SAMSUNG 256 gb SSD Firmware Update for Windows 7 TRIM?

At the risk of being censored again - I have posted a synopsis of this on Tom's hardware, who carry a wealth of SSD information. I've also sent it to a few news sites in the hope it gets picked up and covered, and to Samsung also - since this is making their kit look bad too. I'm not sure how much awareness this will raise, but it's clear the only way we're going to see progress is if this becomes an ugly PR story. Feel free to also try and get it publicized wherever you can.

Countdown to deletion of this post .... 5 --- 4 --- 3 ....

As an aside ... you can alleviate some stuttering and slow down with a RAMDRIVE, at the cost of some of your free RAM. Those of you who haven't already tried, there's a good free RAMDRIVE here:

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

Mine has been working fine for a while now on Windows7 x64. I have a 350Mb drive currently configured, with "auto save" on shutdown, which does slow down my shutdown a bit (perhaps by a couple of minutes). If I'm in a hurry though, I just suspend.

The biggest benefit for me came from moving my Firefox and IE cache on to there, plus my Thunderbird working dirs (not my local storage) and the output dirs from my build/compiles. None of these are critical, so if I do lose anything on a BSOD or somesuch I haven't lost anything vital

This last dell purchase will be my last dell purchase.  I also suffer from a horribly slow samsung 256gb ssd with the 15 firmware on it.  All my attempts to get it updated have led nowhere.  I'm in the process of selling the laptop and rock bottom price and have ordered a new Sony.  I won't be back after the lack of support I've dealt with. 

DISCLAIMER:
As my post has been deleted because of offensive language, I post it again without the word in question.
But please DELL admin, instead of censoring, could you try to get some information ? Try to give the word to the people in charge that some things are going wrong and that loads of customers are having issues ?

ORIGINAL POST:
I'm starting to be used to this...
With my old Inspiron 9400/E1705 I had disconnection issues with the bluetooth card and bluetooth mouses (both logitech & microsoft mouses, both WIDCOMM and MS bluetooth stack).
DELL never solved the problem, they changed the mother board and the bluetooth card, but the problem really was the bluetooth card itself...(Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module 2.0 + EDR) Wireless 350 was working just fine.

I was not the only customer complaining, but it seems nobody's at DELL is trying to solve real hardware/driver issues...
They don't even update their drivers : ATI drivers was never updated and the one from ATI was not compatible (microcode excuse again), WIDCOMM bluetooth stack was outdated and they wasn't paying the newer licences, etc...

If they don't want to ensure support and updates, why do they change everything? It would be so simple if they'd let the standard drivers/firmwares!

Sadly it doesn't seem like anyone from DELL is reading this or understanding the implications.

But just in case, here's one last attempt - please DELL read the below and understand it:

• We are a group of premium users - by buying the largest 256Gb SSDs, it indicates we are customers buying the most expensive end of your brands
• Not supporting us is going to push us to other manufacturers who will.
• By failing to even answer what is a serious post - YOU ARE DAMAGING YOUR OWN BRAND

If I had Michael Dell's personal email I would send this to him - someone high enough up the management tree would care about this, even if you don't!

Quality JBHyperlite39, quality!

Good idea relaxed2000 - having a go at drafting one now. Will post a link.

- Rob

Guys,

Has anybody tried to reach an product manager at Dell an let him read this forum so they know that they have a lot of unhappy customers. Could someone arrange this; bundle this information and discuss it with Dell.

It's very easy... I don't have any problem by wiping my disk and firmware upgrade it. So at least they could spread the firmware update for experienced people. Offcourse Dell should also create an sollution for unexperienced people.

In case anyone missed the 2 essential phrases in Samsung's response:

Quote (from Samsung): '..DELL is reluctant to change it ...'

So there you have it DELL and Samsung know about it and DELL have told Samsung they are reluctant to change it. Official!

Quote (from Samsung): ' .... We do sincerely apologize for this ...'

An apology from Samsung - way more than we have had from DELL so far

To the DELL admins - please resist the urge to censor my last post - but just in case, it's cross posted here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/254961-14-warning-careful-ordering-dell-machines-ssds

At some stage, someone in DELL is going to get some pain for knowing about this and not sorting it, and someone else in DELL is going to get praise for being the one to run with it and get it sorted.

Trust me - I know how big companies work. A nasty issue like this will get sat on for as long as possible - but when it can't be stopped, the ones suppressing it come off badly and those who took an active stance get the kudos.

Why not be the person who gets the praise for sorting a PR disaster and averting unhappy customers choosing to take their business elsewhere?

