SN550 sudden detection problems on X99 board

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Hi all,

anybody experienced something similar before?

I have built a new computer out of some used and some new parts. It is a Xeon E5-2683v3 (Haswell-E, 14 Cores, 2.0GHz) on an Asus X99E-WS Board with Quad Channel 4x8GB Crucial Ballistix Sports RAM. I got a brand-new WD Blue SN550 1TB drive for this configuration and put it into the NVMe Slot (supports PCIe only and the drive is PCIe).

The NVMe got delivered with the latest firmware already, the board got a BIOS-Upgrade in the first step.

The whole thing worked perfectly for about one week.

Out of the sudden, the computer refused to boot and opened the UEFI Setup. I pressed the reset button and the system booted.

It seems that I need to wait for a little more than a minute before pressing the reset button, otherwise I will end up in the UEFI Setup again, and with the next reboot finally can boot. If I wait for one minute after the first attempt before resetting, it works fine.

This behavior is exactly the same, no matter if it is the first cold boot of the day or if the computer was running for 10 hours, is shut down and immediately switched on again, so I don’t expect a thermal issue.

Resetting the CMOS did not change anything. CSM is disabled (UEFI Boot), but also with enabled CSM (Legacy Boot), the behavior is exactly the same. With enabled CSM (so I get a list of all installed drives, which are, in addition to the SN550, a WD80EMAZ shucked from an Elements drive and an LG BluRay recorder, I don’t get this list when in CSM Disabled/UEFI mode due to the way the BIOS is programmed), you can even exactly see that the computer is not able to detect the NVMe at all, it appears in the list of drives only after the one minute waiting and reset.

A Transcend 128GB PCIe NVMe (also PCIe 4 Lane, like the SN550) which I got for testing and diagnostic purposes, works perfectly on the board, so it is not the board or CPU.

For me it looks like an RMA, but maybe somebody knows this issue and a secret setting that I did not find yet.

Thanks in advance

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2

I am having similar problems. I have a 500Mb Black WDS500 that has worked ok for a year (I think) but now if my system is left on for a couple of hours when I get back to it it has a black screen and a message telling me it can’t find any boot device. Only a power off/on revives it and it then boots normally. I have tried to get an advanced RMA but the system isn’t allowing me to do so.
is this to be expected from WD support UK?

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The same problem is happening to me. Asus X99. I have a SN 750 that works normally, however, I bought an SN 550 to use as a data disk and it only works when restarting the machine. For me, this is a problem with WD and needs to be solved through a firmware update, which unfortunately does not exist at this time.In the beggining I thought it was a problem with the SN550. I ordered an RMA and my replacement came just like the first one. Same problems. I’ve had several other drives on this motherboard and it never happened. Adata, Samsung and even with the WD SN 750.

Apparently several users are reporting problems with the SN 550 and somehow solving it with an update of MB bios. However, for the X99 platform this no longer exists.

This problem is really annoying and I’ve tried all the alternatives in my system’s bios. The SN 550 drive is only detected after a machine reset. It never works when I do a cold boot.
I am already disappointed and I believe I will sell the equipment to pick up either a Samsung or another SN750.

If anyone has a solution it would be great.

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Yeah, the SN550 in particular doesn’t go well with X99 motherboards.
I have an Asus X99 Deluxe, and the SN550 only appears in BIOS/Windows if I do this:

Start the PC, and directly press DEL to enter BIOS, go to save settings and reset.
If I don’t do that, then the SN550 will not show up at all anywhere.

So if the SN750 doesn’t suffer from this issue, then WD has the solution in house and their dev team can just check ‘What did we do right on SN750, which we didn’t do on the SN550?’

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i have the SN500 nvme drive 2x. and on my B550 steel legend asrock i have in 1 slot the same problems. sometimes it works fine at start, sometimes its not showing up. and sometimes my pc is half frozen. mouse pointer is usaable, but cant start programs, cant restart pc and have to hard reset the pc. Have now updated my bios, so lets hope it helps. if not i think i ask for RMA and will change to samsung.

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Exactly the same problem here with an Asus X99-Deluxe II.
I have to go to BIOS everytime before booting to windows, because if i don’t do it, the drive won’t be detected by windows!
I have googled and a lot of people are having problems similar like these.
Western has to lauch a firmware update ASAP.
I have also instaled WD Dashboard and there ir no firmware update.

