Intel 750 SSD Crash with Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 Motherboard

[pc_tuner]

Hi there, figure I would try my luck posting my issue here as well as the intel support forums as I'm not sure if the underlying issue is the SSD, it's drivers or the motherboard itself. Anyways, here ya go!

Hi there, I recently purchased an Intel 750 SSD (2.5 inch drive, model number SSDPE2MW400G4R5) and am having some major issues with getting it to run smoothly. I originally had it as a boot drive for Windows 10 on a newly purchased Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 Motherboard. Everything with the installation went smoothly. The drive was connected to the motherboard via the M.2 to U.2 Add-in-Card. My experience was fine until attempting to resume from the sleep or hibernation state on my computer. Except for a few random instances, the SSD failed to resume the system from sleep and would eventually give up and restart the system altogether. Specifically, my monitors would show nothing and have no display signal, further my mouse and keyboard would quickly disconnect (after waking the computer) and stay disconnected. However, The computer fans would turn on along with all interior lights and stay running. After auto-restarting, I would then be greeted with a blue screen of death with the error message "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE". After the next restart (due to the BSOD), the system would then boot fine, usually taking me to the state where i had originally left the computer when it was slept. Attempting the hibernation state would cause the same error (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE) to appear which would then cause a restart which (after automatic windows repair at the splash screen), would load where i left off at before hibernating the computer. The ensuing hours were then dedicated to trying to find the root cause of the problem. I'll briefly summarize the actions (that I can remember) taken below:
 
Downloaded Intel SSD Toolbox and ensured all drivers were up to date.
Uninstalled and reinstalled intel ssd drivers along with various others such as nvidia display drivers.
Changed Power State options to high performance, and changed the hard drive turn off option to "never"
Downloaded the latest (non-beta) BIOS version for Motherboard. Specific version ID was changed from F2 to F3  (Full hardware info will be provided below)
Ran Windows Memory Diagnostic Test, which came back with no errors on the RAM.
Ran Full Diagnostic Test on SSD through Intel SSD Toolbox, which came back with no errors.
Re-checked for any loose connections within computer case.
Uninstalled various non-core programs, and closed non-critical processes before attempting to sleep. Most likely coincidental and non-repeatable, I actually did get the system to resume a few times from the sleep state doing this method. However, after restarting and closing out the same programs and processes, I could not replicate the result. A couple hours of attempts and I gave up on this path.
Uninstalled windows 10 altogether and reinstalled Windows 8 cleanly. The issue still persisted in the hibernation and sleep state on windows 8 as well.
 
At this point, I was out of ideas and decided that the best path forward was to put windows 10 on my SAMSUNG 840 EVO 500 GB to further isolate, confirm, and better diagnose the Intel 750 SSD and the drivers as the underlying issue. As a result, I disconnected all other hard drives/SSD's along with the Intel 750 SSD and installed Windows 10 on the Samsung SSD, I once again attempted the sleep and hibernation states multiple times and over several restarts after installing various programs and drivers. I did not have any issue occur once. The system resumed in roughly 7-10 seconds every time, without a problem.
 
I now connected all my other storage devices to my PC to once again test for problems. First of all, the Intel 750 SSD was detected and accessible under my devices and drives. I then proceeded to test the sleep state once again without issue on multiple instances. However, the total time to resume from the sleep state increased to roughly 20-30 seconds. Further, the Intel 750 SSD was now no longer detected by windows. Checking Event Viewer lists two relevant entries occurring during system resume.
 
Error at 12:54:59 AM at Source "stornvme" (event id 11): The driver detected a controller error on \Device\RaidPort2.
Warning at 12:55:04 AM at Source "disk" (event id 157): Disk 4 has been surprise removed.
 
At this point, I entered into Device Manager and disabled, and then re-enabled the "standard NVM Express Controller". This immediately caused windows to detect the ssd once again and fixed my issue (until the next sleep state is attempted). If anyone could provide any guidance to me on this issue it would be much appreciated. I do know that users have had similar issues with other M.2 SSD's not resuming from sleep state. One solution I've also read about is to disable link power management? However, I don't want to attempt anything else until I perhaps hear from someone with more experience on solving an issue like this. Thanks so much for reading this far, I'll provide a summary of my specs below, but please let me know anything else needed to help aid you all in solving this!
 
