Hero Z690 having issues with getting windows errors and nvme drive not working

[Medwynd]

EDIT:
ASUS has recognized this as an official issue:

Hi all,
For WHEA 17 error, our tech team have reported it and co-work with Intel.
If there is any news, I'll keep updated.
Thank you.

Possible solutions for this issue can be accomplished in one of two ways, both involve turning off PCI Express power management.
1. In windows go to Power Options and change the plan setting to High Performance . You may also be able to just go to the advanced settings and change Link State Power Management to "off"
2. In the BIOS set PCI Express Native Power Management to disabled instead of auto


Trying to track down is this is an issue with the motherboard, the nvme drive, or drivers.

Using windows 11 on a Hero Z690 with a WD sn850 nvme drive.

Occasionally the drive will appear, sometimes it will take a reboot, sometimes it will appear then disappear. Getting these types of error an warning events:

After rebooting I see
Source: Microsoft-Windows-WHEA-Logger
Description: A corrected hardware error has occurred.
Component: PCI Express Root Port
Error Source: Advanced Error Reporting (PCI Express)
Primary Device Name:PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7AB4&SUBSYS_86941043&REV_11

Looking in device manager I see that Intel PCI Express Root Port #13 - 7AB4
Device PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7AB4&SUBSYS_86941043&REV_11\3&11583659&0&EC had a problem starting.

Then later
Source: stornvme
Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort3, was issued.

Source: stornvme
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\RaidPort3.

Followed by some warning errors on the source disk such as ntfs unable to flush data etc. presumably because the drive no longer has connection or is in some otherwise bad state.

I'm using the latest drivers from the support page for the chipset and everything else.

Any ideas where to start with this? I'm not sure if I have a bad motherboard, a bad nvme drive or possibly just some bad drivers.

[Wrathier]

ProJewks wrote:
Awesome testing! I have a new z690 formula and popped in some Sabrent gen 4 drives into the 2 and 3 slot.
Will run tests to see if it works.

For my issue, I was able to run games but couldn’t load any xmp profiles (this was with what’s we version bios the board shipped with). The only crashes I had were probably due to heat when I was running warzone. Because we wanted to enable xmp profiles, we updated to 0811 at the time. This was when the NVME issue started happening. It could’ve been a bad bios flash, but we’re starting with a new board and new drives to eliminate any possible issue.Â*

With your testing that’ll be the next step when we look if it loads up. What bios version are you running? And what Xmp profile are you able to run?

Â*Â*

Hi 🙂

Glad you will test it. 😉

I run with XMP 1 and bios 1003. I only have 2 sticks @ 5200 and I have heard many have issues with 4 sticks. So if you have 4 try with 2 only and enable XMP 🙂

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi ProJewks,
Have you formatted different drives(Samsung 970, WD HDD, Sabrent gen 4) and clean install windows on it? tried install drive in the different slots?
If it also occurs with bios all default settings, do you download and update nvidia 3090 drivers from nvidia official site? Which version did yo install?
Did it freeze after update the nvidia 3090 drivers? If you press the reset button to reboot and then gets into a boot loop and then fails to boot into windows?
Thank you.

[ProJewks]

Hello, I will answer each question to the best of my knowledge.
Â*
Have you formatted different drives(Samsung 970, WD HDD, Sabrent gen 4) and clean install windows on it?Â*Yes. The drives are brand new and a fresh install of W11 was installed
tried install drive in the different slots? The only drives used in this case were the 2 NVME drives and they are in slot m2_2 and m2_3. I have tried each slot individually with only one NVME drive as well.Â*
If it also occurs with bios all default settings, do you download and update nvidia 3090 drivers from nvidia official site? Yes, the nvidia drivers are directly from their website.Â*
Which version did yo install? 511.79 and with/without GeForce experienceÂ*
Did it freeze after update the nvidia 3090 drivers? Drivers would install and during installation, screen would blackout (like normal video driver installations, but in this case it would just stay off. After a long period of time, a force reset was made.
If you press the reset button to reboot and then gets into a boot loop and then fails to boot into windows? Yes, it would boot loop a random number of times, then eventually get into the windows troubleshooting screen to try and repair but always fail.Â*