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Asus x99 motherboard (rampage v) and have the same problems.
Even installing Win 10 on this drive was a pain, got different message errors, until read a tip somewhere that said to disconnect all other drives, and it worked like a charm.

Problem is now that the Bios does not “see” the drive at all on a cold start.
Tried the OP’s solution, to wait a bit before exiting the Bios and it worked.

Once windows loads, i can restart as many times as i want, it works fine, but not after i turn the system off and do the cold start.

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Hello,

Similar problem on my x99 ASUS RAMPAGE V EDITION 10 (Tested with different BIOS version).
I installed Windows 10 PRO on a WD SN550 500Gb and the PC detects the hard drive at random, I have to change the CSM configuration in BIOS at every BOOT to detect the hard drive, very strange


Do you have an idea / solution?

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Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any solution.
Just like you, i thought that when i was changing the CSM configuration in Bios, it made the system recognize the drive, but i was wrong.
Just like the OP stated, you just need to enter the Bios and wait a bit (20-30 secs in my case) before clicking on “save changes and exit”.
Basically when changing the CSM configuration, you are doing just that, spending 20-30 secs in Bios before clicking save and exit, and thats all it takes.
It sux, but im not willing to scrap a $100+ m2 drive and reinstall windows, because of a half minute wait time on PC start.

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Personally I ordered another brand because the WD support did not find a solution :confused:

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Thought the problem came from the X99 chipset or the bios, but if a different brand solves the problem, please write it here, would be great to know. Thank you.

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Hello, I confirm that my computer has been working perfectly with a crucial P2 for 3 days, so the problem is with Western Digital!

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I have the exact same problem with the SN550 1000GB not being detected on boot up or after waking from sleep. I am using an ASUS X99 Deluxe motherboard. The only way to get the SN550 recognised is to restart the computer within Windows, then it will recognise the drive. I am using it as a secondary storage only for apps and games. In my case Windows is installed on another SSD that actually works so I don’t need to go through the BIOS every time, and this is probably why it appears after restarting in Windows. However it is very annoying to have to restart the computer via windows every time it goes to sleep so now I have to leave the PC on without a sleep mode. Would really appreciate a fix for this. I only stumbled on to this thread as a last desperate look for a solution. There must be a large number of people with the same issue.

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Aside from the problem i have with the WD on which Win10 is installed, i also have a problem with a Kingston SSD thats just for storage.
Sometimes, not always, this drive wont show up in windows, but after 10-15 min it shows up and windows asks me what i want to do with the newly detected drive.
So try and wait for 10-15 minutes see if the drive doesnt “miraculously” show up.
Its only this Kingston SSD that does this, none of my other 8 hard drives has any issues.
Have no idea whats with the Asus X99 and the SSD drives, personally i got used to it, i assume its because i have so freaking many hard drives connected, but hey, the reason i stick with the X99 like glue is because its the only chipset that lets me go berserk with the number of drives, and thats important for me.
Doubt we will see a solution for this, it affects only few people (probably the ones with several drives connected), and the X99 is old-ish so i doubt they are still working on Bios updates.

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Think I am having the same issue with a new laptop, I added a SN550 as storage on a dell xps 17 and a few weeks in, the thing will crash and then that drive disappears completely. If I remove and reinsert the drive it will work again for half a day or so. Is there a way to RMA them?

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My Crucial P2 has been working perfectly on my Asus Rampage V Edition 10 (x99) for over twenty days !!!
With the Western Digital SN550, I had problems every day


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I had this problem with same SN550 on 2 different X99 boards (ASrock Extreme 4 3.1 and Asus Rampage V). I logged a support ticket with WD a few weeks back (still open), but since then noticed a firmware update came through on the WD dashboard app. Since applying the new firmware to the drive I have not had a reoccurance of the issue after around a week. Considering the problem was daily, it seems promising the update may have resolved the issue.

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Thank you so much redredleopard, i installed the firmware update and it worked!
Now i can boot my PC without having to spend time admiring the BIOS screen.

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I was very happy to read that a new firmware update was out as I’m having the same issues with this model, my motherboard is Asus z270 Prime A, I updated the firmware version to the lastest 211210WD

but the problem continues


I have the latest bios version installed, windows 10 64bits

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@xabierus Have you tested performance when the 12 GB SLC cache fills up, after your firmware upgrade? (Have a look here)