GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 BIOS and SATA 3 Issues. Need some advice please.

[Section8]

I have had this motherboard for about 2 months now and recently it has started giving me some problems. When I first setup this board up I installed 2 X Kingston HyperX SH100S3B/120G SATA 3 in RAID 0 for my OS and main applications.  When I tested the array after getting the system all up to date with drivers and such it was performing fantastic.  I was getting about 1GB/s READ's and 980 MB/s Writes.  After 6 weeks the system started reporting that my array was failing when I turned the system on.  It still continued to boot into windows but once in windows the Intel Storage Manager software also would pop up and notify me that one of the disks in my array was failing and I should back up my data.  The weird thing was though it reports a different disk randomly.  I ran the same CrystalMark benchmark to test the performance of the array and the performance was significantly worse.  The array was now only doing 270 MB/s READ's and 170MB/s Writes?  I installed Windows on my WD 1TB drive and separated the Kingston drives so I could test them individually.  The drives are now testing about the same as single drives as they were when they were in the RAID 0 config 270 MB/s and 170 MB/s.  I ran HDDERASE on them to put them back to their original state before I did the testing, the drives also have the latest Firmware.  I have the newest IRST drivers installed as well.  I also have updated the boards BIOS to F9. It seems that the SATA controller for this board is dieing?  Also another odd thing that has happened to this board is that I am unable to enter the BIOS without connecting an old PS2 Keyboard.  I have tried about 6 different USB keyboards and none of them work.  The only way to get into the BIOS is the PS2 keyboard.  This started happening about the same time the HDD's started performing so terribly and was the reason I updated from the F8 BIOS to F9. I was hoping the new BIOS would resolve the issue but it didn't.  So is there something I am missing that I should try?  I have seen other posts where the SATA 3 performance is being called into question on this board.  My issue though is slightly different as it did work great at one time but now it is horrible!!  This inability to enter the BIOS without a PS2 keyboard is driving me crazy as well.  I am wondering if an RMA is in order.

P.S. After doing some research I have found that the F7 BIOS seemed to work best in regards to SATA 3 performance and that F8 SATA 3 performance was significantly worse.  I believe that when I did my original testing and when I was getting 1GB/s Reads and 980MB/s Writes I was on F7.  Maybe I will try and revert from F9 back to F7 tonight and retest the drives.  I will let you know my findings.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

Your performance will of course degrade as time passes because you are running a RAID array and so TRIM fails to work. Have you set up Garbage Collection to try and counter that ?  Are you also running a swapfile/pagefile on your boot drive ?

There has been some discussion about the long term performance of these drives as well as their reliability. Some seem to fare better than others. I only run my SSDs as single drives so don't get the same problems as you seem to be experiencing. I know absic has a pair of SSDs that I believe he runs in RAID cobfiguration. Maybe he can help.

[Section8]

Hi and welcome.

Your performance will of course degrade as time passes because you are running a RAID array and so TRIM fails to work. Have you set up Garbage Collection to try and counter that ?  Are you also running a swapfile/pagefile on your boot drive ?

There has been some discussion about the long term performance of these drives as well as their reliability. Some seem to fare better than others. I only run my SSDs as single drives so don't get the same problems as you seem to be experiencing. I know absic has a pair of SSDs that I believe he runs in RAID cobfiguration. Maybe he can help.

I have been using SSD's for the past 3 years and never had a performance decrease as dramatic as this.  Using HDDERASE on the SSD has always returned any drive I was having issues with back to a like new state.  I was not using a page file on the array.  With the new IRST drivers I was told that the drivers now supported TRIM while in RAID mode ?  Even if it doesn't I broke the array up and used HDDERASE and then ran the tests on the drives again and the results were horrible.  270MB/s Read and 170MB/s write speeds when the drives should be 550 MB/s READ and 500 MB/s Write. Something is definitely wrong. I have seen several posts where people have brought this issue up when they moved from F7 BIOS to F8.  I will try to revert back to F7 tonight and recheck the drives.  Hopefully that resolves my issues.  Maybe it will fix the issue I am having with not being able to get into the BIOS unless I have a PS2 keyboard attached to the system as well.  I have been building computers for about 18 years now so I understand that with new technology many times it also comes with some growing pains.  Thanks for the information about the other user that is running RAID.  I will try and send him a PM and see if he has noticed any performance degradation between the F7 and later BIOS's. Thanks again.

[Section8]

I flashed my board back to the F7 BIOS but the write performance is still terrible.  I ran HDDERASE on the drives again and then tested the drives independently.  The READ speeds seem good as their READING at around 520 MB/s but the writes are still horrible and are hovering around 165 MB/s?  I am pretty sure it is something with the board now and not the SSD's.  I mean a simple BIOS flash and the READ speeds almost double?  Going back to the F7 bios did not resolve the issue that prevents me from getting into my BIOS either.  I am still stuck having to plug in an old PS2 keyboard every time I need to enter the BIOS!!!  I think it is time for an RMA as this is probably just the start of more failures to come with this board.  I also noticed that the USB 3 performance is horrible as well.  I have a WD My Passport USB 3.0 drive and at work I get about 110 MB/s throughput when transferring large files but at home I am only getting about 36 MB/s?  I have the latest USB 3.0 drivers so just another nail in the coffin I guess for this thing....

