Computer Memory

If you have a laptop or desktop PC with a Solid State Drive (SSD) installed and it becomes really laggy and keeps rebooting, one of the things you must consider is that your SSD could indeed be faulty. Whilst SSDs are extremely robust and much less prone to issues than their HDD counterparts, they do occasionally go wrong. So, you need to know how to work out if this has happened. We offer you a few morsels of wisdom below.

Check the Ribbon Cable
A common factor with those SSDs that do go faulty is that it is often the connecting computer ribbon cable that is the defective element. As they get older, the performance of this type of cable will decrease and can reach the point where its optimum level of operation is compromised. This is largely due to the high bandwidth nature of SSDs when compared to older HDDs that use a much lower bandwidth and as a result place a much lower demand on the ribbon cable.

Eliminating The Possibility of a Faulty SSD
Your first step to locating the source of your issue is to eliminate the possibility of your SSD actually being faulty, which you can do by testing it in a second computer (if you have one). If it exhibits the same issue on a different machine, your SSD might just be on the fritz. 

A big indicator of a malfunctioning SSD unit would be if you were to experience errors when you try and format it. Another would be if there is no detection of the SSD in any computer it is installed in, which would mean that there is a high probability that a replacement SSD will be required.

If you’ve only recently purchased your SSD, we would recommend talking to the establishment that you bought it from to organise a replacement under warranty.

Possible Operating System (OS) Problem
When an OS becomes corrupt, it can manifest itself in a multitude of different ways, causing a multitude of different issues. From slow performance to crashing or experiencing loading errors, if your SSD’s possible issues aren’t the only problem your computer has, then it does start to point towards a malfunctioning OS. The only way to truly eliminate this as a possible source of the problem is to reinstall your OS, which must only be done after you’ve backed up all of your important data.

If this is the true cause of the problem, then reinstalling your OS will solve it. We hope that this helped solve your SSD issues.

Founded in the same year as men first landed on the moon (1969), Mostek was a manufacturer of Integrated Circuit (IC) hardware that was created by a group of former ‘Texas Instruments’ staff that included Louay Sharif, L.J.Sevin, and Richard Petritz. To begin with, their manufacturing was carried out at their base in Massachusetts, but by 1976, the bulk of their operation had moved down to Carrollton, also in Texas.

Although many computer users today may never have heard of Mostek, they were THE name in the DRAM scene at the end of the 70s, holding an impressive 85% of the global market. This was until Japan entered the market in the early 80s, flooding the market with equally good RAM hardware for a lower price than Mostek could compete with.

Major Purchase
Not long after its absolute zenith around 1979, Mostek was bought out by US tech giant, United Technologies Corporation (UTC), for the princely sum of $350M. However, this proved to be folly, as just 6 years later, following a sharp decline in the company’s share of the market, Mostek was offloaded to Thomson SA from France for a much reduced $71m.

In contrast to UTC’s ill-fated purchase of Mostek, Thomson SA’s turned out to be inspired, as the intellectual rights to the x86 processor family and other major DRAM patents provided them with a windfall of royalty payments over the course of the 90s.

Trailblazers
During their heyday, Mostek were responsible for the creation of much of the fundamental technology that DRAM still relies on today. Concepts like address multiplexing came from the collective minds of this company and it changed the face of the technology forever, providing a platform for the high speed, high capacity memory hardware of the present day. It all started with Mostek.

Criticism
The approach now seen as revolutionary with hindsight was met with derision from Mostek’s competitors at the time, as they saw it as needlessly complicated. However, the team at Mostek understood the future potential of DRAM module designs that could multiply their capacity by a factor of four for every new pin included. Address multiplexing was the way forward and Mostek knew it, allowing them to effectively corner the market in the 1970s.

 

The sad fact is that Mostek could not compete with the aggressive entry of Japanese companies into the world market for semiconductors and the unmatchable pricing that they were able to offer. Factor in a subsequent price war between the Japanese and emerging Korean companies that ensued and there was simply no longer any room for this once globally influential enterprise.