P3608 wont detect in RSTe on MSI X99S GAMING 9 AC

[H2R2P2]

Hey Everyone,

I have an MSI X99S Gaming 9 AC motherboard with an Intel P3608 PCIE NVME drive. The 3608 is technically two 800GB Intel 750 series drives on the same board and requires a RAID 0 setup in order to get the full performance and capacity out of the single drive. In order to do this "correctly", I need to be able to use the Intel RSTe (Enterprise version of Intel Rapid Storage) to set up the array. While the RSTe program loads up fine, it doesnt detect any of the drives in the system other than my BLU-RAY drive. Having said this, as I eluded to earlier, all drives detect correctly in Disk Management. I have the latest BIOS installed with the updated ME drivers installed as well. If I do the raid via Disk Management, I lose the ability to trim the drive which is obviously not good.

I normally use ASUS motherboards but none of the X99 ASUS boards were out when I built the system. I have always been able to find BIOS's where users patched in the ability to use the Enterprise Intel controller software, but not that I *really* need it (from what I can tell) I have gotten ZERO responses from the MSI forums, so figured I would see if anyone here has run into this before and has any ideas for me to try.

Thanks!

 

[lutjens]

Are you booting in Legacy Mode or in UEFI only mode? No guarantee that you'll be able to see the drives in the RAID Configurator while using UEFI, but you should have a better chance...

 

[H2R2P2]

Are you booting in Legacy Mode or in UEFI only mode? No guarantee that you'll be able to see the drives in the RAID Configurator while using UEFI, but you should have a better chance...

I am booting in UEFI mode and the drives do/did appear in the UEFI motherboard setup (though they are two separate drives there as well). I ended up getting the issue resolved, but long story short is I had to get unreleased drivers from Intel (through a blogger). I should know within a couple weeks if Intel is actually aware of my particular issue or not.

On a side note, there also seems to some additional variables at play here. My system has two Titan X video cards and a Samsung 951 NVME drive (installed on the motherboard). If we look at this from a PCIE lane perspective, I need to run my video cards at 8x (or one at 16x; the other at 8x) as I want full speed for the M2 slot and 8x for the P3608. My MSI motherboard does not allow the user to manually configure how many lanes any given port is using; they seem to think the motherboard is smart enough to figure it out on its own. This turns out not to be the case. So while the unreleased drivers fixed the detection issue I was having in RSTe and also allowed me to set up the array, I had to do more troubleshooting to get the system to perform at full speed.

At some point I think I may move to an Asus X99E WS motherboard. Thats what I initally wanted when building the system but they were unavailable. Now the only question I need to answer is whether it makes sense to do a motherboard upgrade now or should I keep this system as is and wait for the next round of Intel -E processors to come out. I heard its technically supposed to be backwards compatible with current X99 systems, but who knows for sure until its actually announced.

 

[lutjens]

I am booting in UEFI mode and the drives do/did appear in the UEFI motherboard setup (though they are two separate drives there as well). I ended up getting the issue resolved, but long story short is I had to get unreleased drivers from Intel (through a blogger). I should know within a couple weeks if Intel is actually aware of my particular issue or not.

On a side note, there also seems to some additional variables at play here. My system has two Titan X video cards and a Samsung 951 NVME drive (installed on the motherboard). If we look at this from a PCIE lane perspective, I need to run my video cards at 8x (or one at 16x; the other at 8x) as I want full speed for the M2 slot and 8x for the P3608. My MSI motherboard does not allow the user to manually configure how many lanes any given port is using; they seem to think the motherboard is smart enough to figure it out on its own. This turns out not to be the case. So while the unreleased drivers fixed the detection issue I was having in RSTe and also allowed me to set up the array, I had to do more troubleshooting to get the system to perform at full speed.

At some point I think I may move to an Asus X99E WS motherboard. Thats what I initally wanted when building the system but they were unavailable. Now the only question I need to answer is whether it makes sense to do a motherboard upgrade now or should I keep this system as is and wait for the next round of Intel -E processors to come out. I heard its technically supposed to be backwards compatible with current X99 systems, but who knows for sure until its actually announced.

I'd wait a bit and check out the Broadwell-E refresh boards that'll likely be coming out. Surely, there'll be some refreshes of the existing WS boards that various companies have out (this is what I'm doing). As for the Asus X99-E WS, I considered it, but really don't like the idea of the PLX bridge chip (have had too many nightmares in the past with them). The ASRock X99 WS board has no such chip, but has the generic reference socket. I'm hoping a refresh of this board will bring USB 3.1 and the upgraded version of the R3 socket.