In desperation, I thought I'd join others here who have attempted to get Samsung to help DELL adjust their attitude on this.

DELL leaves Samsung users in the cold with no TRIM support

I know the standard Samsung response to this is "contact DELL", but I really believe it is in Samsungs interest to lobby DELL to issue updated firmware with TRIM support as other manufacturers have.

Its making many DELL customers unhappy, and that bad press and unhappiness is likely to also be attached to Samsung.

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19310219.aspx?PageIndex=1

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/254961-14-warning-careful-ordering-dell-machines-ssds

Please convince DELL to act before this escalates into a very bad PR story for DELL and Samsung.

I got the following response today:

Hello Rob Walker ,
Thank you for your inquiry to Samsung Semiconductor.

We do fully understand your point and we thank you for communicating your feeling so openly.
Our strategy needs to be adjusted and we definitely want to take some action.

Unfortunately, so far, the SSD delivered to DELL has a customized FW and DELL is reluctant to change it. We probably started to discuss this, but it won´t change over night.

We do sincerely apologize for this.

If you have any further questions, please send us more question again or visit our Homepage(http://www.samsungsemi.com).

Sincerely,
Semiconductor Business
Samsung Electronics Co,.Ltd.

Whilst there is no stated date or commitment in the reply - there is at least some recognition of the problem, and it sounds like possibly some discussion with DELL.

FWIW - my reply to this was as follows:

Thanks for your response.

I fully understand your explanation and position on this, I have also read similar comments from Samsung elsewhere.

The fact remains though that regardless of the fact we bought these machines from DELL, they have Samsung components in them too. Whilst our main complaint is against DELL, it also reflects poorly on Samsung too that such a major purchaser and reseller of their components is allowed to treat their end customers so badly.

As a company we have purchased DELL machines for more than 15 years - but this issue will make us reconsider that. Whilst that may not affect Samsung in terms of direct purchases from us, it will mean unhappy customers who may purchase machines that contain different components.

I would urge Samsung to lobby DELL as hard as possible to resolve this and limit any further damage done to the DELL brand, and any collateral damage done to Samsung's reputation as a result.

As an aside, I am actually at something of a loss what possible benefit DELL get from customizing your firmware - it just seems to create problems like this, and what benefit does anyone get from it? Certainly not us as users, and certainly not Samsung - maybe DELL should also review their practices and decide whether customizing firmware is really not just an obstacle to their customers.

Regards

-- Rob Walker

Question...

1. if I have the JTAG... how do I manually reflash the drive then ?

2. Can we create a tool to read the jtag from disk ?

3. Is it possible to change the firmware and let it check on another microcode so that it thinks that it is an corsair drive or an samsung drive ?

First of all 25% of all updates fail because of AHCI mode turned on - after a person read the thread further thats discovered.
Why can I officially blame Dell? Cause there is NO official support! No direct HOW-TO...

Rest 75% are going wrong because of the MICROCODE MISSMATCH! It more or less means that if Dell won't release a patch were ... up.

In the other words we have to open the drives for our selves voiding the warranty that we HAVE PAID FOR. Find a JTAG and mannualy reflash the drive.
There is a question: WHY? There is a simple and complex solution. Just Copy files, run ONE of the flashers and bang there it is.

What stops them? We do! Bu buying their stuff.
Until those charts are high ... blah blah blah...

Just heard from polish dell (Yeah I'm in Poland right now) that THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY to exchange two of my drives with the ones that have NEW firmware.
Polish Dell support DOES NOT EXIST!
I do not recommend You to come here and mess with Your Dell hardware. You'll end up with NO hardware.

Looks like I had a post deleted as well.  I guess Dell doesn't like us talking about selling their junk and buying another companies parts.

Ok,

If we had to do it the hard way... we would probably unscrew the cover.
Look at the board front:

and back:


Read what's JTAG in our motherlanguage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Test_Action_Group.

Find out that red marked 8 pinholes which supposenly are the JTAG holes.

"Beg" samsung to "unleash the dragon" and provide full specs with flashers for their chip (I think that i had a chance to see them earlier, when I was interested to buy my first ssd). Just connect the serial and voila!

We could not only get rid off that Dell software, but insert a Corsair/genuine Samsung one.

If something goes wrong WE STILL have a dell WaRrAnTy that WE HAVE !!!EXTRA!!! PAID FOR   :P. i.ex: The drive just stopped working...

Or will lose it ;) if there is such a voiding paragraph ( such like: JTAG flashing 8]  - never saw one)... Or I just didn't get to that point ;P