Air 540 - Suspected Faulty Hot Swap Bay

Hello and good morning,

 

Couple weeks ago I thought i'd treat myself to one of the pre-overclocked bundles (Z87) from scan.co.uk. I'd overclocked before myself but thought being as the Corsair H100i was involved I'd prefer Scan to stress test the bundle before I installed the bundle in my case and fired everything up. Bundle details as follows:

 

Intel Core i7 4770K, Haswell, 3.5GHz, Quad Core with HT, 8MB Cache

Corsair H100i Hydro - CPU Cooler

ASUS Maximus VI Hero, Intel Z87 Chipset

16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro Red, 1866Mhz

 

Hard Drive Used (separate to bundle):

128GB Samsung 840 PRO SSD

 

After installing Windows 7 64bit and installing all drivers/utilities from the DVD which came with the motherboard - I quickly discovered USB 3.0 wasn't working correctly, (in the front USB3.0 ports on the case and the ports directly on the motherboard at the rear), by that I mean data would only transfer at 30-40mb/s and then hang half way through for 1-2mins before (usually) continuing the transfer, however sometimes the transfer would not continue and instead the external USB drive would drop connection all together before reconnecting moments later. USB2.0 ports worked correctly as normal. Also, other external USB3.0 drives were tested. Same thing.

 

I'll continue via bullet points with regards to next steps/discoveries as that may be easier to read:

 

• Installed the latest drivers and utilities from the ASUS website (CHIPSET/IMEI/LAN/ACPI/USB3.0)
  
• USB3.0 now worked correctly but system/SSD would now intermittently hang at Windows Splash Screen during boot and arbitrary software installations for 30-60 seconds
  
• Checked all connections/ports/device manager - no exclamation marks
  
• Suspected issue may be a bad overclock by Scan.
  
• Cleared CMOS - confirmed bios was in default/automatic mode with zero overclocking
  
• Issue not resolved
  
• Reinstalled Windows 7 64bit - No issues with hanging - started installing latest drivers/utilities again
  
• Installed latest chipset drivers from ASUS website - system immediately hung during next boot
  
• Reinstalled older chipset drivers from mobo DVD - System would no longer hang but USB3.0 now "broken" again.
  
• Again reinstalled latest chipset drivers from ASUS website - system immediately hung during next boot

 

I arranged an RMA with Scan as I was convinced it was a motherboard issue, and unfortunately/unbelievably they couldn't replicate either issue - I informed ASUS of the response from scan and they advised they have seen a notable amount of issues regarding hot swap bays (not just in the Air 540) and that's most likely the problem.

 

I should receive the parts back tomorrow to test. But in the meantime, just a thought:

 

Could the hot swap bay *still* be responsible even though the faults alter when different chipset drivers are installed?

 

How would chipset drivers alter the behaviour of the hot swap bay?

 

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

Is the USB3 issue with just the front panel connections?

 

I have to ask where the connection to the hotswap bay comes in? It has nothing to do with USB3 operation. And if it's just USB3.0 that's giving you troubles, it's not a bad overclock either. You would notice other instabilities besides just that.

 

Could the hot swap bay *still* be responsible even though the faults alter when different chipset drivers are installed?

 

I informed ASUS of the response from scan and they advised they have seen a notable amount of issues regarding hot swap bays (not just in the Air 540) and that's most likely the problem.

I would love to know how ASUS came up with that. It's either a bad I/O panel if thats the only USB3.0 posrts that your using, or it's the MB.

Many thanks for your response. It's happening on all ports, not just the front panel one's.

 

What's annoying is with one version of the chipset driver USB 3.0 works fine, but the HDD then plays up. And with the other, presumably older version of the chipset drivers (the version that comes with the mobo DVD); the HDD works fine but USB 3.0 doesn't work correctly.

 

How it wasn't able to be replicated is incredible.

What's annoying is with one version of the chipset driver USB 3.0 works fine, but the HDD then plays up. And with the other, presumably older version of the chipset drivers (the version that comes with the mobo DVD); the HDD works fine but USB 3.0 doesn't work correctly.

 

Yeah, there is just something wrong with that board. Just to be sure, make sure the HSB isn't plugged into your MB anywhere and retest your USB ports. If you continue to get your problems then you have a definite answer. It can't be the HSB if it isn't connected.

Everything else is fine with my new case, but I can't get the mobo to see the two hotswap drives at all.

 

I've tried using multiple SATA connections, hotswapping the drives, checked connections...nothing.

 

I feel like either there's some software issue or I'm just totally missing something obvious...

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance.

As a recent owner of the Air 540 and having problems myself, when you insert the hot swap bays you will hear a click, when you hear this you need to firmly push the drive in. Really push it in.

Thanks for the reply. I have pushed really hard. I can't really get it in further.

 

Even my BIOS is not seeing it. So maybe it has a hardware problem...Hmm.

OK, well, I found the culprit. After extensive "isolate the variable" troubleshooting, I realized that the problem was in a power cable. The two heads on it that connected to the two hotswap cables are bad. -Not sure how they went bad in the transfer from one case to another, but whatever. Once I connected the hotswap power cables to different headers, they work fine.

Having the exact same issues on the Air 540 :( Before i found out what it was, it was causing my computer not to boot or when it did i got random crashes. Then usb ports stopped working.

 

After unplugging everything and re-doing everything, i found out it was one of the hot swap bays causing some sort of short. I thought about RMA'ing it but not worth it if its just that. Will keep an eye out for other stuff.