My ASUS Z690 mobo hates Gen 4 NVMe drives:/

[IkeaGnome]

12 minutes ago, drumn_bass said:

. I have to admit, I did miss it myself when I updated BIOS in October. Now with the latest BIOS, I did that. Updated ME firmware and verified it was on the latest version in BIOS, before performing a BIOS update. So I'm not sure how much difference it can make at this point, but I guess I can try a CMOS reset?

I almost wonder if updating BIOS before ME causes issues with the BIOS. I'd think a CMOS is worth a shot if your testing doesn't make any change or much of a change. 

[drumn_bass]

@IkeaGnome

 

After installing the RST driver, and inserting a third Gen3 M.2 SSD, a second drive (D drive), was completely unresponsive right after the boot. It showed up in Windows and I could see folders on it, but couldn't move anything to or from. The same thing I've experienced before, when if it happens to a system drive I get a BSOD, and with a secondary drive it just goes into this phantom state, where I can still see it, but it's not allowing me to read or write any data.

 

BTW, I moved my SSDs around to different slots, so it's definitely not happening on any specific slots, as I've experienced it on all 4 of them at random times.

 

So, per our plan, I cleared CMOS. It always feels a bit weird, as the system tries to post and shuts off a couple of times, like if it was its very first boot, but it is as expected. After a couple of these cycles, it posted, and I got into BIOS. I only enabled the XMP profile and left everything else on default settings. At first, it booted into windows and appeared to be ok, but I already know not to get too excited, as I had stretches when it worked for a couple of days, and maybe even up to a week, but the issue always returns. So it worked for about 20 minutes, during which I kept moving some test files and folder in and out of all 3 drives. And eventually it did BSOD again. "Critical_Process_Died". Removed the third SSD, and now it transfers the same files fine again. 

 

I noticed during this testing sessions, that every time I copy my 15GB test folder, when there are 3 M.2 drives, about mid-way, the transfer speed drops from 2-3GB/s to under 200MB/s, then it hangs at that number for a few seconds, and either picks up again and goes back to normal speed, or just sits there until the BSOD appears. There are no drops like this when I only have 2 Gen3 drives. Right now I have 2 WD Black SN750 drives and that same test folder transfers at around 2GB/s the whole way. Just weird. For the lack of a better explanation, it almost feels like some kind of buffer feels up too quickly and crashed the system. I wasn't really suspecting RAM, but I also tested RAM thoroughly with XMP profiles on and off, and 3 (yep, 3) different sets. I haven't tried only using one stick at the time, in every slot, but I don't think it could be RAM, as I can see it causing a BSOD, but how would it make an SSD unresponsive? And why would a number of SSDs make any difference? Whenever I transfer a large file, RAM usage does obviously spike by few gigs, so what do you guys think? Worth the time testing for bad RAM slots? (Also, during any of these experiments, my RAM usage is always under 20%)

[IkeaGnome]

27 minutes ago, drumn_bass said:

So, per our plan, I cleared CMOS. It always feels a bit weird, as the system tries to post and shuts off a couple of times, like if it was its very first boot, but it is as expected. After a couple of these cycles, it posted, and I got into BIOS. I only enabled the XMP profile and left everything else on default settings. At first, it booted into windows and appeared to be ok, but I already know not to get too excited, as I had stretches when it worked for a couple of days, and maybe even up to a week, but the issue always returns. So it worked for about 20 minutes, during which I kept moving some test files and folder in and out of all 3 drives. And eventually it did BSOD again. "Critical_Process_Died". Removed the third SSD, and now it transfers the same files fine again. 

I'm really grasping at limbs here now. I know some of the Asus boards have had issues mixing drives of different generations, but IIRC that's on the Dimm.2 slots. Maybe go into BIOS and just force your PCIE into 3.0 mode and see if this solves it. 

 

[drumn_bass]

@IkeaGnome@CommanderAlex

 

"Maybe go into BIOS and just force your PCIE into 3.0 mode and see if this solves it."

 

Yes, I played with that. Tried setting Gen3 drives to Gen3 settings, and Gen4 drives to Gen4, and even Gen4 drives to Gen3, which did cut its speed in half as expected, but didn't help the main issue.

 

I can give you a little update. Nothing concrete, but there are a couple of developments. Like I mentioned, I ordered the exact same Asus board to test, and it will be arriving later this week, however I was driving by my local Best Buy today, and decided to stop by to ask about that Asus warranty thing. Not surprisingly, the guys at the Geek Squad acted like they've never heard such a ridiculous claim. They said they DO NOT work with Asus warranty, and CAN NOT troubleshoot a motherboard, they only fix entire systems. So idk where I can get with Asus on this, I might try calling them, but I will wait for the second board to come in to test with it first.

 

While I was there, I decided to go ahead and pick up another LGA 1700 board to try. Might as well. They only had MSI in stock, a Z690 Pro for $200, Z690 Edge DDR4 for $293, and Z790 Tomahawk DDR4 for $309. I bought a Z790 Tomahawk, since it's an updated Chipset, and the board has a couple of nice features, like a BIOS Flashback and CMOS Reset buttons on the back.

