Weird SATA issue on Asus x299 mobo

[kmapes]

I have an Asus x299 Prime Deluxe. Not a huge fan of white, and despite white being a prominent color on this motherboard, I absolutely love this board's aesthetic and features. However, I have had nothing but SATA issues with this board. No where in the manual does it say that any SATA ports will be disabled due to M.2 socket being used, etc. So here is the issue:

The first SATA port, #1 has a Samsung 850 Evo. #2 is a Crucial SSD. Both of these SSD's are 500Gb and for OS installs. 1 for Win, and 1 for messing around on Linux. The other SATA ports have another Samsung1TB SSD, and 2 miscellaneous hard drives. I also have a Samsung M.2 850 Evo installed on the horizontal M.2 NVMe slot.

HERE IS THE PROBLEM: For some reason, SATA port 1 isn't recognized in the boot configuration menu in the BIOS. I tried another SATA data cable and SATA power cable to no avail. If I swap the Crucial and Samsung drives between ports, whatever drive is in #1 does not show. In the BIOS/UEFI when I go to the "BOOT" menu (Boot Option Priorities) Boot Option #1 is the "M1" drive, my M.2 SSD. Boot Option #2 is the SATA #2 drive which is lists as "P2." All of the SATA ports are prefixed with "P" in the BIOS. If I put the Crucial in #1 and Samsung in #2, the Samsung shows and vice versa.

NOTE: LOOK CAREFULLY AT THE ADVANCED BIOS PICS. In the BIOS/UEFI settings under the "ADVANCED" menu. Whatever is the physical #2 drive (Sata port #2 or SATA6G_2) is listed as SATA 1 and so on. Every drive is offset by 1 going down. However this is where it's confusing. SATA6G_1 is listed as the Samsung M.2 (but has no enable/disable option) and then SATA6G_1 is listed again as whatever drive I have in the physical SATA#2 port. Whatever drive is in SATA#1 Port doesn't show anywhere.


Anyway, haven't been able to figure this out. Both drives are working, tested the cables and power, and the manual makes no mention of SATA ports being disabled under basic settings. Running ACHI and no RAID. Any thoughts, ideas or anecdotes? Thanks!

So check out the pics. I did swap out the SATA data and power cables to test SSDs, but here is how SATA Ports 1-7 are setup & configured.

1) Samsung SSD 512GB (tried in port#2)
2) Crucial SSD 500GB (tried in port#1)
3) Samsung SSD 1TB
4) Hitachi HD 2TB
5) WD HD 4TB
6) Empty
7) Empty

I moved all drives down one port from 2-6, and got this warning in pic #1. If I move them each down a port, same thing happens. However, this time, SATA Port #2 which I installed my first physical drive on with the Crucial SSD is not recognized.



PIc #2 Below you can see SATA Port #1 doesn't show up. The initial boot drive is SATA port #2, labels in the BIOS as "P2."



Pic#3 SATA16G_1 is listed twice. First it is recognized and listed as the M2 drive. Look below. The first physical SATA6G_1 drive is the Samsung 500GB SSD in Sata Port #1. However it is not "configurable." There are no options next to it. The first SATA6G_1 that is actually in the BIOS is SATA Port #2's drive, the Crucial SSD.





Under this second set of pics, I tried moving each of the SATA drives down a port. So here is how SATA Ports 1-7 are setup & configured. Physically, SATA ports 3-7 are occupied.

3) Samsung SSD 512GB (tried in port#2)
4) Crucial SSD 500GB (tried in port#1)
5) Samsung SSD 1TB
6) Hitachi HD 2TB
7) WD HD 4TB

NOTE- SATA PORT #'s
1) Empty
2) Empty

Now, the Crucial drive doesn't show, and the Port#'2 in the BIOS don't match with the physical drives and their physical SATA port #'s.

[JustinThyme]

Have you tried populating only that port? Then add one aat a time until it fails.

[kkn]

enny raid going?

[kmapes]

Have you tried populating only that port? Then add one aat a time until it fails.

That's a good idea. Same thing. If I put a drive in SATA Port#1, it is not recognized.

enny raid going?

No. Just ACHI.

[kmapes]

No love still. Running latest BIOS, 1401. AHCI enabled, and RAID is off. The M.2 socket only affects the U.2 port. Something must be wonky with the actual board.

[MENINBLK]

Is it possible that when you install an M.2 NVME card that the BIOS disables SATA6G_1 automatically because the board can only have either 1 M.2, SATA_1 or U.2 ?
If no combinations of these are accepted, maybe its because they all electronically share the same PCIe lanes ???
If you empty the M.2 socket, does the SATA6G_1 detect a connected drive again ?

I think because the Samsung Evo 850 M.2 drive is a SATA SSD drive, the board will disable SATA6G_1 automatically.
If you had an M.2 NVME SSD plugged in, it would not use the SATA controller and maybe not disable SATA6G_1.