[Dark Mantis]

Just to state the obvious but have you got USB3.0 enabled in your BIOS ?

I tend to think that it is not a hardware fault with the motherboard or you wouldn't get the increased performance by updating the BIOS to another version.

As for the BIOS only being available with a PS2 keyboard have you got Legacy USB settings enabled in the BIOS ? Otherwise they wont work until Windows loads the drivers.

[Section8]

Just to state the obvious but have you got USB3.0 enabled in your BIOS ?

I tend to think that it is not a hardware fault with the motherboard or you wouldn't get the increased performance by updating the BIOS to another version.

As for the BIOS only being available with a PS2 keyboard have you got Legacy USB settings enabled in the BIOS ? Otherwise they wont work until Windows loads the drivers.

Yes I have the Legacy Support enabled in the BIOS as well as USB 3 support enabled..  The board is also doing other odd things now.  I have 3 X 480 GTX's and the one in the middle PCIE slot is randomly disappearing. I have moved the cards around to verify it isn't the card and still the middle PCIE slot does not work randomly.  I also have a PCI X-FI card and it is doing the same thing.  It randomly will disappear. Usually after several restarts the missing items comes back.  I have tried removing the board from the case and running it that way to make sure I wasn't running into a grounding issue.  It is still happening though.  I think this board is just giving up the ghost.  Not really sure what to do next but start an RMA?  I understand the asking the obvious questions and I am not offended :-)  I have been building systems now for 18 years and have helped many people with similar issues and 9 out of 10 times it is that obvious answer but not this time :-)

[Section8]

******* UPDATE *********************

This may help anyone that has a 800D case.  My drives were running perfectly until recently.  I moved my entire system into a Corsair 800D case.  I just finally tracked down the SSD issue.  Before as I stated I was getting  over 1 GB/s READS and 980 MB/s WRITES when my RAID 0 Array was new with these HyperX SSD drives.  The only thing I had done to my system in the past few weeks was move it into a new case.  I didn't test the drives immediately after moving the system into the case because really why should I , it's just a case right???  Wrong!!!  The 800D that I purchased just a few weeks ago from Tiger Direct has the old SATA 2 interface installed for the HDD Rack!!!  No way of telling this by looking at it but now I know after all the hassle I have been through trying to determine what was going on with my drives.  I went to the Corsair site to order some additional accessories for my new case and saw in their list of items a SATA 3 6Gb/s Upgrade Kit for the HDD rack.  I sent and email to Corsair and asked them when they started shipping this SATA 3 item installed in the case.  They said since June of 2011 but some retailers may still have old stock.  I just bought my case and it definitely is not the SATA 3 interface.  I took the drives out of the Quick Disconnect HDD cage and installed them normally and bingo the drives are READING at 525 MB's and WRITINGat 490 MB/s!!!  Well at least I have one issue figured out.  

Now if I could figure out why:
1. The middle PCIE slot randomly doesn't work
2.  Why my X-FI randomly disappears
3. Why I can't get into my BIOS unless I have a PS2 Keyboard attached
4.  Why my USB 3 only works at USB 2 speeds?  Maybe the USB 3 thing is another case where it doesn't have the correct USB 3 hardware installed the case?

To anyone with an 800D case and SATA 3 drives you may want to double check you have the correct SATA 3 board connected to the HDD cage. Here is the link.


Obsidian Series® 800D SATA 6Gb/s Upgrade Kitl

[Gloup_Gloup]

Hi Section8,  

I read that you have found the root cause of the write speed of hard drives and SSDs.
Like what, we must checking everything sometimes.

About the USB ports, I invite you to read the following post:
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,7428.msg58773.html#msg58773

You have the same situation with your motherboard:

- Up to 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 on the back panel, including 2 eSATA/USB Combo, 4 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)
2 x Renesas D720200 chips and 2 x VLI VL810 hubs:
- Up to 10 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (6 on the back panel, 4 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)
* The USB 2.0 signals of the 6 USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel are from the Chipset.

Did you get a USB to PS/2 adapter with your USB keyboard ? Or you have a real PS/2  keyboard?

For a long time, with old motherboard (before Z68) there was this problem of recognition of usb keyboard.
We could go to the BIOS with a PS/2 keyboard.
Sometimes I plugged the two keyboards. One on USB port and one on ps2 port.

USB2 devices (like keyboard or mouse, for exemple) its strongly recommended to connect them to USB2 ports and not the USB3 ports (actived or not enable in BIOS).

Have you installed Touch BIOS? This is just to know. I do not say to install it. For the moment anyway.

Have you tried without the caching mode for SSD?
The caching mode, sometimes creates high latency, I think, but I am not sure in your situation.

Verify your latency with DPC Latency Checker Tool:
http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml

Maybe make a test with a caching mode and a test without caching mode?