 

[H2R2P2]

I'd wait a bit and check out the Broadwell-E refresh boards that'll likely be coming out. Surely, there'll be some refreshes of the existing WS boards that various companies have out (this is what I'm doing). As for the Asus X99-E WS, I considered it, but really don't like the idea of the PLX bridge chip (have had too many nightmares in the past with them). The ASRock X99 WS board has no such chip, but has the generic reference socket. I'm hoping a refresh of this board will bring USB 3.1 and the upgraded version of the R3 socket.

I caved and ordered an Asus X99E-WS USB 3.1: X99-E WS/USB 3.1 - Specifications

Every place I found has them backordered, so it wont actually arrive until the end of April. Figured I would be in queue and could always cancel if something new is on the horizon. As for the PLX bridge chip, what kind of issues did you have? I have various versions of PLX bridge chips through numerous other motherboards and have never had a problem with any of them. As for other ways to add additional PCIE lanes, what methods are there besides changing your CPU (which I already have 40 lanes on) and having PLX bridge chips? The ASROCK X99 also has the PLX bridge chip: ASRock X99 WS-E LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

 

[lutjens]

I caved and ordered an Asus X99E-WS USB 3.1: X99-E WS/USB 3.1 - Specifications

Every place I found has them backordered, so it wont actually arrive until the end of April. Figured I would be in queue and could always cancel if something new is on the horizon. As for the PLX bridge chip, what kind of issues did you have? I have various versions of PLX bridge chips through numerous other motherboards and have never had a problem with any of them. As for other ways to add additional PCIE lanes, what methods are there besides changing your CPU (which I already have 40 lanes on) and having PLX bridge chips? The ASROCK X99 also has the PLX bridge chip: ASRock X99 WS-E LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

The ASRock X99 WS-E indeed has the bridge chip, but the ASRock X99 WS (non-E) doesn't. This is the board whose refresh I'm waiting for.

ASRock > X99 WS

Either that or the Gigabyte GA-X99P-SLI...

The issues I've had in the past were with RAID cards not POSTing properly with what they perceived to be an insufficient lane count (a looping issue). I don't have the time to spend a month bantering back and forth with a RAID card manufacturer's support department before they acknowledge an issue (if they even care about fixing it). I just avoid PLX chips as much as possible. If the motherboard maker has done their homework and provided a proper layout, one can squeak by with 40 lanes most of the time.

Also, I'm avoiding ASUS like the plague for X99...I've heard too many horror stories of inadvertent massive CPU overvoltage going around to risk a $2k CPU.

 

[H2R2P2]

The ASRock X99 WS-E indeed has the bridge chip, but the ASRock X99 WS (non-E) doesn't. This is the board whose refresh I'm waiting for.

ASRock > X99 WS

Either that or the Gigabyte GA-X99P-SLI...

The issues I've had in the past were with RAID cards not POSTing properly with what they perceived to be an insufficient lane count (a looping issue). I don't have the time to spend a month bantering back and forth with a RAID card manufacturer's support department before they acknowledge an issue (if they even care about fixing it). I just avoid PLX chips as much as possible. If the motherboard maker has done their homework and provided a proper layout, one can squeak by with 40 lanes most of the time.

Also, I'm avoiding ASUS like the plague for X99...I've heard too many horror stories of inadvertent massive CPU overvoltage going around to risk a $2k CPU.

Ahh, thanks for the info; didn't realize they had a non-E version. If you dont mind me asking, what updates on the board are you waiting for? Just USB 3.1? While I like all the current functionality and ease of the UEFI's and whatnot, I still wish motherboard manufacturers would let people hard set certain additional aspects of the motherboard configuration rather than relying on their "magic" to figure it out. Yeah, some boards have limited amounts of this (Rampage 4 and 5 come to mind, it has switches to shut off entire ports) but as you eluded to, there are so many different scenarios to consider that motherboard manufacturers simply cant figure out every combo out there.

For example, the system I had this issue with has an i7 5960X, dual Titan X video cards, Samsung 950 NVME m2, and the P3608. I have to enter a card, let the motherboard detect it, shut it down, then insert another card, let it detect, shut down, etc. If this isnt done in a precise manor/order, the M2 slot will get 2 lanes rather than 4, the video vard will get 16 instead of 8, thus making another card lose its connection entirely, bla, bla, bla. Worse yet is the config wont always last past a shutdown so long story short is I had to pull the p3608 until the new board shows up. Its simply not worth the hassle.

I have always been in the habit of hard setting things as much as possible. ASUS has had the over volt issue going back several years now. As you can guess, I end up tweaking and eventually hard setting it. I am not in the business of saving electricity, I just want the performance!