I recently installed a new Intel 520 series SSD in my Thinkpad W520. I didn’t notice any issues for the first few weeks until I started running 2 virtual machines at once. There was a stuttering (or freezing) every 60-90 seconds for about 10 seconds.
Taking a look at Perfmon, I found the Disk Queue to be very high – during the freezing the Max Queue was up over 3500. There is a relationship between current and average queue explained here, but a good rule of thumb is that a length of 2 per disk is reasonable. Any more than that for an extended period and there is a disk bottleneck.
How to stop the solid state drive from Freezing
Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) is the culprit, specifically LPM (Link Power Management) and DIPM (Device Initiated Power Management). Both are recommended to be enabled as they lower power consumption on SATA devices that support it, but in certain circumstances they may cause freezing, stuttering and other undesirable performance degradation.
In order to turn off LPM and DIPM, insert the text below into notepad and save the file as LPM.reg and run it or download the file and unzip. The following disables LPM/DIPM for all SATA ports on a machine. If you only want to disable for a specific port, delete the other keys below. This will work for any SSD experiencing stuttering or freezing while using Intel RST drivers only (MS Default AHCI not included). Make sure you restart after you’ve run the registry file.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port1]
“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port2]
“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port3]
“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port4]
“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5]
“LPM”=dword:00000000
“LPMDSTATE”=dword:00000000
“DIPM”=dword:00000000
After you’re done, the Intel SSD Toolbox will show a warning in the system tuner (screenshot below), this is normal. You have intentionally disabled LPM/DIPM, do not click “Tune!”.
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Sascha
Thank you so much. You really nailed the problem on the head, your recommendation helped me resolve my freezing issue with my new Intel 330 SSD.
Theo
A question Then: why it freezes if i run any ssd benchmark program? During this time, other windows are usable, and in task manager windows explorer shows about 2 million I/O read/writes?
Thanks
Theo
Update: just installed the reg patch, now it works fine, ssd benchmarks don’t freezes my system anymore. I’ll come back with updates
Thanks
Robert
Argh! Doesn’t solve the problem for me as I have a desktop, and apparently DIPM isn’t even enabled, at least according to the toolbox: “Selected Intel SSD is installed in a desktop. No action is required”. This recurring freeze is driving me insane.
giora
Hey – this seems to work! So far so good.
Lenovo X61 laptop with an Intel 520 SSD.
THANKS!
mike xeno
Did this on a t60 with the intel 520 60gb ssd and everything is working perfect now. You saved my ass big time. Thank you