Gloup_Gloup

[Section8]

Hi Section8,  

I read that you have found the root cause of the write speed of hard drives and SSDs.
Like what, we must checking everything sometimes.

About the USB ports, I invite you to read the following post:
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,7428.msg58773.html#msg58773

You have the same situation with your motherboard:

- Up to 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 on the back panel, including 2 eSATA/USB Combo, 4 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)
2 x Renesas D720200 chips and 2 x VLI VL810 hubs:
- Up to 10 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (6 on the back panel, 4 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)
* The USB 2.0 signals of the 6 USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel are from the Chipset.

Did you get a USB to PS/2 adapter with your USB keyboard ? Or you have a real PS/2  keyboard?

For a long time, with old motherboard (before Z68) there was this problem of recognition of usb keyboard.
We could go to the BIOS with a PS/2 keyboard.
Sometimes I plugged the two keyboards. One on USB port and one on ps2 port.

USB2 devices (like keyboard or mouse, for exemple) its strongly recommended to connect them to USB2 ports and not the USB3 ports (actived or not enable in BIOS).

Have you installed Touch BIOS? This is just to know. I do not say to install it. For the moment anyway.

Have you tried without the caching mode for SSD?
The caching mode, sometimes creates high latency, I think, but I am not sure in your situation.

Verify your latency with DPC Latency Checker Tool:
http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml

Maybe make a test with a caching mode and a test without caching mode?

Gloup_Gloup

I am not using the SSD's for caching. I have all peripheral equipment attached to the USB 2 ports. I have a USB to PS2 adapter but using it still does not allow me to enter the BIOS.  I have to use a real PS2 keyboard in order to make it into the BIOS.  I have tried the adapter on 4 USB keyboards and none of them work.  If I plug the PS2 Keyboard in I can get into the BIOS without issue.  My front panel on my Corsair 800D case has 2 X USB 3 connectors.  It says USB 3 right on it so I am not sure why my USB 3 speed is not working correctly.  I am wondering if maybe I have another USB 2 device plugged in somewhere that shares with the front USB 3 ports?  Maybe this is what is capping it at USB 2 speeds?  I will investigate this theory tonight.

[Dark Mantis]

One thing that you might have failed to spot is that your PSU is a good make and very powerful but it has multiple 12v rails. Have you made sure that you have used a seperate one for each of the GPUs ? If you load them all onto one rail it will fail because it will be overloaded! With your PSU being of a modular design it is easy to fall into the trap of usimng as few cables as possible.

[Section8]

One thing that you might have failed to spot is that your PSU is a good make and very powerful but it has multiple 12v rails. Have you made sure that you have used a seperate one for each of the GPUs ? If you load them all onto one rail it will fail because it will be overloaded! With your PSU being of a modular design it is easy to fall into the trap of usimng as few cables as possible.

I don't think the PSU is the issue here.  It is pretty much impossible to mess it up with this PSU.  Here is a snipet from JonnyGURU when he reviewed this PSU. My previous X58 system used this same PSU and I never saw this problem until I switched to the Gigabyte board.  It is for sure strange. The card has not disappeared for several days now so I have my fingers crossed that it stays that way :-)  The X-Fi card keeps disappearing though.  I have the Onboard audio disabled so there is no conflicts.  I will check my event log tonight and see if anything shows up in there when the card does not show up.  Thanks for the suggestions though.

JonnyGURU ST1500W Review

Is the 12V distribution sensible? Why, yes it is. Each of 12V5 to 12V8 is dedicated to one chain of PCI-E connectors. Each of those rails gets one 6+2 pin and one 6 pin connector. Enough for four cards. And with a 25A limit on each rail, it is very unlikely you'll run into the overcurrent protection, even with the most powerful cards now on the market. And if you do, with four 12V rails dedicated to only PCI-E connectors, you can always start combining, as this unit draws its 12V water from one big pool.

[Dark Mantis]

Are you saying that you are already using a seperate 12v rail for each of the graphics cards then ?

[Section8]

Are you saying that you are already using a seperate 12v rail for each of the graphics cards then ?

Yes.   

[Section8]

So I received my new SATA3 Upgrade kit for my 800D. Installed it last night and remounted the SSD's into the Quick Disconnect HD cage where their supposed to be.  I set them back to RAID 0 and am happy to report that my READ speeds are 1.06 GB/s and my Writes are 1.02 GB/s.  I took out my X-FI card and am currently just using the on board for now because of the issue where the X-FI card kept disappearing. My Graphics cards all seem to be working properly.  The middle PCI-E that was giving me fits has miraculously started working and no longer am I having issues where the graphics card in that slot randomly disappears.  I did go back down to the F7 BIOS maybe that has something to do with the fix? I  have noticed that this BIOS provides the best READ and WRITE speeds for my SSD's.  I would be a happy man now if I could just get into my BIOS without having to connect an old PS2 keyboard!!!!!!!!

[Gloup_Gloup]

Hi Section8, 

Big job which had to necessitated several hours of patience.

I read that it's going much better now.

Gloup_Gloup