After skimming thru the forums, i found a solution, but it’s a Bandaid and not really a solution. This solution only worked on bios version 0803. Any version before or after would have the same boot loop into windows troubleshoot failure. I set PCIE ports to 3.0 and disabled the power management settings. This finally allowed the pc to boot normally with the nvidia drivers. I was able to run stress tests (for myself to see if temperatures were lower after watercool changes. And they were). I understand that tech still doesn’t utilize PCIE 4.0, but why is this a problem? This isn’t hardware and it is a bios problem because it works only on 0803. The problem with this bandaid solution is that I can’t run XMP profiles without stability either so my 6000/c40 Z5’s are only running at base 3600.

[Wrathier]

Hi all,

Quite some days has passed.

I just want to inform what I can tell I'm running stable, no crashes or weird behavours after changing PSU cables.

Hope you are all sorted by now.

@ProJewks: The issue with the bandaid solution are, that it's not stable. You can still encounter random crashes etc.

[ProJewks]

Wrathier wrote:
Hi all,

Quite some days has passed.

I just want to inform what I can tell I'm running stable, no crashes or weird behavours after changing PSU cables.

Hope you are all sorted by now.

@ProJewks: The issue with the bandaid solution are, that it's not stable. You can still encounter random crashes etc.

what do you suggest doing sir. Also, I found out the bios I was using was the first one (07 something).Â*

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi ProJewks,
Do you enable resizable BAR?
Thank you.

[ProJewks]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:
Hi ProJewks,
Do you enable resizable BAR?
Thank you.

I have it turned on. Another strange issue, when I connect my SATA HDD and SSD, the bios and windows no longer see the m.2 drives.Â*

Update (2/19/22):
I’m running on the latest bios 1003. I’ve disabled power management, APSM, and pcie gate locking. I’ve enable resizable bar. After doing this, I tried to run windows but it hung and restarted. It then tried to boot up again and it didn’t see the GPU. I loaded back into the bios and changed the pcie settings to gen 3 and she booted up. I’m even able to get XMP1 enabled. I’m going to try and plug in my sata drives in the morning to see if it’s able to see all of the drives. *

FYI, this work around defeats the purpose of having “auto.”*

[linara]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:
Hi ProJewks,
Do you enable resizable BAR?
Thank you.

hey starrain@rog the last comment made by asus on the x570 dark hero start up issue thread:
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?125064-Asus-dark-hero-startup-issue/page48

has been over 36 days ago, which i mentioned in that thread 2 days ago and demanding an update from ASUS, which of course never came.
so is the strategy of asus now to ignore the issue completely as support refuses to even give an update in over a month?

for those not aware in this thread, the x570 dark hero start up issue, where the board straight up doesn't start up has been known to asus for 205 days or 6 months and 21 days.
asus did NOT properly respond to the issue and their latest move seems to be to completely ignore the thread about the problem and not even post updates after people demanded them. that is why i am writing this here, because it seems, that asus in the form of starrain@rog is active here, but ignores the other thread completely.

this comment is not made to derail the conversation about the broken z690 hero motherboards, that is going on here, but it is written out of necessity here, to maybe get a damn response in the x570 dark hero thread.
we are all suffering under asus' garbage engineering combined with 0 interest to fix their problem with real customer support.

starrain@rog RESPOND IN THE STARTUP THREAD!

[ProJewks]

I’m getting random crashes now. Sometimes computer will freeze in windows and I have to force restart. Other times I’ll get a BSOD. One event was me transferring data between drives while updating games (a lot of data traffic). another time it was caused by opening GeForce experience. The BSOD message was “Â*If you call a support person, give them this info: Stop code: DRIVER IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL What failed: dxgmms2.sysâ€�

I have yet to launch a game, but Bo have hwinfo, so I will check now what causes any new freezes or BSODs. Â*

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi ProJewks,
If the system is more stable on bios 0803 when set PCIE ports to 3.0 and disabled the power management settings, could you please back to 0803 and then check if there is any issue when set PCIE ports to 4.0 and enabled the power management settings but disable resizable BAR?
Thank you.