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.

[Expire]

Just wanted to share my experience in hope it'll help others.
I also experience the same M.2_2 and M.2_3 disappearing issues that many others have already described for a recently purchased ROG STRIX X870E-E GAMING WIFI motherboard.

Thanks to Psamtik's observation, my issue also only occurs when EXPO profile is selected from the 1-setting OC profile selection, and goes away when resetting to default RAM speeds.

Again following his description, leaving the EXPO profile on OFF and the "Ai Overclock Tuner" under the AI Tweaker advanced tab on Auto while manually setting the RAM OC speed/timings resolved my issue.

For those like myself who are not that familiar with tuning RAM OC manually, I just followed the exact same configuration adjustments summary that the BIOS shows when you "Save Changes & Reset" after applying the EXPO profile from the default Auto, of course leaving the Ai Overclock Tuner at Auto and not EXPO (or any other value).

My setup's list of needed changes under AI Tweaker tab were:

• Memory Frequency
• DRAM Timing Control > Tcl / Trcd / Trp / Tras
• DRAM VDD & VDDQ Voltage
• Advanced Memory Voltages > PMIC Voltages -> Sync All PMICs

I am happy to report that all issues have gone away and CPU/RAM was stable according to a quick y-cruncher test.
My M.2 drives were also prone to disappear not only from restarts but also resuming from sleep.

During this entire process I did update to the beta 0705 BIOS, but based on my many many trial and errors on other potential settings before and after updating the BIOS, I don't think that specific BIOS update makes any difference. Would be nice if anyone else can confirm on latest public or original BIOS. I am at the point of not touching this further if it keeps working (which it has so far, fingers crossed).

Additional info: one observation I made was that SOC voltage set by the Ai Overclock Tuner on the "EXPO Tweaked" setting was lower than the default for 9800X3D at around 1.11V. The menu choice for SOC voltage was still set as "Auto" but the displayed voltage was showing the lower value. Reverting the main Ai tuner setting back to auto seems to have raised the voltage.
I haven't really been paying any attention to this or other related voltage settings adjusted by Ai Tuner that could have potentially caused this issue. HWiNFO is showing a steady 1.250V for VDDCR_SOC Voltage after booting with the new defaults. Motherboard CPU SOC reading 1.234V-1.243V.

[hydrus]

Hi,

Do you ever suffer from stutter on random reboots or waking from sleep? I was just curious as I tried what you recommended and it seemed to work. However I still stutter and the only way it goes away is by rebooting. 

[Apollo2]

This is a regular issue for me also

[Haadis]

Are you telling us now that everyone that has issues with Ram Profile an desapearing m.2 has a defect board?

[Expire]

Quick update, after over a month of stability I've had 1 of the M.2-2, M.2-3 drive disappear again after resuming from sleep.

Flashed the beta 1001 BIOS and problem still persists exactly like before: cannot use EXPO profile, needing to leave AI Tuner at Auto, manually set RAM settings etc. in order to get the drives to show up consistently.

Leaving SOC at auto seems to be ok, the previous lower voltage I saw was for default RAM speeds. Once you set higher RAM overclock it auto adjusts to a higher voltage (1.25V for my specific setup).

At this point I'm fine with having to do a restart every month or so when a drive disappears. Nothing important is on either drive.

[RedBull21]

Hello, i have some issues like that too, i m beginner in BIOS. I first thought my PSU was the problem but i still don't know...

7800X3D
Asus ROG X870 A
64GO RAM GSKILL 6000MHZ
7900XT
750W gold+ 

I have a Xonar SE sound card which isn't detected
also i have a 500Gb M.2 undetected too

i've tried many things, flash bios to 0606, change bios settings, many things that i read on differents posts here and there but nothing helped me
i m sorry for my poor english, trying my best ^^

EDIT : I found my problem, my ssd M.2 is a ssd SATA M.2, the mb doesn't like it cause it desable the pci where my sound card is.

[voltronad]

Oddly enought when I built my system 2 weeks ago with similar set up, one of my M2 drives would dissapear in Windows randomly.  I re-seated it and made sure it was in tight, and so far I haven't seen the problem again.  I change BIOS settings frequently for various things (memory, oc'ing) and it stays there.  Sorry thats not more helpful but I had the same issue and it was corrected by making sure the SSD was in tighter.

[Psamtik]

I updated to 0706, but still using DOCP/EXPO seems like a no go if you want to use slots 2 and 3. Dialing in the timings and voltages manually works though and seems to be the most stable approach and potentially faster if you know what you are doing with the timings (or follow an online guide specific to your ram speed and chip manufacturer).

I am still disappointed that it drops the GPU to X8 with 4 drives, unlike on my X670E-F where its not an issue, but its finally stable for me when I do this.

I still don't get why XMP settings would disable drives, its like nothing really likes those 2 drive slots, the ram doesn't like them at all and gets rid of them and the GPU is not a fan either with its bandwidth cut in half, an the manual and specifications seems embarrassed to admit that either slot filled will gimp the GPU as it only says if 2 and 3 are filled that it will do it.

[voltronad]

You are correct, I never checked that but I have 3xM2 drives and my GPU interface is on x8 as well.  I am on 0606 because 0706 would not allow me to use any EXPO settings or set my memory manually (w/timings that work on 0606).  Maybe this will get resolved in future version?  Wonder how much of an FPS hit this caueses?

[Cheairnyndahl]

It's 1-5% depending on the game & the resolution you're playing at. And that's with a 4090. The weaker the Gpu, the less impact it has, because lower end GPUs can't even full utilize a 4.0 x8 connection.