Asus Sabertooth x58 + Samsung SSD Problem

[TehNevs]

I am having a strange issue with my Asus Sabertooth x58. It's actually two different problems:

1.) I recently upgraded the BIOS to the latest version (Sabertooth X58 BIOS 1402) having never upgraded the BIOS on this machine before in 3 years. Everything ran smoothly. However, now whenever I boot up my machine, the system will start, then stop, and will do this exactly 2 times before starting up permanently. Also, my usb 3.0 ports (2 of them) on the back of the motherboard seem to not be working. Whenever I hook up a USB device to it, it does not show up on my Windows 7 installation.

2.) Sometimes my SSD will not boot. I have a "SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5-Inch 256GB SATA III" model. I go into the BIOS and see that my boot order has been reset. It seems to do this at random and I am not sure why. Also, I sometimes have to switch between IDE and AHCI in order to get it to work. Sometimes the SSD will boot on IDE and sometimes it will boot in AHCI.

Let me know if there's any other information I can provide to help solve this problem! Thanks 😉

 

[trevinci]

So I just ordered a SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5-Inch 512GB SATA III for my PC which has a Sabertooth X58 motherboard, that a month or two ago I upgraded the BIOS to 1402 with no problems. Its running a dual boot windows 7 pro / windows 8 pro each on a separate HDD (sata 6GB velociraptor HDs) on the sata 6 GB connectors on the motherboard. I'm wanting to replace the windows 8 HDD with my SSD and do a clean install of Win 8 pro to dual boot alongside my old win7 pro HDD installation.

Right now everything is running fine, no problems. But I've never installed an SSD before and understand there may be som BIOS settings that need to be changed (like AHCI) but I don't run any RAID configurations. So I would appreciate any advice on how you got yours installed and working fine (up until now of course).

So now I have a couple questions that might be the answers to your problem. Is your SSD in a Raid configuration? Did you experience any problems running this SSD before on the sata III 6GB connectors?

The reason I ask is this: I'm thinking of returning my SSD as soon as it comes in because of what I've found doing extensive reading of message boards.

They say that the Marvell controllers for the 6GB connnectors specifically are garbage, and cause all kinds of problems for people running or booting their SSDs (granted not all were our Samsung 830 series). They also say that the motherboard connectors are limited--specifically cap your SSD throughput read and write times at like 390-400mb/s, thus not fully utilizing the speed of your SSD. Also, most of these posts are all from 2010-2011. So I'm trying to figure out if the BIOS updates since then have fixed this issue, or if this may be your/become my problem.

I am having a strange issue with my Asus Sabertooth x58. It's actually two different problems:

1.) I recently upgraded the BIOS to the latest version (Sabertooth X58 BIOS 1402) having never upgraded the BIOS on this machine before in 3 years. Everything ran smoothly. However, now whenever I boot up my machine, the system will start, then stop, and will do this exactly 2 times before starting up permanently. Also, my usb 3.0 ports (2 of them) on the back of the motherboard seem to not be working. Whenever I hook up a USB device to it, it does not show up on my Windows 7 installation.

2.) Sometimes my SSD will not boot. I have a "SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5-Inch 256GB SATA III" model. I go into the BIOS and see that my boot order has been reset. It seems to do this at random and I am not sure why. Also, I sometimes have to switch between IDE and AHCI in order to get it to work. Sometimes the SSD will boot on IDE and sometimes it will boot in AHCI.

Let me know if there's any other information I can provide to help solve this problem! Thanks 😉

 

[TehNevs]

So I just ordered a SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5-Inch 512GB SATA III for my PC which has a Sabertooth X58 motherboard, that a month or two ago I upgraded the BIOS to 1402 with no problems. Its running a dual boot windows 7 pro / windows 8 pro each on a separate HDD (sata 6GB velociraptor HDs) on the sata 6 GB connectors on the motherboard. I'm wanting to replace the windows 8 HDD with my SSD and do a clean install of Win 8 pro to dual boot alongside my old win7 pro HDD installation.