 

First impressions, the board feels cheaper than the Asus TUF, and it's really not. I feel like it should be about $250, but whatever, everything is weird right now. It posted with no issues, XMP profile applied, and windows reinstalled. I went ahead and inserted all 3 of my Gen3 SSDs, 2 Western Digital SN750 1TB, and one older drive that was in a Razer laptop when I bought it, it's a 512GB Liteon brand drive, really nothing great about it. It's ugly and very inconsistent, and I wasn't using it, but for the test purposes, adding it to the 2 WD drives did make the system crash on the Asus board. So far, I wasn't able to get the new MSI based system to crash or freeze. Copying data from any one of WD drives to another WD drive is fast and smooth. Copying to and from Liteon drive can be a bit sketchy, like it will start fast, around 1.8BG/s copying from it, then about half way the transfer rate can drop to 0, and sit there for 5-7 seconds, before picking up speed again. This is a kind of behavior I saw before when running things on the Asus board, but back then when it dropped like that, it always ended up BSODing. Now, even if it drops to 0, it just waits until it can pick up again. And it's only happening on the Liteon drive, which might just be the drive. It's hard to tell what's going on with it, it was sitting in a drawer for a couple of years.

 

Anyway, it's not an ideal test. I'm really regretting returning the 2 Gen4 drives that I had with me last week, it would be beneficial to test with one of those. I feel like it's probably fine, I would be really surprised if I started having the same issues with the MSI board too, but I have a few more days to test it, and I will try to really push it, before another Asus comes in. Overall, I still feel like I like the Asus board better, so I really hope the new one works. It's hard to describe, but when using the Asus board, the system feels just a bit smoother, kind of like there are sometimes these barely noticeable delays before stuff starts happening with MSI. I had the same exact experience with an AMD based system with MSI B550, thought it was the Ryzen chip, but now I suspect it's just the motherboard brand. Plus it does this weird thing with audio when the system starts or wakes up from sleep, it makes my subwoofer... well... woof 3-4 times in quick succession. It's very annoying.

 

I also ordered another Gen4 WD drive. The SN850x is really just as good as the new Samsung 990 Pro, but right now, it's $70 cheaper. If I can have 1 Gen4 WD and 2 Gen3 WD drives working at the same time in a system, I'd consider the issue resolved.

 

I'll let you guys know what happens. Thanks for giving me some encouragement. Honestly, it just feels good to be able to put all this out here, and in a way keeps me motivated to keep going with this thing.

[drumn_bass]

Almost forgot. Random question.

 

With the MSI Z790 board, I see the Intel UHD Graphics 770 in HWMonotor, and I realized it wasn't showing in there when using ASUS Z690 board. What do you think? Was I just missing a driver or something? Generic driver vs Intel? MSI did appear to do a very good job installing all the required drivers quickly, while ASUS Armory Crate is not all that great at that, it seems.

[CommanderAlex]

9 hours ago, drumn_bass said:

Almost forgot. Random question.

 

With the MSI Z790 board, I see the Intel UHD Graphics 770 in HWMonotor, and I realized it wasn't showing in there when using ASUS Z690 board. What do you think? Was I just missing a driver or something? Generic driver vs Intel? MSI did appear to do a very good job installing all the required drivers quickly, while ASUS Armory Crate is not all that great at that, it seems.

It could just be how HWMonitor works as even for sensor readings, can be wrong and I wonder if you try out HWinfo64 is better as that's the community standard to use. 

[drumn_bass]

Something is seriously broken on ASUS forums, as I see many people are trying to create posts, but the post body is missing, and others can't create new posts at all, apparently, and I can't even register there, but here is something from just a couple of days ago... sounds exactly like what I experience, granted, in way fewer words:)

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?131587-z690-Nvme-gen-4-crashes-system-old-gen-3-works

 

It's good and bad, I guess. The good thing, is that since there are others seeing this, it might get recognized by ASUS and fixed with a BIOS update. The bad, IDK if I can wait for that and if I really have to eat the cost of another motherboard:( The MSI board has been running perfectly fine, in this regard, since Monday. But man, $340 or so with tax. I will be betting a Gen4 drive tomorrow, and will of course test with it too, but I have a feeling it will be fine. I will also be getting another ASUS Z690 TUF Gaming DDR4 board tomorrow, hopefully with a slightly older BIOS version, so we'll see how it goes.

[drumn_bass]

@CommanderAlex@IkeaGnome

 

Hi guys,

 

Figured I'd give you another update, the last one for the rest of the year, I promise :D

 

So a new ASUS TUF Gaming Z690 D4 came in yesterday. A couple of interesting things. First, it has the same manufacture date as my old one, December of 2021, so they might even be from the same batch. Of course, it came in with the old BIOS, 0601, which is interesting, because it's a higher version that the release one listed, but not itself listed on ASUS Support site at all, so basically, since at that time, a year ago, these motherboards were brand new, I assume it's the launch BIOS. 

 

Oh BTW, I also got another Gen4 NVMe drive, the WD SN850x, 1TB. I tested it on the MSI board first. No fuss there. It worked perfectly fine with 1 Gen4 and 3 Gen3 drives, as it should. So I decided to move on to the new ASUS board.

