Z170 Extreme4 (cold boot ssd issue)

repomanz wrote: Hi folks, I submitted an email ticket and  phone call (vm) to ASRock tech support and it's been roughly 1.5 days so far with no initial response to my problem. I have a ASRock Z170 extreme4 mobo with using up all sata ports 1) blueray player 2) sandisk ssd (os) 3) samsung 2 x HDD in raid o 4) pny cs2111 ssd 2 x in raid 0 My system suffers from what I can best describe as a cold boot issue.  When i first assembled the machine, everything went well.  All drives detected, was rather stable. After a few days; when i would boot up from having the machine off for a few hours my 2 PNY drives would not be detected in the bios.  After a few hours of running I would be able to reboot and they would re-appear. I have switched sata ports, i have switched cables.  Whatever combo i have tried; those two drives appears to have some issue with the mobo cold.  I have RMA'd these drives and hoping the replacements of them do not suffer the same problem. Additionally; i have tried experimenting with the power management of the drives, specifically setting them as SSD (instead of default HDD) and am current on drivers and bios. I'm a bit frustrated with ASRock at the moment.  I took a chance on them here and kinda was hoping for a much quicker response but to date; nothing. Any thoughts here?  Is there somehow I can run a utlitity on the MB to check for sata port / communication issues with the MB?

Please understand that attempting to analyze and diagnose any problem simply by exchanging some text information is very difficult. The reasons for issues are not always obvious, and many times there isn't a simple solution.

I'll ask the basic questions I would ask anyone with a similar situation.

Did you set the Drive type for each drive in the UEFI, Advanced, Storage Configuration screen?

Did you enable the SATA Aggressive Link Power Management option?

What version of the IRST software are you using?

Have you installed the IRST Windows software, and use the IRST Windows program? If so, what does it show you about the RAID 0 array of the PNY SSDs?

In your Windows Power Plan, how long is the Turn off hard disk after setting, set to?

Have you checked the Windows Event viewer, for entries that might help discover what the problem is?

Since the PNY SSDs are in a RAID 0 array, if only one of them has a problem, from a bad cable, to a bad drive, the RAID 0 array will fail.

It seems only the PNY SSDs suffer from this problem. Reviews of this SSD on a retailer's website include two that mention a freezing problem, one with a recognition issue, and another that is either a recognition problem or simply defective. Out of nine reviews, four serious complaints.

I realize it is common for users to focus on the mother board manufacture as the resource for their problems. Intel manufactures the SATA chipset/interface, and the IRST software, which mother board manufactures source from Intel. ASRock does not make any storage drives.

I use SSDs exclusively, including Intel, Samsung, and SanDisk models. I've never had any disappearing problems with those SSDs on my ASRock Z170, X99, Z97, and other boards. I can't say I've ever used a PNY SSD.