topic Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset in Solid State Drives (NAND)

P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

andy — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 18:50:21 GMT

NVMe (P44 Pro, model SSDPFKKW020X7) sometimes just disconnects and stops working, smart(attached) reports everything being normal, temperatures are also within reason (around 45-50C, graph of a few minutes before the incident attached). Drive disconnects after about a week or two of uptime (although it was fine for the first month and a half of use). OS is arch linux running kernel version 6.4 (and a few older ones, but this is for the most recent occurrence).

Firmware is on the latest version (checked with the update tool).

I removed the serial number from my smart output (just to be safe), but can send it if needed.

I saw someone with what looks like a related issue (on windows, I assume it's blue-screen-ing due to a spontaneous disconnect): https://community.solidigm.com/t5/solid-state-drives-nand/p44pro-too-hot-to-lose-disk/td-p/24074

Tempurture of nvme drivekernel logs of drive disconnectingsmart output of drive after rebooting

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

SolidigmNebiyu — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 07:24:53 GMT

Hi andy,

Thank you for contacting Solidigm™ Support.

The NVMe drivers that are validated on the Solidigm Synergy CLI are supported on the following operating systems on x64 Architecture:

Windows:

Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, 2022
Windows 10, 11
Windows PE

For more information, please refer to SOLIDIGM™ SYNERGY CLI user guide.

Kind regards,
Nebiyu
Solidigm Customer Support

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

andy — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 15:35:31 GMT

I used to swear by samsung ssds as being reliable, but I was not happy with their handling of firmware issues in their recent 980 and 990. So I decided to give solidigm a change, from your response it looks like that was a mistake.

I'm also confused as to what you're trying to tell me with the synergy cli user guide link. What exactly will this provide that I didn't already include in my screenshots. The only relevant looking thing that I didn't include is the nvme (error) log, which I can check from linux, if you want, I can send it as a text file, but all the entries just say "status 0, Successful Completion: The command completed without error".

Should I take your response as "Don't buy our products anymore, we don't support linux."? In that case I guess I could mark the "solution" as accepted.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

SolidigmNebiyu — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 12:18:03 GMT

Hi andy,

It appears there might have been a misunderstanding in our previous correspondence so we have created an internal ticket on your behalf as we need more information regarding your drive so that we can address the recent interaction and provide clarity on the matter.

You will be receiving an email from our support soon.

Kind regards,
Nebiyu
Solidigm Customer Support

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

oscarfowler — Sat, 25 May 2024 23:41:58 GMT

Was there ever a resolution to this? I'm seeing the same behavior on Windows 10. I've had a crash around once a month for the last 7 months or so ever since I replaced my system drive with a Solidigm P44 Pro 2TB.

The system stops responding and fails to write a crash report to the drive. Upon reboot, the drive no longer shows up in the BIOS. (I have two of these NVMe drives installed, and only the one with the boot/system partition on it is missing when this happens. The other drive still shows as normal.) Powering-down the system and restarting restores normal operation until the next time it crashes.

I tried contacting support, but they wouldn't do anything about it, since the drive's SMART data shows no problems.

I finally got sick of the issue after another crash yesterday and replaced the drive with a Samsung 990 Pro.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

andy — Sun, 26 May 2024 13:33:30 GMT

> Was there ever a resolution to this?
TL;DR: Same thing that happened to you, I switched to samsung and haven't looked back (no issues in the last 8 months)

Full story:
A ticket was opened and I talked to support. They had me send a smart log using one of their tools, but no errors were found there. They had me try a few things like re-installing the OS, switching the port the NVMe was plugged into, try it in a different computer - none of which really worked (but was hard to test because it took weeks for the issue to manifest).

