Laptop having trouble booting from SSD

gameemailonly05

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Dec 14, 2017
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This didn't get too much attention in the SSD category so I thought I might repost this here. Please let me know if that's not allowed.

Hi,

Laptop: ASUS TP550LJ Transformer Book

About a few months ago, I swapped out the 1 TB HDD in my laptop for a 250 GB Sandisk SSD. Then I installed a fresh copy of windows on the SSD (Note: I only have one SATA port on my laptop so no other drives were connected during the installation). It worked perfectly fine for the next month, until I started to encounter a problem with booting. Whenever I would shut my laptop down completely (power is off - not in sleep mode), it would have trouble booting up into Windows the next time I turn it on.

After the ASUS logo, it would boot directly into the BIOS and my SSD doesn't show up in the boot options as well. I would have to manually hold down the power button to turn off my laptop and retry. This cycle of shutting down and entering the BIOS would go on for about 5-10 tries before it finally shows me the Windows 10 boot screen and properly boot. I'm assuming it's because the SSD is finally "on" and recognizable.

Also, I've noticed that after replacing the HDD with the SSD, my laptop can no longer enter sleep mode. Every time I put it to sleep mode, it freezes on the lock screen after waking up or it gives me a blue screen with a mouse cursor that I can move, but nothing else. I know the problem has to do with the SSD since trying out the old hard drive results in my laptop being able to boot into Windows (albeit much slower) the first try without any issues.

I've tried the following solutions, but none of them seem to work.

1) Disable Secure Boot in BIOS, enable CSM in bios. (AHCI is enabled by default for SATA type)
2) Change registry settings to disable LMP (https://blogs.visigo.com/chriscoulson/ssd-freezing-fix/)
3) Tried to update SSD firmware, but it was already running the latest firmware.
4) Tried to update BIOS version, but it was already running the latest version.
5) As a side note, my SSD appears to be healthy and not failing according to the SanDisk software.

I have one theory as to why this might be happening though. Is it possible that the SSD requires itself to be constantly turned on (even in a low-power state) so that the BIOS immediately recognizes it during startup? And that somehow, attempting to boot from it over and over again gives it enough power to turn "on"?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
 
Solution
It sounds like your new SSD is not in top notch shape. I actually suspect that device itself. What you are describing is a really slow load of the SSD powering itself on, like failing caps or a minor short to ground within the SSD.

Mark RM

Estimable
Jul 16, 2014
222
1
5,110
It sounds like your new SSD is not in top notch shape. I actually suspect that device itself. What you are describing is a really slow load of the SSD powering itself on, like failing caps or a minor short to ground within the SSD.
 
Solution