Bizarre HDD problem with SATA 3/6Gbps in Bios - Crosshair IV Formula

[richgit]

Hello all,

I have a really weird problem with my Crosshair IV Formula. It first started when I bought an identical Samsung 1tb spinpoint F3 HDD (sata II 3gbps) to add to the identical one I had. I connected it to the 2nd SATA port and upon booting it was clicking REALLY loudly about 5 times during post only. When windows loaded the drive wasn't showing. Going through the bios I noticed the option to change to SATA 3.0gbps from auto and it cured the problem. No clicking, recognised fine in windows so I left it at that.

I've recently bought a Samsung 830 SSD which is SATA III 6gbps. Obviously I want to run it at full speed so I changed the bios back to auto (with both HDDs disconnected), changed the bios to ACHI from IDE (I only realised that I should use that mode today!) and installed win 7 64. Everything fine, then connected my 2xHDDs and left it on auto and ACHI and the clicking on boot up/ during post came back with my HDDs! I tried so many options, from auto to 6.0gbps, IDE to ACHI in that bios option and the ONLY thing that worked was by selecting SATA 3.0gbps like before. The issue doesn't see to be with ACHI or IDE as the HDDs worked fine as secondary drives under ACHI, the issue is the bios under auto or 6.0 mode. I don't want to try it many more times as it really sounds bad for the HDDs, they're clicking really loudly as if the internal mechanism is hitting against the sides! I haven't tried any other option within the bios as I am not savvy to what it could be and don't want to damage my drives.

My spec is:
Asus crosshair formula IV
Amd phenom x4 945 3.0ghz
G.skill 8gb ddr3 1600mhz
Samsung 830 SSD
2 x 1tb Samsung spinpoint f3 HD103SJ
Nvidia GeForce 260gtx
Ocz 600w psu

[jism]

The exact same noise is caused when on S-ata 6G/b upon boot. I dont think it's healthy to keep running disks like this forever.

The only sollution i see is either some BIOS or firmware update of the S-ata controller, or simple buy a PCI-e Raid controller and attach all future disks to that unit. But that is a sollution that's supposed to be fixed by Asus in first place.

[yahooman]

Whats up with Crosshair 3.....same problem here It seems only sata 5 is working
1234 sata does not work....has there been a simple solution found?

[Korth]

Loud mechanical clicking on an HDD is bad news. It means there's serious problems with the HDD or with the HDD controller logic, it will lead to drive failure when the servos burn out.

IDE (PATA, ATA133) caps bandwidth at 133MBps or less. AHCI SATA logic caps at 150MBps or 300MBps or 600MBps.
There is no benefit from setting IDE vs AHCI aside from gaining compatibility with ancient HDDs.

Samsung SpinPoint F3 HDD advertises 300MBps/250MBps sequential Read/Write speeds. Real benchmark performance appears to be closer to 210MBps/140MBps. Either way, it requires SATA to sustain full speeds because PATA/IDE will cap performance.

The C4F motherboard has an AMD SB850 controller (6 native AHCI1.2 SATA3.0 capable of up to 600MBps, with limited RAID support) and a JMicron JMB363 controller (1 addon PATA/SATA2 and 1 addon eSATA2, both capable of up to 300MBps). IDE/PATA is not natively supported by the AMD chipset. I would personally only use the JMB controller for ATAPI and eSATA drives, it looks like an inelegant hack which eats HT bandwidth better used by PCIe and USB devices.

Hardware -
Is your 600W PSU capable of powering three drives at startup (when all system hardwares draw peak surge power)?
How does the system run with *all* drives set on full AUTO?
Have you tried testing each HDD separately, not both together?
Have you tried testing the HDDs in vertical and horizontal orientations?

Firmware/Software -
Have you installed any OS updates which address SB850 errata? Win7 (and Vista/8.x/10) requires Windows Updates which provide specific SB850 workarounds.
Have you installed the Samsung F3/F3EG firmware patch which corrects SB850/P67/H67 internal timing issues?
Have you installed C4F motherboard BIOS 2101 which "enhances compatibility with some SATA devices"? (And the AMD Chipset Driver and the JMB36X Controller Driver?)

[jism]

I am telling you, BOTH Crosshair IV and Crosshair Z, (i blew the Crosshair IV), have the exact same problem as TS and I described. There is nothing faulty about the harddrives. They are in good condition and run for days 24/7 perfectly doing all sorts of things.

The problem occurs when you hook up 2 or more identical, or at least a combination of SSD + HDD in pair. The HDD starts 'clicking' upon boot. This may sound to you as a hardware faillure, but it's not! The faillure is that from my experience, the drive or controller has problems properly detecting that disk.

My previous posted problem on the Crosshair IV happens also on the Crosshair Z. Brand new s-ata cables, 750W Antec PSU which drove a 2x 270x as a crossfire setup easily, and a 5GHz OC'ed 8320 CPU.

There is nothing underpowered on my system. Power feed to hardrives is balanced with 2 cables on 2 different (modulair) slots on the PSU. If you doubt that Antec is a bad brand, man i'm buying antec for years and they always performed excellent, even in crazy oc states.

I've just checked the https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/CROSSHAIR_V_FORMULAZ/HelpDesk_Download/ page with any (and hopefully) updates, but nothing is on there. So right now i have a computer with 1 ssd, 1 1TB drive, and 4 useless HDD's which i cant properly use together. I either toss away this Asus product or buy a raid controller and use them as JBOD, which is a terrible sollution anyway if you ask me.

Again; i have the exact same problem as TS. I've experienced this on 2 premium AM3+ motherboards, both Crosshair IV & Z. You'd expect the Z to be the top notch of motherboards, they are yes in various ways, but when it comes to support of various HDD's together, you run into issues.

These are the things why i am doubting any future buy of Asus products. A HDD / SSD is a mandatory in any computer. I'm not confident to run up to 1TB of data on a disk that might go bad some day, with the risk of losing up to 1TB of data.

As a matter of fact, the link in your above post, > http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/223631en suits my disks. I am going to try and give it a firmware update. I have 3x HD502HL models. When 1 is running, no problem, when 2 or more are running, clicking occurs. Sometimes pulling the power cord, and put it back in with an instant startup solves sometimes that problem.

But it's not the way i'm supposed to startup a computer at all.