Operating System
  Windows 10 Home 64-bit
  CPU
  Intel Core i3/i5/i7 6xxx @ 3.50GHz 23 °C
  Skylake 14nm Technology
  RAM
  16.0GB
  Motherboard
  Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. Z170X-GamingG1 (U3E1) 28 °C
  Graphics
  XB270HU (2560x1440@144Hz)
  VG248 (1920x1080@144Hz)
  VG248 (1920x1080@144Hz)
  TOSHIBA-TV (1920x1080@60Hz)
  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (EVGA)
  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (EVGA)
  ForceWare version: 353.62
  SLI Enabled
  Storage
  223GB SanDisk SDSSDHII240G (SSD)
  931GB TOSHIBA DT01ACA100 (SATA)
  223GB KINGSTON SV300S37A240G (SSD)
  931GB TOSHIBA DT01ACA100 (SATA)
  372GB NVMe INTEL SSDPE2MW40 (Unknown)
  465GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO 500GB (SSD)
  931GB TOSHIBA DT01ACA100 (SATA)
  Optical Drives
  HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW UH12NS30
  Audio
  Sound Blaster ZxRi

[dmdilks]

First of off windows 10 is only a windows 8/8.1 make over. The problems that windows 8/8.1 had will more likely have with 10. The only thing you could try is update the bios or email or call support.

You got two things here you have a brand new board that just hit the market and windows 10.

[pc_tuner]

First of off windows 10 is only a windows 8/8.1 make over. The problems that windows 8/8.1 had will more likely have with 10. The only thing you could try is update the bios or email or call support.

You got two things here you have a brand new board that just hit the market and windows 10.

Yup, understandable. New hardware often has issues like this I suppose. Don't wanna update the BIOS to a beta version though without being certain its has a fix for this issue. Perhaps, I'll try support directly then.

[dmdilks]

Does the 750 gb SSD work OK with it connected to sata ports? Plus with windows installed on it. Do other drives have a problem with the M2 card when connected to it? Plus I don't put my computer into sleep. There is a grey area when it comes sleep mode on SSD.

[shadowsports]

Hey Guys,
PC_Tuner..  following this with interest. Congrats on being an early adopter.

I use sleep on all of my machines.  Problems resuming from sleep or hibernate are almost always related to Disk Controller FW, Controller Driver or BIOS.    I know...  whats left

We all remember the resume issues first gen SandForce controller had 3+ yrs ago.  Hope you can figure this out.  Beautiful if you can get it working.  Looks like the latest BIOS only adds support for additional DDR/XMP profiles.  Not storage.   Intel is offering  v1.2.0.1002  https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/23929/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Data-Center-Family-for-PCIe-Drivers

I feel like this is related to the controller driver.  Why, because you get the Inaccessible Boot Device (STOP error) after losing the system and on 1st restart. Win10 and 8.1.  I'm guessing of course.   

[pc_tuner]

Hey Guys,
PC_Tuner..  following this with interest. Congrats on being an early adopter.

I use sleep on all of my machines.  Problems resuming from sleep or hibernate are almost always related to Disk Controller FW, Controller Driver or BIOS.    I know...  whats left

We all remember the resume issues first gen SandForce controller had 3+ yrs ago.  Hope you can figure this out.  Beautiful if you can get it working.  Looks like the latest BIOS only adds support for additional DDR/XMP profiles.  Not storage.   Intel is offering  v1.2.0.1002  https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/23929/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Data-Center-Family-for-PCIe-Drivers

I feel like this is related to the controller driver.  Why, because you get the Inaccessible Boot Device (STOP error) after losing the system and on 1st restart. Win10 and 8.1.  I'm guessing of course.   

Hey, I've downloaded the latest Intel drivers for ssd and am still having this issue unfortunately. I'm going to go ahead and paste in my response to recommendations provided by members of Intel forums to fix this issue. A direct link to the discussion on the intel forums is listed below if anyone wants to take a look at what they recommended. As eluded to in the post below, I'm not sure of the exact BIOS configuration needed to optimally get this drive working on a z170 gigabyte board. Any insight from you guys on this specifically would be much appreciated!

https://communities.intel.com/thread/80266

Hi Jonathan, I confirmed I had the latest drivers for the intel 750 ssd via the link you provided and even uninstalled and re-installed them once again (on the intel boot drive) making sure all programs were closed during the installation. As it turns out, I forgot to install the official intel drivers for the ssd on the Samsung boot drive, however they were present on the Windows installation using the Intel SSD as the boot drive. Sorry about that, long night of troubleshooting made me forget that crucial step somehow. However, it would make no difference as this resulted in no change with the Intel SSD failing to be detected while on my current Samsung boot drive. Testing using the intel 750 SSD as the boot drive also showed no difference, with black screens eventually leading to the system restarting once more. Interestingly, the mouse and keyboard were connecting now and are lit up during the resume process but the system still does function.
 
