Broken SATA controller

[geno888]

Hi everybody

First of all, sorry for any language issues, English is not my primary language, so I hope I can explain my problem clearly enough

I'm not sure what is happening to my computer, but almost certainly I have a broken SATA controller. According to the device manager (windows 7) the ASMedia controller is malfunctioning.

So, the first thing I did was to physically remove the HDDs connected to that controller.

I have an Asrock Z97 Extreme6 mainboard, and I used all SATA ports (there are 10 in that board). Except for a DVD burner and a Samsung SSD (both connected to the Intel SATA ports according to the user manual), all other devices are HDD.

All these disks was accumulated in time (many years... I started with 640 GB drives up to one 4 TB drive a few months ago), i.e when I ran out of space, I just added a new disk and added data to the new disk. This caused a "little" side-effect: all my data are quite scattered among multiple drives, so I often move large amount of data from a disk to another trying to make some order

Is it possible that this continuous data moving in some way overloaded the controller until it broke?

The mainboard is still under warranty, so I'll start a RMA asap, but I'm concerned that if I continue to make this massive data moving among disks I'll kill also the replacement board.

I am not an expert, but also I'm not a complete newbie, and I can't remember reading somewhere about this kind of issues, so I'm wondering if is it possible that it was my fault if that controller is now damaged because of this massive data transfer? Any feedback is welcome

What happen if I remove all disks from computer and I'll use instead the USB3 ports? I'm aware that this will affect negatively the transfer speed, but my concern is if is it possible that I'll kill the USB too?

Maybe I should get a more "robust" board like one of the TUF series from Asus? Is it really worth the price or I should continue to use the asrock (the replacement of course)?

Thanks in advance

 

[Elixer]

No, you can't kill a controller by using it, those usually fail because of extreme heat or some kind of a surge.
As for why ASMEDIA failed, dunno, I would try to reinstall the drivers, and if it still fails, your only real option is to RMA it.

 

[bigboxes]

Yeah, you didn't kill the controller just by using it. Like Elixer said, reinstall the driver for the controller. If that doesn't fix your issue then you'll want to RMA the board. And welcome to data hoarding. The costs do add up. Make sure that you back everything up to external drives and not just have the data in one place or you'll eventually lose it with equipment failure. Good luck.

 

[EXCellR8]

Might be a long shot but... are there any BIOS updates for the board that you could flash?

If you don't feel like taking the entire thing apart you could always pick up a couple of PCI/PCIe SATA controller cards until you come to a more conclusive solution. The really good ones with RAID cost an arm and a leg but there are cheap alternatives that at least work.

 

[geno888]

Hi everyone

Thanks for your help

Indeed I already tried to reinstall drivers, but it didn't solve. One of the annoyances is that the HDD led is always on even when disks are idle but all other drives seems to work correctly.

Just one more question: is it safe to continue using this mainboard or I should stop using it immediately before more serious damages occur? Right now I don't have another PC to replace this one, and I need to use it. It will be quite a problem for me to stay without PC for all the time needed to RMA but in the meantime I need to use it.

EXCellR8,
I checked and a BIOS update is indeed available, but if I understood correctly that update was made to improve Win10 compatibility, so I'm not sure that is worth to update it because I'm still using win 7.
However, thanks for suggestion, I didn't think to a PCIe card. I'll try to find something but I prefer to not use any RAID, just single independent disks. I guess that the best option is to get a card with a 4x connector, to avoid as much as possible bottlenecks. But, still the abover question remain: is it safe to continue use this mainboard or is better to get a RMA asap?

Any suggestion for a decent card? Two or 4 ports max will be surely enough for me

Possibly something that will remain usable in time, I mean I already have a PCI (not PCIe) sata card, but there are no drivers for it (I used with Win XP many years ago). Something that can still be upgraded to win 10 (sooner or later I'll do, just not right now).

Thanks again everyone for your help

 

[EXCellR8]

4x PCIe SATA controller card is a good option, but I would suggest picking one with recent win7 drivers obviously. Marvell SATA controllers usually have very stable Windows drivers. They can be found for under $30 at most online vendors

PCI slots have pretty much been phased out on higher end boards...

The motherboard, unless there are clearly other issues, is perfectly fine to use. Remember, most boards allow you to disable the individual SATA controllers/slots if need be. Disabling the ASMedia one may alleviate the indication that something is buggered within the OS.

 

[EXCellR8]

https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Con...76550145&sr=8-2&keywords=pcie+sata+controller

Non-Raid SATA III

 

[geno888]

Thanks again for your help

I have an update on the situation. Today, after booting the PC, I got a BSOD. Windows restarted automatically, and after the login something was odd: the case HDD led was always on. So I shut down the PC and after a couple of minutes boot again, and now the HDD led is working normally.

At this point I'm starting to think that I can have some faulty RAM too, or maybe all problems could be caused from the beginning by this faulty RAM and the sata controller is instead not damaged.

I hate these situations... so many components and no idea if only one component is damaged or more than one... what a mess

 

[Elixer]

What is Event Viewer showing? Look for "!" Error or warning messages.
Also, sometimes, you need to clear CMOS for 3rd party controllers, I have seen that "fix" it like 1 out of 10 times.

 

[EXCellR8]

I'd suggest disconnecting all of the drives and all but one memory module. HDD indicator LED being in a constant on state usually indicates HDD or controller I/O error. Occasionally, I will experience something similar where the controller gets stuck on the boot sequence or something and the system will not load my OS. Doesn't happen very often, but often results in a hard restart and then it's fine.

