Poor SATA connection to SSD or Hard drive?

[yodachoda]

Hi all,

I've got a 4790k processor, Maximus VII hero motherboard, 500GB Samsung EVO SSD, EVGA GTX980, noctua NH-D15 fan, and 850W powersupply.

For a while now, during boot, my motherboard displays the A2 code (IDE Detect). Looking at these forums for a while, it seems this is something related to the motherboard having issues communicating with the SSD...but even that's not clear. I've not had any problems at all after boot or with accessing the SSD (I've got basically everything stored on it including operating system).

Yesterday, for the first time, during boot I've noticed at the connection of the SATA cable with motherboard, the motherboard lights up bright red. Now this case has alot of background red that stays lit during use, but this was one I've never seen before, and disappeared from the PC was booted up.

Yesterday, also for the first time in months (I had this issue before but fixed it...Windows 10 upgrade caused it), while gaming I had distorted sound followed by a freeze...forcing me to manually restart.

Is my SATA cable or connection bad? Can someone confirm the A2 code's meaning? Note that the code only is displayed during boot, not after.

 

[1LiquidPC]

What code is displayed once in Windows? I believe the light may be indicating what part of the boot process your system is in. On my ASUS board, several red leds' light up on different sections of my board(DRAM, GPU, STORAGE) and go out when moving through different steps during POST. Your game freeze could be coincidental.