I then referred to the manual that you linked me and tried to discern the general settings to use on a z170 motherboard by looking at the set up requirements for the x99 and z97 Gigabyte chipset. Through this, I changed "storage boot option control" from "legacy" to "UEFI". To be clear other relevant settings (unchanged) were:
 
Windows 8 features: Windows 8/10
Other PCI Device ROM priority: UEFI
Fast Boot: Disabled
CSM: Enabled
 
Attempting the sleep state once again yielded no change in result resulting in the SSD failing and being undetected.
 
I also disabled Windows Fast Startup in the power options, and then proceeded to sleep my computer. When it powered back on, the Intel SSD was still present!!! Ah Jonathan, I thought you had fixed my problem for good, but i was sadly mistaken. Attempting to navigate into the SSD gave an error message stating that the chosen file path "was not inaccessible. The request failed due to a fatal device hardware error." I then tried disabling and re-enabling the driver which then forced a reboot of the system to re-enable the driver (this had not happened before). Trying the same method once again, this time showed no ssd. I then disabled and re-enabled the driver and it showed up once more and was fully accessible. One last time, I slept the computer again (still with fast startup disabled) and this time showed the intel ssd again. However, it was once again inaccessible and required a reboot to properly re-initialize the driver.

Lastly, their were some new events of note in event Viewer (alongside previously mentioned ones in original post) with several repeating countless times in minutes. These include:
 
Error at Source "IaNVMe" (event id 11): "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\RaidPort4."
Error at Source "disk" (event id 154): "The IO operation at logical block address 0x476e0 for Disk 4 (PDO name: \Device\00000087) failed due to a hardware error." [MY NOTE: many of these errors occurred rapidly, at various block addresses]
Warning at Source "Nfts" (event id 140): "The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur in VolumeId: \\?\Volume{7e558c4a-ef96-4b8c-b6a4-5674c4a82e9f}, DeviceName: \Device\HarddiskVolume12. (The request failed due to a fatal device hardware error.)" [occurred numerous times]
Error at "DeviceSetupManager" (event ID 131): "Metadata staging failed, result={E84DF2CA-4ACE-11E5-9BC2-806E6F6E6963} for container '0x80070490'" [occurred numerous times].
Warning at "Kernel-PnP" (event id 219): "The driver \Driver\WudfRd failed to load for the device SWD\WPDBUSENUM\{4d4b97c7-4ad4-11e5-8257-806e6f6e6963}#0000000000100000." [I believe this occurred when i tried to re-enable the driver myself and it forcing a restart to work]
 
How should i proceed further with this? Some bios configurations showed CSM being disabled but this was for older chipsets. Is there anyway, you could provide specific settings that you, or Intel recommends I should set with a with my specific z170 motherboard? Again, please let me know if you need further details from me! I'd like to get this sorted as soon as possible.     

[pc_tuner]

Does the 750 gb SSD work OK with it connected to sata ports? Plus with windows installed on it. Do other drives have a problem with the M2 card when connected to it? Plus I don't put my computer into sleep. There is a grey area when it comes sleep mode on SSD.

Hi, this specific SSD can only be connected via a M.2 to U.2 Connector, so i cannot check it on other Sata ports. I do have another empty M.2 port on the board, so I suppose i could shift around my graphics card to access it and switch to that port and try it out though. All other drives are traditional SATA interface HDD's and SSD's and cannot be connected to the M.2 Slot. However, they do all function normally whether the Intel 750 is connected or not. 

[WalRed]

Hello,

I just want to say that I have the Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 5 with an Intel SSD 750 (PCIe edition) and have the exact same issue as the original poster.  I've tried tons of troubleshooting with no luck.  Windows 10 will BSOD/instantly crash from resume from sleep 100% of the time.  There seems to be no solution to it.

I am wondering, could it be a bug that needs to be fixed in the motherboard BIOS?

[pc_tuner]

Hello,

I just want to say that I have the Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 5 with an Intel SSD 750 (PCIe edition) and have the exact same issue as the original poster.  I've tried tons of troubleshooting with no luck.  Windows 10 will BSOD/instantly crash from resume from sleep 100% of the time.  There seems to be no solution to it.

I am wondering, could it be a bug that needs to be fixed in the motherboard BIOS?

Try writing in the intel thread (https://communities.intel.com/thread/80266) that i opened up. There seems to be another user with the same issue as us now in the thread aswell.

[shadowsports]

pc_tuner,
Great thread on the intel forums.  Hats off to you for your perseverance and troubleshooting.  I don't blame you for finally giving up.  3 months from now they will probably have this problem resolved.