New Asus X870E Strix board - M.2 drive disappearing

[Cheairnyndahl]

Hello, just installed my new Asus X870E-E Strix motherboard, loving it so far. When I initially got in to Windows, all of my drives were present (even the new one that wasn't formatted yet was showing in Disk Management) - I updated everything in terms of latest drivers for the motherboard etc, rebooted and enabled EXPO on my RAM, set to 6000MHz with voltages set, didn't touch any other settings...

And now one of my M.2 drives is not showing up in BIOS or in Windows?  I've tried changing the BIOS setting for Bifurcation to GPU+M.2 mode, that doesn't help.  Any suggestions as to what else I can try?  I have a feeling it's related to the whole thing of the GPU slot & the M.2-2 & M.2-3 sharing bandwidth, but the drive that's in one of them is showing up while the other is not now.
I'm going to try disabling EXPO & see if that helps for some reason... wouldn't make any sense if that was it, but perhaps the BIOS version I'm on is messing something up.

[Cheairnyndahl]

That's my view on it as well, & why I'd recommend most folks return for exchange with their retailer or a different board if theirs has this issue. Wish I'd done it with mine while I had the chance lol after hearing that you can get a refurbed board from Asus via RMA, I don't think I'll go that route either. Just gonna hope they somehow fix it with a BIOS update or deal with it. It it were less unpredictable it wouldn't be that bad. 

[Psamtik]

I have all 5 slots filled and no issues now other than the as advertised 8X drop on the GPU (would have preferred it if it let you do 4 at 16X like the X670E-F I replaced can do, with a 5th in the 4x PCIe slot), but it does work, poor description manual and online specification wording aside. As I have said, I manually set my RAM timings, speed, voltage etc., and not that I think it makes any difference but I disable the fast boot option and onboard audio, as I use USB audio, and have had zero issues since.

Honestly, the only difference I can see using any of XMP settings other than auto, is that it allows for Asynchronous clocks, be it on manual or the EXPO/DOCP options. So I am hoping this is is a Bios issue as I can do without having to strip down my system and returning at cost of time to myself that will never be re-imbursed by ASUS, and then having to rebuild again. Quite frankly as of now, if I do that I am putting my X670E-F back in and calling it a day with that remaining NVMe going in a caddy. Mind you I can't see ASUS admitting a mobo fault when they weren't keen on doing so with the early AM5 ones they were burning out and taking the CPUs with them, and even tried to make any issues with using the bios that fixed it, the fault of the user.

My system is

CPU - R7 9800X3D + CORSAIR iCUE LINK TITAN 360 RX LCD

RAM - 2X Corsair Vengeance RGB 24GB CMH48GX5M2B6000C30 (though I have tried the 2x32GB CMH32GX5M2B6400C32 and 2x16GB CMH32GX5M2B6000Z30K with the same results)

Storage - 1x 990 Pro 4TB in M.2_1, 5x Samsung 990 Pro 2TB in M.2_2-5 and 4X PCIe, 4x SATA 2TB Samsung 850 Pro

GPU - MSI RTX 4090 Gaming Trio X

Sound - Creative Sound Blaster X4

PSU - Corsair RM1200x Shift

[Cheairnyndahl]

The on board audio is something I'll have to check if it has any impact at all. To be fair, my only issues currently is m.2-3 disappearing randomly. M.2-2 only disappears if I enable either the force x16 mode or the gpu+m.2 storage mode enabled. 

For me it's happened with no settings changed just a reboot, and it's happened with manually set ram settings as well as expo with custom set timings (as in its both worked & randomly disappeared). 

For now I'm just running with m.2-1, 4 & 5 populated & a 4th drive in the sabrent m.2 card in the x4 4.0 slot the motherboard has. I'm testing out the effwcts of x8 vs x16 4.0 on my 4090. At some point I'll put the other 2 drives back in & try to work on the issue again. It's just so frustrating having it be there then reboot or booting up the next day & it's gone lol 

[Psamtik]

Still does it on 0804 when using EXPO/DOCP but also still works fine when timings are entered manually, so no real change on the disappearing M.2 front.

[Cheairnyndahl]

Also worth noting, I had mine working with all 5 slots showing up etc for weeks with no issues, then my dumbass decided to swap the drive order for heatsink purposes & that clubbed everything up again. 

[Ramez7151]

Yea my issue was fixed with a replacement motherboard. I think asus qc is just trash. I bought a micro center warranty along with the motherboard so in 3 years I’m sure some issue will pop up and I’ll exchange for a non asus motherboard. I think I’m just done with this brand.

my last two motherboards were asus and also had weird issues here and there that just make it frustrating to work with. The responses from the asus moderators seem to be dismissive. Basically we couldn’t replicate the issue so it’s not our problem. Instead of trying to put you in contact with somebody to exchange to a new board. Overall just seems to be a low end company with a high end price. 

[Kraebel]

Update to my issue as it seems like it was the T705 drive. Not sure if it was the drive itself or this board doesn't support it even though it is listed. I got the T700 and has been working without issue although i have a different set of issues.

Anyone having issues with USB C drives as I have a Samsung 4 TB External T9 attached to one of the USB C 40 Gbps ports on back and at random disconnects and reconnects. I also have an External Ultra HD drive connected to front panel USB C and seems when it is plugged in at boot up, windows loads super slowly and stutters on occasion.

[Fwazzy]

I have issues with the USB-C slots also. They are less frequent after the latest firmware updates. Using the same devices with USB-A ports has no issues at all. 
I’m going to be exchanging my board for a new one and see how many of my issues return. 

[Ramez7151]

Make sure you have done the firmware updates listed on the support website for the usb c. 

[Cheairnyndahl]

New BIOS is out, from 12/25 - I'll be checking it out in the next 3 days since I'm off til the 2nd, doing the USB-C firmware update first because it should be a simple one... I'm not too keep on having to reinput all my settings in BIOS right this second, especially my fan settings, which are a pain in the ass because of how Q-Fan works in BIOS lol