Right now everything is running fine, no problems. But I've never installed an SSD before and understand there may be som BIOS settings that need to be changed (like AHCI) but I don't run any RAID configurations. So I would appreciate any advice on how you got yours installed and working fine (up until now of course).

So now I have a couple questions that might be the answers to your problem. Is your SSD in a Raid configuration? Did you experience any problems running this SSD before on the sata III 6GB connectors?

The reason I ask is this: I'm thinking of returning my SSD as soon as it comes in because of what I've found doing extensive reading of message boards.

They say that the Marvell controllers for the 6GB connnectors specifically are garbage, and cause all kinds of problems for people running or booting their SSDs (granted not all were our Samsung 830 series). They also say that the motherboard connectors are limited--specifically cap your SSD throughput read and write times at like 390-400mb/s, thus not fully utilizing the speed of your SSD. Also, most of these posts are all from 2010-2011. So I'm trying to figure out if the BIOS updates since then have fixed this issue, or if this may be your/become my problem.

i haven't noticed any problems with the SSD. I realized I was missing some drivers for the USB 3.0 ports so that issue is now fixed. The weird booting up issue is still not fixed however. My system will start and stop exactly twice before it boots up permanently. For now I'm just living with that issue until I can find a solution.

I have not run any tests to see how fast my SSD is running, however, it's definitely a real world noticeable speed boost from my old HDD so I wouldn't recommend returning it unless you just want to. I am not running any Raid configurations in my machine.

I haven't had the boot issue lately. It's currently running in AHCI mode. However if you encounter this problem I suggest just switching from AHCI to IDE to see if it boots up properly.

 

[trevinci]

Thanks!

Also, I read that some other people having boot problems were told not to install the chipset drivers, especially the Marvell or JMicron drivers. Instead, use ACHI mode and use the microsoft drivers native to Windows 7 or Windows 8 - this shouldn't hurt anything as TRIM is supported natively in both OSes.

I read that this fixed the boot problems for a few people--it might be worth a try for you if you haven't already.

 

[ThePawofRizzo]

Technev, I'm actually running into the same problem with my x58 after updating the firmware this morning. The system will start up and shut down twice before booting fine on the third power up. I haven't looked at my USB 3 ports as yet, but they seem fine with what is plugged in.

I do have a Samsung SSD drive I've been testing and whether I plug it into the Marvell controllers, the mobo SATA controllers, or even to any USB port the system will go through POST then sit at a blinking cursor. It won't boot to a CD or the SSD drive. Just the blinking cursor. If I plug my original SATA drive in all works fine (except the double startup - third boot into OS thing.)

 

[obnoxiousmime]

I'm actually experiencing an issue that I suspect is SSD/motherboard related. I've got the Sabertooth and Samsung EVO 940 (non-pro) and everything boots fine. However, at some point the computer will freeze, necessitating a restart. Sometimes it just freezes completely, sometimes it freezes every few seconds before eventually dying. One time the mouse icon even changed to some weird new icon. I haven't confirmed that the issue is with the sabertooth and samsung combination but I will look into the driver problem trevinci mentioned.

 

[obnoxiousmime]

I discovered the crashing issue I described earlier is likely due to an NVIDIA driver problem. Rolled back the driver and am hoping that solves that. However, I still have not been able to switch to AHCI mode successfully and am afraid to try again.

When I tried the change from IDE to AHCI in BIOS, Windows 7 would crash on startup. I then applied the Microsoft hotfix for this issue and all seemed fine (benchmarks reported a slight speed increase but not anything near SSD norms). Then on next reboot the OS would not boot from the drive, even though it was detected. I had to do a format and clean reinstall of Windows on the SSD, this time making sure to set the BIOS to AHCI before the installation. Except that after the installation was complete I checked BIOS and found it had reverted back to IDE mode. Not really sure what the deal is, but I guess I will just stick to IDE mode for now.