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Z790-e gaming wifi spontaneous reboots with a wd sn850x

Xmptroubles
Level 9
Got a wd sn850x 4tb m.2 ssd. It's causing my z790-e gaming wifi to spontaneously reboot even when idle.

It was plugged into m.2 slot 5. I haven't tried other slots yet because I don't like my pc randomly rebooting out of nowhere.

No problems with a Samsung 980 pro 2tb.

I currently have it plugged into an older pc and it hasn't spontaneously rebooted yet after a couple hours. I'll keep running that as a test.

Looking like another return if I can't get it to work with this mobo. Any ideas or anyone get this model ssd working on their z790 board?
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14 REPLIES 14

Murph_9000
Level 14
If you only have a single NVMe drive, it should always be in slot M.2_2 (on that particular board; most have the x4 CPU lanes on M.2_1 or M.2_2, but you always need to check the spec sheets or manual to confirm that). That slot is directly connected to the dedicated x4 on the CPU, whereas the others go through the chipset. If you have multiple drives, the system/primary drive should be in M.2_2. M.2_2 offers significantly more performance in some usage scenarios. M.2_1 steals lanes from the GPU slot, so should usually be avoided.

The above is really about performance, not stability. It should still work in other slots, so is weird that it causes crashes. WD are one of the ancient storage companies, with a pretty good reputation, so it's not the type of problem I'd expect (particularly on one of their flagship products). You could take a look at it using Western Digital Dashboard to see if it's reporting any errors, and to check it's got the latest firmware.

Murph_9000 wrote:
If you only have a single NVMe drive, it should always be in slot M.2_2 (on that particular board; most have the x4 CPU lanes on M.2_1 or M.2_2, but you always need to check the spec sheets or manual to confirm that). That slot is directly connected to the dedicated x4 on the CPU, whereas the others go through the chipset. If you have multiple drives, the system/primary drive should be in M.2_2. M.2_2 offers significantly more performance in some usage scenarios. M.2_1 steals lanes from the GPU slot, so should usually be avoided.


I read the specs of the Z790-e as i am thinking of buying it, and it says only M.2.1 is taken from the cpu, not M.2.2, also there working on firmware for the wd sn850x, as there big problem with them drives with rebooting etc.

Xmptroubles
Level 9
Thanks for your reply. I already have the Samsung 980 pro in m2_2 as the main drive. I put the sn850x in m2_5 right next to it for additional games storage.

M2_3 and 4 are covered by the 4 slot rtx 4090.

I already know to avoid m1_1. I suppose I could try it since it goes direct to cpu, but it would hit gpu performance.

My older pc just idled overnight with the sn850x installed with no problems. It's still on right now. My new pc spontaneously reboots after an hour or so.

I installed the wd software and it saw no problems. It also benches really well. But random reboots are a deal breaker.

I'm going to chalk it up to the Motherboards fault. Asus really needs some bios stability updates.

Edit: updated the sn850x firmware and plugged it into m2_1. Still had a spontaneous reboot after a few hours. Disappointed in this mobo right now.

I have the same setup except my drive is 2tb. I'm using slot 1 since it has the biggest heat-sink and performance seems good enough with half lanes @2k.(4k upgrade path eventually...)

I am getting some random reboots though.
The cpu is AI overclocked.
Everything benches just fine. The m2 drive actually a broke into few 'top 10s' in 3dmark depending on filters(like Canada), so I assume it's running 'ok'? http://www.3dmark.com/strg/54634
Stress test came out fine.
Memtest in bios came out fine. (6200wXMP)
Apps running: L-connect 3, Razer Central, Steelseries GG...and that's it.

I was kind of leaning toward L-connect being the cause based on some things i see in crash logs, but it's a bit over my pay grade. 😛

Also, completely unrelated, but these 'realtek' drivers/apps...whatever, are even worse than on my z490-e(I am using latest one too, no change at all). Every sound is preceded by a small *pop*, though it's fine after it's playing, and just doing something simple , like plugging in headphones, can and WILL crash the app, forcing a reboot to fix it. I was actually able to break this feature entirely on the z490-e. It would no longer change to headphone mode by itself, and even a complete wipe and reinstall of drivers had no effect. I didn't try a format of windows yet though....but geez. ASUS really needs to stop and solidify their drivers/software or get left in the dust like Creative Labs was/is. What's the ASUS tax for again? Looks? RGB that I can't even change since I refuse to install ArmoryCrate? /endrant

Xmptroubles
Level 9
How long before a random reboot? Try testing the wd m2 in your old pc, while checking if the randoms stop on the new pc.

Agree Realtek sucks.

I'd avoid any rgb stuff.

Xmptroubles wrote:
How long before a random reboot? Try testing the wd m2 in your old pc, while checking if the randoms stop on the new pc.

Agree Realtek sucks.

I'd avoid any rgb stuff.


Seems like it happens about once a day or once every 2 days or so. Last one happened overnight while I was sleeping, last night. Woke up and it on the logon screen.

Yeah swapping drives around is a good idea. I may do that. I'm waiting on some more parts atm, there's a few things I'm waiting to do to this rig when they arrive. One of them is a 2nd sn850x 2tb.....lol. Hopefully some firmware fixes this, because these drives are amazing otherwise.

Xmptroubles
Level 9
I RMAed the mobo with a new one and the problem seems to be resolved. I'm still having xmp issues with the 7600mhz ram though.

Cool. Yeah, RMA might be in my near future as well. I haven't had any random reboots since I posted, but I did bluescreen twice today.

Looked at my reliability monitor, and it's a mess. 😞

Some app crashes, but then a bunch of windows hardware errors like:
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Code: 1a8
Parameter 1: 1
Parameter 2: 0
Parameter 3: 0
Parameter 4: 0
OS version: 10_0_22621
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1
OS Version: 10.0.22621.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 4105

About to DDU my "old" NV drivers and reinstall...I did go through 3 of them so far I think. Also just reset the bios to see if it's xmp or my oc.

Anyway, good to know that "good" boards exist. Thanks for posting back.

I got 2TB sn850X and using it with Z690 Strix-A.

I haven't yet noticed idle reboot problems, but on every reboot this new driver generates system log error 11: "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\RaidPort2."
I managed to trace that this device is indeed sn850x.

Are other sn850x users getting such an error?