Updated bios and now having an odd spinning drive issue

[WilPad]

HI All..just updated the bios on my machine to current for first time
i9-13900K (3.0 GHz) processor
ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO motherboard
and since then windows takes a LONG time to shut down or restart.,.it seems now related to the internal second drive
Seagate Ironwolf 4Tb.. which has slowed to a crawl when backing up to it...20/30 Mb/s
Crystal disc speed test takes so long to even start measuring it , I have to cancel it !
Disabling that drive in device manager returns shutdowns/restarts to normal.
ALL other drives are normal..but they are M2 and SSD drives..this is the only physical drive
IS it the drive, or maybe something that has got messed up in the bios settings?
It does mount and looks normal, except when trying to copy to it..
could a BIOS issue slow the drive bus down somehow?..anything I should look for in Bios or do I just have a dying drive by coincidence
any help much appreciated. !

 

[SpyderTracks]

HI All..just updated the bios on my machine to current for first time
i9-13900K (3.0 GHz) processor
ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO motherboard
and since then windows takes a LONG time to shut down or restart.,.it seems now related to the internal second drive
Seagate Ironwolf 4Tb.. which has slowed to a crawl when backing up to it...20/30 Mb/s
Crystal disc speed test takes so long to even start measuring it , I have to cancel it !
Disabling that drive in device manager returns shutdowns/restarts to normal.
ALL other drives are normal..but they are M2 and SSD drives..this is the only physical drive
IS it the drive, or maybe something that has got messed up in the bios settings?
It does mount and looks normal, except when trying to copy to it..
could a BIOS issue slow the drive bus down somehow?..anything I should look for in Bios or do I just have a dying drive by coincidence
any help much appreciated. !

Is this a PCS system?

Can you post your full specs from the order page?

 

[WilPad]

Yes its a PCS system ... got shipped to me here in Spain ±
COOLERMASTER COSMOS C700M GAMING TOWER CASE CASING

Dimensions (L x W x H)

650 x 306 x 651mm / 25.6 x 12.0 x 25.6 inch

Processor (CPU) Twenty-four-core Intel® Core™ i9-13900K (3.0 GHz) processor

36MB cache

ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO motherboard (DDR5, LGA1700, USB 3.2, PCIe 5.0)

ARGB compatible!

Memory (RAM) Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 5600 MHz 32 GB (2 x 16 GB)

Graphics card 24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP

1st M.2 SSD 1 TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2 Drive, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000 MB/R, 5000 MB/W)

2nd Drive M.2 SSD 1 TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000 MB/R, 5000 MB/W)

1st

Hard Disk Drive SEAGATE IRONWOLF PRO 3.5" 4 TB, 7200 RPM, 128 MB CACHE

DVD/BLU-RAY drive NOT MANDATORY

CORSAIR 1000W RMe SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD power supply,

ULTRA-QUIET

Power cable 1.5m European power cable (C13 type cable; 1.0mm core)

1.0 mm core)

Processor cooling High-performance CPU cooler Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE RGB series CPU cooler

with LCD display

Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING

Sound card 6 INTEGRATED CHANNELS (5.1) HIGH DEF. AUDIO (STEREO)

Network card 10/100/1000 GIGABITS LAN PORT

Wireless Network Card NOT MANDATORY

USB/Thunderbolt Options MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ REAR PANEL + MIN. 2

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thanks.

Just a word of warning, updating the BIOS without PCS approval may have voided your warranty, just be aware of that.

Firstly, try plugging the HDD SATA connector into another port on the motherboard.

Then, have you got any data on the drive? If not, I would suggest fully formatting it, it's almost like there's a flag incorrectly making it a readable sector of the boot process.
Then start it up, when you're in windows open cmd as admin
navigate to the drive letter eg: d:
Then type: chkdsk

This will take some time at the end it will have a report, the important part is bad sectors. If there are any bad sectors at all, you need to raise an RMA just for the drive, it means the drive is faulty and gradually parts of the readable section are failing, once there's one bad sector, it spreads, it means the drive is on the way out.

 

[WilPad]

Thanks.

Just a word of warning, updating the BIOS without PCS approval may have voided your warranty, just be aware of that.

Firstly, try plugging the HDD SATA connector into another port on the motherboard.

Then, have you got any data on the drive? If not, I would suggest fully formatting it, it's almost like there's a flag incorrectly making it a readable sector of the boot process.
Then start it up, when you're in windows open cmd as admin
navigate to the drive letter eg: d:
Then type: chkdsk

This will take some time at the end it will have a report, the important part is bad sectors. If there are any bad sectors at all, you need to raise an RMA just for the drive, it means the drive is faulty and gradually parts of the readable section are failing, once there's one bad sector, it spreads, it means the drive is on the way out.