For months I thought my older AM3+ board was buggered by a corrupt BIOS but it actually ended up being the graphics card memory.

Lastly, make sure everything is securely attached like power connectors and memory is properly seated. If you still can't figure it out, try the HDD in another computer if possible and see what you can retrieve from it. If there aren't any issues with the hard disk drive, proceed to troubleshoot the board after clearing CMOS and leaving a single memory module.

 

[geno888]

Here we are with an update

I tried to disconnect all drives except for the SSD (it contains only operative system and programs, nothing else), and the HDD led is still always on. Oddly, this behavior is quite random, i.e. sometime the HDD led works correctly, other times it stay always on.

I didn't try yet to remove one memory stick, but it's already in the to-do list

I didn't try to clear the CMOS, I must check user manual to find how to do this, I never did something like that.

At the moment I don't have another computer to test HDDs. I have a sata to usb3 adapter that allow me to use "internal" disks as external, but I'm not sure that I can trust this machine. I'll ask someone to borrow me a laptop to check disks.

I also checked the event viewer, and there is indeed a ton of errors (I tried to insert a picture but I can't find a way to attach the .png file here). What image host can I use to post the image?

I forgot to mention my hardware, sorry for that

mainboard - Asrock z97 extreme6
CPU - Intel 4790K (NOT overclocked)
CPU cooler - noctua H14S
RAM - 2x8 GB corsair
PSU - corsair HX850i

no graphic card installed, no other PCIe devices installed, just the SSD (samsung 850 PRO 256 GB) and HDDs. I also removed the DVD burner because I didn't use at all after installing the operative system about a year ago.

I kept this machine as simple as possible, i.e no overclock, no cards installed, just the bare essential and a ton of HDDs

Except for the occasional video encoding with handbrake, the most "stressing" operation for this machine is watching a movie, so I saved some money avoiding installing a VGA card because the one inside the CPU is sufficient.

I'm considering to buy a different mainboard because it's faster than getting a RMA, and I can RMA the mainboard later (so at least I have a spare machine for emergencies). What about the Asus Sabertooth series? Is really so "robust" as they claim?

 

[Burpo]

You really can't go wrong with Sabertooth. Tuff components throughout.. Stability above all else.

 

[Elixer]

Here we are with an update

I tried to disconnect all drives except for the SSD (it contains only operative system and programs, nothing else), and the HDD led is still always on. Oddly, this behavior is quite random, i.e. sometime the HDD led works correctly, other times it stay always on.

I didn't try yet to remove one memory stick, but it's already in the to-do list

I didn't try to clear the CMOS, I must check user manual to find how to do this, I never did something like that.

At the moment I don't have another computer to test HDDs. I have a sata to usb3 adapter that allow me to use "internal" disks as external, but I'm not sure that I can trust this machine. I'll ask someone to borrow me a laptop to check disks.

I also checked the event viewer, and there is indeed a ton of errors (I tried to insert a picture but I can't find a way to attach the .png file here). What image host can I use to post the image?

I forgot to mention my hardware, sorry for that

mainboard - Asrock z97 extreme6
CPU - Intel 4790K (NOT overclocked)
CPU cooler - noctua H14S
RAM - 2x8 GB corsair
PSU - corsair HX850i

no graphic card installed, no other PCIe devices installed, just the SSD (samsung 850 PRO 256 GB) and HDDs. I also removed the DVD burner because I didn't use at all after installing the operative system about a year ago.

I kept this machine as simple as possible, i.e no overclock, no cards installed, just the bare essential and a ton of HDDs

Except for the occasional video encoding with handbrake, the most "stressing" operation for this machine is watching a movie, so I saved some money avoiding installing a VGA card because the one inside the CPU is sufficient.

I'm considering to buy a different mainboard because it's faster than getting a RMA, and I can RMA the mainboard later (so at least I have a spare machine for emergencies). What about the Asus Sabertooth series? Is really so "robust" as they claim?

You can use http://postimg.org/ to upload images, then C&P the link here in image tags.
The CMOS clear is pretty easy, you just short the correct pins.

 

[geno888]

This mainboard is too erratic... today after three reboot the HDD led is always on again

I'm definitely going to get a new one asap

If is useful, this s a picture of event viewer (just the summary, there are too many to take a screenshot of every error)

https://postimg.org/image/nvbiicomr/

 

[EXCellR8]

What happens if you pop/slide the CMOS battery out, leave it for 5 minutes, and then put it back in? This should let the ROM discharge and clear the BIOS.

I don't own any ASRock boards at the moment, but some boards have a button on the back I/O panel that resets the BIOS settings. Handy if you can't get video or something...

If the board supports UEFI try disabling it and leaving it legacy. Are you running the controller in IDE, SATA or AHCI? Some BIOS also have extra OS and boot options.

 

[geno888]

Hi

I tried to clear the CMOS, but the issue is still here, and still totally random. Most of times, a reboot solves it

The board has UEFI bios, but I'm not sure that it can be disabled, I saw no option to do that.

There is no PCI card installed at the moment, only HDDs (and fans of course, but except for the CPU cooler one all other fans are connected directly to the PSU, not the mainboard).

At this point it seems that the only option is a new mainboard or a RMA.

Just for curiosity: does the sata controller you suggested above supports hot swap? It will be nice to unplug drives when not needed using a HDD cage like this (that has a separate power button for each disk).