 

I replaced the MSI motherboard with ASUS, it posted fine, XMP profile applied and Windows 11 installed and activated. I used the 1 Gen4 WD drive, and my 2 Gen3 WD drives, that's what I want. No Liteon drive this time. Gen4 in slot M.2_1, and Gen3 in slots 3 and 4. Before doing any updates or drivers, I started testing with moving my test folders and large files in and out of all 3 drives. Everything was perfectly smooth once again. No crashes or freezes. Very encouraging, but I'm still a bit suspicious of this board at this point. I went ahead and installed all the drivers and updates needed for the system, and kept testing. So far, so good.

 

There was one concern though. Do I update the BIOS or leave it on the old version? At first, I thought maybe just leave it, unless I experience any instability with RAM or anything like that, then update to something newer, but I'm definitely not comfortable updating to the September 2022 release (2004), as that's the one you can't roll back from, and the one I started having issues with before. One of the updates I was getting was also the Intel ME driver and firmware. This one always refers to serious security enhancements, so I definitely want to have it on something relatively recent. I ran the update assistant to the August 2022 version 16.0.15.1735. And here is the fun part. They don't state this, and I didn't realize it, and I hate this, but apparently, updating the ME firmware this way also updated BIOS the same month's release. Automatically. I know I didn't do it myself for sure, and didn't run the Armory Crate, so it didn't come from there, but when my computer restarted, a BIOS update initiated, and it was updating it to the August 2022 BIOS version 1720. So it kind of made the decision on the BIOS update for me, I guess. I let it go, as this version still lets you roll back if needed, and I had it before. 1720 was stable. I will probably not go any further, though. I'm a bit curious if updating to an even newer BIOS version will create the same issue for me, but I'm not curious enough to actually try. 

 

I've been using the computer all day today, just trying to push it in every way I can think of, and installing games and software, and so far, it's been rock solid. Like I mentioned before, I had some stretches when things seemed to work for the first few days, but then the M.2 drives started acting up again, so It's too early to call it a total success, but since I've learned how to make the system crash with BSOD on demand on the old ASUS board, and I can't replicate it now, I'm very hopeful this is it.

 

As for the old motherboard. I went to Best Buy to return the MSI board today, and took the old ASUS with me. I spoke with a few people there, and I'll keep it short, but basically, I was able to convince them to let me return the board for refund. They didn't do it as a warranty claim, still insisted they don't do it there, but did as a courtesy to a long time customer. My plan was really to take it there, get told to kick rocks, and then use it when it's time to fight with ASUS for a replacement, but they were actually pretty cool about it. So, KUDOS to Best Buy. 

 

Fingers crossed everything keeps working.

 

Happy New Year guys!

[CommanderAlex]

5 hours ago, drumn_bass said:

There was one concern though. Do I update the BIOS or leave it on the old version?

I would just leave it if the rest of the system is stable and you don't have any issues. I wouldn't recommend updating to the latest BIOS whenever possible as you never know what instabilities can occur and in the event of a failed flash, may leave you left with problems you'll have to recover from. Updating the BIOS is only necessary when system stability is crucial. Early Ryzen motherboards, it was more important to do BIOS updates as AM4 was a new socket and generation of processors so all the bugs and kinks have to be ironed out. I've yet to see this be an issue with Intel Core systems (I'm sure probably back early days like Sandy Bridge or something...but I'm too young to know that). 

 

5 hours ago, drumn_bass said:

As for the old motherboard. I went to Best Buy to return the MSI board today, and took the old ASUS with me. I spoke with a few people there, and I'll keep it short, but basically, I was able to convince them to let me return the board for refund. They didn't do it as a warranty claim, still insisted they don't do it there, but did as a courtesy to a long time customer. My plan was really to take it there, get told to kick rocks, and then use it when it's time to fight with ASUS for a replacement, but they were actually pretty cool about it. So, KUDOS to Best Buy. 

Best Buy is pretty good to customers imo as long as you explain to them your concerns without being aggressive about it. I had an ASUS gaming laptop I had to exchange 3 times as they BSOD just playing BF4 back in the day due to drivers-finally got a good one and after 6 months the motherboard took a crap and I complained about the whole ordeal at Geek Squad as I had just the basic package on it and they refunded store credit and I used it on a MBP instead (yes odd choice going from gaming to Apple). 

 

Happy New Years!!

[drumn_bass]

A quick update. A little over a week later, still have not experienced any BSOD or issues with my SSDs. I had one suspicious occurrence, where I left my PC downloading a large game, and locked while I had to step away to run some errands. When I came back, and signed back in, the PC appeared to have rebooted while I was away, but no signs of any critical errors or crashes in the form of memory dumps or anything in the event viewer. Also, no recent Windows updates that might have forced a reboot, unless it did after installing the game from the Xbox store (Forza 7, 100GB, and it was installed and works fine). Something to keep an eye on, but I don't think it's related. I saw other people reporting their PC restarting after being locked, and it might have something to do with power settings. I didn't look into that too much, figured I'll start digging if it happens again.

 

Still looking good here.