latest Dataplex software but same problem was persisting. The most interesting thing was that every time whenever I uninstall the Dataplex software and rebooted the machine everything uses to come to its normal position. Quite strange and magical.

[JErastus]

There are certain things that you are necessarily bound to do when you install the synapse drive and dataplex. Look first you must do a fresh install with no imaging. before you plan to install the dataplex make sure that you complete all the installation, this will ensure you that you are fixed to 1 SATA driver. If the Dataplex software is installed then you should not perform any kind of update, and even if you wanted to do so make sure that you first uninstall dataplex and then update things. Always remember once your system is completely done with the installation and settled with everything only then you must go for downloading the Dataplex. If you are done till here then regard your machine for being locked and you should only be able to enable automatic updates only for the important updates. For best results its always recommended to disable the auto updates and then do them manually so that you can select not to install updated drivers.

If you follow up above all the instruction and suggestion then definitely you will not be facing any kind of issue and you will be out of any Synapse problem. Anyways just try them out and let me know the results.

[Faiyaz9]

This is something disgusting; how come OCZ make something and release that is not at all compatible with windows updates or imaging. Seems like windows update is a biggest issue over here. Heard somewhere that if you try to install any game or any software that needs booting up the system can simply affect the dataplex and cause it to be unstable. If I am not mistaken this drive is suppose to have a speed which is near by to the SSD speed even without wanting us to re install windows. If a person has to really do this then surely he will have to buy a SSD and then have it boot drive, I hope at least after doing so we will not have to worry about anything else like such issues. The biggest problem with Dataplex is that don’t know why this software is not at all being able to cope up with any of the new thing that is being installed in the machine, it somehow mess up with newly installed things. Even if you check all the major online market site reviews for most of the parts are awesome but all of them are down to the dataplex.

[ErikaGeek]

If you follow up above all the instruction and suggestion then definitely you will not be facing any kind of issue and you will be out of any Synapse problem. Anyways just try them out and let me know the results.

Ok, so you mean that everyone whoever going for a OCZ product must follow your guideline in order to make it work properly; that’s great. You mentioned over somewhere that the Dataplex will work with one fixed SATA drive. For your kind information I am using 2 drives in a stripped configuration and you must know that I am running everything with no issue, everything is working great for me. Any ways can you please clarify things regarding imaging, I mean are you talking about Raid 0 or Raid 1 or simply something else. I have never seen anywhere or read about purchasing the Raid or other imaging that is not supported. Also you said that fresh installation is required, but you didn’t mention whether its only for Synapse drive or also for Windows 7, hope you were not talking about windows 7. My friend when faced this issue he just made sure that Dataplex is not installed and then fixed the SATA connection on motherboard then he booted up the system. After doing this entire he just verified in BIOS that the drive is however able to be recognized, and it was actually recognized.

[fflygirl]

Hey regarding Raid I would like to say that it depends upon the category of Raid 0 striping and Raid 1 mirroring, what exactly do you have a Raid 0 striping or Raid 1 mirroring. Look if you have a Raid 0 then you are likely to have 4TB of space in GPT partitions. I myself have a Raid 0 setup with 2 x 1.5TB Hitachi drives but I am still now aware what exactly happens when I try to access dataplex with larger partition than 2TB as it is not supported. As the drives were presently a boot drive I already backed up all the things that were on it. I am surely going to do some R&Ds with the hard drives and synapse. Regarding the Dataplex, instead of looking at just the partition it sees the whole partition also it will try cache the whole array but simply cant do that just because it is over 2TB.

[phunsuk]

If I am given a chance I would simply first test the Synapse drive without a Dataplex and keeping it as a regular SSD, the reason for doing so is to make sure that the SSD is working fine. This will surely help you to know where exactly the issue lies, is it the Dataplex software or the SSD hardware. I was however trying to get how exactly you set it up as even I am sharing the same configuration. At present the boot drives which I have are somehow connected to the intel controller and the sata III 2 x 1.5TB drives is connected to a Marvel 9182 controller. my boot drives are 2 x 250GB sata II + Synapse. Now what I am trying to do is to get rid of 250GB drives and then move over the 3TB array somehow to the Intel controller. Then make the partition by giving 500GB for C: and rest for D: after this I would move the Synapse drive to the Marvel 9182 as its 6Gb SATA. Really I do not have any idea how exactly everything would work as the synapse drive cache the entire boot drive and array and not just this we also have boot drives that are larger than 2TB. I am sure reinstalling will do the trick, I will surely let you know about the result.

[Vicky Woodley]

There is lot of reason why exactly imaging is always proved to be a bad idea. Actually all the issues and the problem that are inherited from the image are somehow transferred; I do not understand how come we try to sort out the issue that is not at all clear. However critical updates are supported and changing the drives like chipset, ahci, sata may not result in any driver change in a restore point and then a new device being detected. Most of the time this thing result in licensing with the Dataplex which some proves to Dataplex service stopping and long delay at the reboot and also the end user pushing the power button which in turn leads to corruption. So therefore you load just one driver, you are stuck with the same. Now the conclusion I would like to place is that almost 70% of the problems are caused due to the end user updating the drives and performing other activities keeping the duplex running. And ultimately this causes the improper shutdown error.