Hello all,
I am have a GA-X58A-UD3R Rev 2.0, a quad core i7 950 3.07ghz and 3 brand new WD Caviar Black internal HDD's (OS, Apps/Files, Backup). I am running in AHCI mode and have two major problems.
1. My computer boots fine. However, after a few minutes on the desktop one of the drives simply disappears from the Computer window as well as Device Manager. Rarely more then one at a time, and it has happened to all of them at least once. However, it is more prevelant with the Apps/File and Backup drives.
2. When I recently added my Backup drive to the machine (going from 2 to 3 HDDs), the computer recognized the drive upon first boot and all seemed well. After being up for a few minutes in the desktop, the App/File drive fell out of Windows. When I rebooted, I got a BSOD and ultimately had to run a Windows Repair tool to get it operational again.
Other relevant info:
1. This is all centered around the North Bridge Intel ICH10R chipset. I have tried it with their Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver as well as without it and the falling in and out happen with both situations.
2. The WD drives are all brand new and run through diagnostics before being plugged into my machine.
3. I am currently experimenting with having one drive in each of the controllers - 1 Intel, 1 Gigabyte, 1 Marvelle. It SEEMS stable but this is the kind of issue where it comes and goes.
4. In all circumstances, my BIOS always sees all the drives.
So here's my question - could it be a bad motherboard? Or can I cross the bad hardware situation off the possibilities? I find it hard to believe its a hard drive issue which leads me back to something like:
1. Windows
2. AHCI Settings
3. AHCI Controller Driver
Has anyone seen this before? I saw lots of posts about issues like this around sleeping and re-awakening but mine isn't related to that.
Thanks in advance!