AB350M pro4 takes very long to boot with HDD

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   Greetings,
I have an AB350M Pro4 with R5 1600, running Win10 Pro in a Samsung 960 250gb in the NVME m.2 slot.

Connected to the Sata ports there are 2 HDD (which were not connected during Windows installation):

- Maxtor 6B300S0 300gb (SATA 150 - 1.50Gbps)
- Seagate ST3500630AS (SATA/300)

Boot times are very long (30 seconds) and, upon extensive testing, I have very sound evidence that this is caused by the BIOS somehow needing to turn on and "test" the HDDs before proceeding to boot.

While turning on the computer, the bios shows the post code "A2" during the time I can hear the HDD turning on. It takes a good 10 seconds for them to do so, after which the "A2" code goes away and the boot proceeds blazingly fast into the Windows logo.

According to this: "Each code number identifies a specific test done during the POST (Power On Self Test) process, that happens before the OS begins to load/boot. POST verifies the basic operation of the hardware on a mother board, and the hardware connected to a mother board."

I would really like to remove this waiting time, if possible, while still using both HDDs.

The Maxtor one seems to be the one causing the longest delays since it is the slowest one to turn on, but this doesn't change the fact that the BIOS should be able to boot without verifying any of the drives and I can clearely hear (and see with postcodes) that it is doing so also on the other HDD (Seagate).

What have I tried:

BIOS options:
- Disabled/Enabled SATA controller in Advanced -> Storage options
- Disabled/Enabled every option in Advanced -> FCH -> SATA
- Disabled/Enabled fast boot
- Disabled/Enabled XMP profile and AM4 Advance Boot Training
- Disabled/Enabled BIOS logo

Windows:
- Disabled/Enabled write caching
- Disabled/Enabled fast startup

Can I disable this behavior of checking for "A2" or should I just renounce to use an HDD that takes long to turn on (or any HDD if I want fastest boot times)? Can I disable Dr Debug?

Many thanks!

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Saturnix Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 15 Mar 2018 Status: Offline Points: 3	Post Options Post Reply Quote Saturnix Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: AB350M pro4 takes very long to boot with HDD Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 12:23am
	Greetings, I have an AB350M Pro4 with R5 1600, running Win10 Pro in a Samsung 960 250gb in the NVME m.2 slot. Connected to the Sata ports there are 2 HDD (which were not connected during Windows installation): - Maxtor 6B300S0 300gb (SATA 150 - 1.50Gbps) - Seagate ST3500630AS (SATA/300) Boot times are very long (30 seconds) and, upon extensive testing, I have very sound evidence that this is caused by the BIOS somehow needing to turn on and "test" the HDDs before proceeding to boot. While turning on the computer, the bios shows the post code "A2" during the time I can hear the HDD turning on. It takes a good 10 seconds for them to do so, after which the "A2" code goes away and the boot proceeds blazingly fast into the Windows logo. According to this: "Each code number identifies a specific test done during the POST (Power On Self Test) process, that happens before the OS begins to load/boot. POST verifies the basic operation of the hardware on a mother board, and the hardware connected to a mother board." I would really like to remove this waiting time, if possible, while still using both HDDs. The Maxtor one seems to be the one causing the longest delays since it is the slowest one to turn on, but this doesn't change the fact that the BIOS should be able to boot without verifying any of the drives and I can clearely hear (and see with postcodes) that it is doing so also on the other HDD (Seagate). What have I tried: BIOS options: - Disabled/Enabled SATA controller in Advanced -> Storage options - Disabled/Enabled every option in Advanced -> FCH -> SATA - Disabled/Enabled fast boot - Disabled/Enabled XMP profile and AM4 Advance Boot Training - Disabled/Enabled BIOS logo Windows: - Disabled/Enabled write caching - Disabled/Enabled fast startup Can I disable this behavior of checking for "A2" or should I just renounce to use an HDD that takes long to turn on (or any HDD if I want fastest boot times)? Can I disable Dr Debug? Many thanks!

kerberos_20 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 06 Dec 2017 Location: czech republic Status: Offline Points: 3687	Post Options Post Reply Quote kerberos_20 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18 Mar 2018 at 1:04am
	i had similar issue with mine old 1TB seagate...too long A2 post...few days later harddrive did eventually die :P
	userbenchmark

zhaian Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 01 Mar 2018 Status: Offline Points: 10	Post Options Post Reply Quote zhaian Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28 Mar 2018 at 10:32pm
	Adding a drive to one of the SOC SATA ports on the AB350 adds about 10 seconds per drive to boot time as well. If the drive is moved to one of the two ASMedia SATA ports instead, it boots very fast, but it doesn?�t look like the AB350M has these ports. Would be good to hear from ASRock whether this added delay is inevitable with Ryzen or could be improved with a BIOS patch.
	Motherboard: AB350 Pro4, UEFI: 4.63, APU: Ryzen 2400g, RAM: Patriot PVE48G266C6KBL, HDD: Intel SSDPEKKF256G7, 2x WD Red 4GB, ODD: Samsung SH-B123L, Power Supply: SeaSonic SSP-300ST

cristy6100 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 15 Mar 2018 Location: Romania Status: Offline Points: 269	Post Options Post Reply Quote cristy6100 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28 Mar 2018 at 10:46pm
	Long post/boot times with a HDD usually denotes a failing drive as kerberos mentioned, you should try a "forced" hot swap for the HDD but be warned do copy all your data to a backup location before doing this: Start your PC with the HDD plugged in both power and data, then when the system is hanging on the post remove the HDD power and plug it back in, the system should resume normal post, from there enter windows and remove again the power and plug it back in, enter device manager and click Action/Scan for hardware changes, your hdd should be detected, if this is indeed true, you need to do an Extended SMART test, I do it in LINUX with the integrated utilities from CentOS, but others might have some suggestions for easier to use utility for Windows, but Maxtor and Hitachi was known in the days to cause long boot times with failing drives, I have a couple of of 160GB's drives with very long post times that failed not long after that EDIT1, If memory serves right, long post times could mean even o corrupted filesystem, if possible erase the drive with Dban, just use a "Clean" pass, it should not take more that 1-2 hours then check again. I must insist you copy all your data to a backup location even if you don't do anything, backup is the no 1 thing to do first in this situations Edited by cristy6100 - 28 Mar 2018 at 10:51pm

zhaian Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 01 Mar 2018 Status: Offline Points: 10	Post Options Post Reply Quote zhaian Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 30 Mar 2018 at 10:37pm
	Thanks for the reply but in this case, I really don't think that's it. I have several drives lying around, it doesn't matter what is plugged in, the result is always the same. And as I said the boot time is not affected if I plug into one of the ASmedia sata ports, only the ryzen ports. Anyway I downloaded the WD diagnostic and ran an extended SMART test on one of these drives and it came back clean. Also I forgot to mention, this is the 4.63 beta version of the ab350 pro4 bios. The boot time was even longer with the 4.60 bios with drives plugged in to these sata ports, so I have a feeling the remaining delay could be fixed with a bios update.
	Motherboard: AB350 Pro4, UEFI: 4.63, APU: Ryzen 2400g, RAM: Patriot PVE48G266C6KBL, HDD: Intel SSDPEKKF256G7, 2x WD Red 4GB, ODD: Samsung SH-B123L, Power Supply: SeaSonic SSP-300ST