Thread: OCZ SSD drive kills my GPS Signal !!!

I have a feeling there is an issue with the grounding on the OCZ SSD drives.

I could not nail down my filthy FM radio interference, tried moving cables everywhere, nothing seemed to improve the interference problems.

I was installing a ground loop isolator on the line in, and my wrist pressed against the underside of the SSD, and my interference dropped to almost nothing. Pulled my hand back, it came back.

I found that the chassis of the SSD isn't properly grounded, and because I had it mounted to an MDF board, it was causing havoc.

Ended up running a ground wire from the base of the SSD case to common ground, and that solved it.

Might be worth trying for yours, see if that fixes it, but it sounds like a similar issue, and if so, it would point to OCZ brand SSD's at the least having grounding issues.

I'm actually planning on rebuilding my case for my car computer, and relocating the SSD to either a computer indoors (And pick up a new sandforce based SSD for the car), or alternatively, put it into a shielded case, with full grounding, and as far away as I can mount it!

I noticed my old OCZ SSD made a high frequency whine. Either try grounding the main case of your SSD or possibly even taking a metal sheet or aluminum foil and making your own grounded shield. You may have to ground the GPS receiver's USB to the grounded SSD as well.

Of course there is also the possibility that the high frequency whine is making its way through the power and data wires coming from the SSD and onto the traces of the motherboard, then it might be nearly impossible to fix.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I will try grounding the case tonight and report back tomorrow.
Just to understand it correctly, grounding the OCZ means wiring the case to a ground point in the car, right?

Correct, for me, it was just crimping some ring terminals onto a wire, and using the screw mounts on the bottom of the OCZ drive to screw a ring terminal in place, then the other end onto the chassis of the car.

grounded the OCZ SSD to the car chassis. still no gps signal. wrapped the ssd in aluminum foil. still no gps signal. I think I'm dealing with a radiactive disk here ! will call greenpeace :-)

If its only new, return it as an RMA job.

It doesn't work in the system it is installed in....see if they will take it back and get a new one.

it's new but it will be hard to explain to the guys why i'm returning it!! I initially bought a gskill one which didn't work at all with XP. besides will another ssd not have the same effect? i will try to return/exchange it for an intel drive and report back

You can just tell them that you do audio processing on your computer, and the SSD was creating terrible interference on your analogue inputs, which no other component did.

Should be enough to show its faulty, so hopefully they should take it back

I had interference issues from my PC with my GPS unit. I never tracked it down, had to move the GPS unit to a different location.

Also, the screen cause interference as well. Same thing, had to move the GPS to get it to work.