I had No idea about Bios update invalidating warranty ..! Thats a bit strange to be honest. !
I thought keeping bios up to date was a GOOD thing ?
I can reformat it as its simply a Macrium Reflect Backup drive ...I did try a chkdsk before but lost the will to live after 1 hour LOL
Will leave that running and see what happens...
re plugging it into another port...will try that... Im not sure how easy that is on this case- it all looks quite hidden away ..but will do my best !
Appreciate the help... so you are saying there is nothing specifically in the bios settings that could cause that issue, and is more likely to be totally a coincidence that the drive is failing at the same time as a bios update?

 

[SpyderTracks]

I had No idea about Bios update invalidating warranty ..! Thats a bit strange to be honest. !

Not strange at all, it's so that if an issue like this does occur, you're protected and covered. PCS would only allow you to flash BIOSes they've verified. It's not unusual for BIOS updates to be buggy and cause bricks, PCS would verify it before allowing you to flash to safeguard you, and if anything were to go wrong, they'd fix it for you.

I thought keeping bios up to date was a GOOD thing ?

It is, they don't stop you upgrading, they just ask you contact them before doing so and flash the BIOS they've approved.

I did try a chkdsk before but lost the will to live after 1 hour LOL

It will take several hours, best to leave it running overnight.

re plugging it into another port...will try that... Im not sure how easy that is on this case- it all looks quite hidden away ..but will do my best !

You just swap the port on the motherboard, you don't need to do anything to the cabling or anything, literally unplug from one port and plug into the next.

Appreciate the help... so you are saying there is nothing specifically in the bios settings that could cause that issue, and is more likely to be totally a coincidence that the drive is failing at the same time as a bios update?

It could be a buggy BIOS, I take it it wasn't a beta version? Which version did you flash?

 

[WilPad]

Thanks for the reply... makes sense I suppose , I just wasn't aware of it or I would have left it at the original Bios ..
Bios is ..
ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO BIOS 1501
Version 1501
13.47 MB
2023/10/26
Will work through your suggestions...
swapping the SATA port isnt actually that simple, as the 4090 graphics card is hiding the SATA ports so that will have to come out before doing that
I may if all else fails also try swapping out the drive for another (if its easy to do on this case) to see if that shows the same issue ...

 

[Steveyg]

My take on BIOS is if it's not broke don't fix it, literally never update the BIOS unless there's a problem or a feature I need otherwise yeah if it's working as it's supposed to why change anything

 

[WilPad]

My take on BIOS is if it's not broke don't fix it, literally never update the BIOS unless there's a problem or a feature I need otherwise yeah if it's working as it's supposed to why change anything

Yes ..frankly now I wish I hadnt LOL..though its looking more like this is a drive issue rather than bios, buts the timing is very coincidental !

 

[SpyderTracks]

Yes ..frankly now I wish I hadnt LOL..though its looking more like this is a drive issue rather than bios, buts the timing is very coincidental !

It's really annoying when that happens, by all accounts the BIOS update would be the cause, that's why it's so important to follow the symptoms otherwise you can find yourself changing things that aren't related and causing further complications.

If it is the drive, that's actually a lot better than being related to a buggy BIOS, and PCS will just replace it under warranty.

It's possible there was some update in that BIOS that is now reading that drive on boot, which unless it's mentioned as one of the boot devices, in theory it shouldn't do, but on most of my systems I've had, if there's been any drive issue, it invariably leads to lengthened boot ups, I'm not sure why that is in all honesty. Perhaps it's purely that it's having difficulty initialising it rather than actually reading the drive as a boot device. I'm not too familiar with how the drive initializing works in POST or windows boot.

 

[WilPad]

It's really annoying when that happens, by all accounts the BIOS update would be the cause, that's why it's so important to follow the symptoms otherwise you can find yourself changing things that aren't related and causing further complications.

If it is the drive, that's actually a lot better than being related to a buggy BIOS, and PCS will just replace it under warranty.

It's possible there was some update in that BIOS that is now reading that drive on boot, which unless it's mentioned as one of the boot devices, in theory it shouldn't do, but on most of my systems I've had, if there's been any drive issue, it invariably leads to lengthened boot ups, I'm not sure why that is in all honesty. Perhaps it's purely that it's having difficulty initialising it rather than actually reading the drive as a boot device. I'm not too familiar with how the drive initializing works in POST or windows boot.

Thanks...all good info ! ...appreciate it .... working through stuff bit by bit to isolate it hopefully...its a pain the 4090 is in the way of the SATA ports ! Guess I could take the 4090 out but its a bit of a beast to handle LOL