Eventually they sent me an email stating that I have an unsupported configuration and a link to the warranty - having read through that I noticed that it said that they do not support "any computer ... *that supports* workloads ... of more than one concurrent user or one or more remote client device concurrently". Which to me sounds like they don't support WIndows 10/11 Pro (you can RDP onto a machine - remote user; you can share files on the drive over samba). So it "supports" multiple users or concurrent client devices accessing the drives. The "supports" bit means that you don't even have to use those features for them to tell you that you're out of the warranty.

I did end up giving the drive away to a friend (having told him this story) in hopes that the windows drivers would function better... but I guess not.

-----

Having written this again, I would be interested in trying to set the NVMe drive to use a PCIe4 x1 connection (instead of x4 lanes like usual). This should get rid of the concurrent accesses (which seems to be a know bug given the wording of the warranty). But that would negate the performance benefits of using NVMe.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

oscarfowler — Sun, 26 May 2024 14:34:23 GMT

That exception in the warranty is crazy, since Linux, Windows and Mac all support concurrent users in one way or another (e.g. opening up SSH).

Thanks for posting your reply - I wasn't willing to waste the time re-installing the operating system, testing with a different drive, or putting the drive in another machine. All of those tests are an onerous burden on the customer, especially considering you'd have to wait weeks or longer after the change to confirm whether any change had occurred. If I was going to spend the time swapping out the drive and/or reinstalling the OS, I was going to do it with a different brand drive and greatly improve my chances of not having to do it again.

I saw your post before I called their support. Though it's possible that it's a software bug that affects both Linux and Windows, I think it's more likely a hardware bug. I guess we'll never know since they seem disinterested in diagnosing the issue.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

komugi — Sat, 08 Jun 2024 16:23:32 GMT

I hoped this topic would solve my problem, but unfortunately seems like I need to just get a Samsung 990P.

Running Windows with Wsl2 for Dev, I'm definitely getting random restarts, I got lucky on one of crashes and had task manager up and saw that the P44 Pro jumped to 100% utilization, and I had system stutters before completely disappearing from the task manager, which then crashed out.

It also happens sometimes during system daily backups running Veeam agent, got a BSOD of 'Critical Process Died' and on a restart, the Nvme would disappear from the EFI detection until I did a full power off and restart.

Documenting this just as FYI. I have a 990 on order to replace this drive since it seems like it's a hardware issue.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

oscarfowler — Sun, 09 Jun 2024 05:25:54 GMT

I'll report back if anything changes, but I haven't had an issue since switching to the 990. If Solidigm acknowledge there's an issue with these drives, I'm might try them again in the future, but the lack of any interest in investigating this means they're off my list permanently.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

Drayvn — Sat, 10 Aug 2024 15:18:31 GMT

Thankfully i found this thread, i've been figuring out why my System keeps crashing just like a everybody else in here, everything would just hang, then BSOD, and if restarted normally the SSD would be missing from Disk Management

It would require a hard reset for the SSD to show up again. This only seems to occur in Diablo 4 as sometimes it seems it needs to access a lot small data files at the same time and the SSD goes to 100% utilisation with pretty much no MB/S throughput.

I was able to rectify the situation a little bit but installing all my games on a 2nd P44 Pro SSD and instead of BSODing it would just undock the 2nd SSD and so the OS would be safe to continue. Though there would still be issues.

So it looks like i just need to replace the P44 Pro, such a shame as the cost of these are great and are just about as good as the 980/990 Pro.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

Drayvn — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 02:43:49 GMT

Just in case anyone reads this, i've limited my M2 slot to Gen 3 speeds in the BIOS and so far i haven't had a crash since, will keep testing and abusing to see if this problem rears it's ugly head. But so far, limiting your M2 slot in the BIOS to Gen 3 speeds seems to maybe fix it?!

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

oscarfowler — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 16:56:16 GMT

I suspect it's more likely to delay the problem than eliminate it. But even if it does keep it from happening again, I'd call this a workaround, not a fix.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

oscarfowler — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 16:57:43 GMT

Just about 3 months since I replaced my P44 with a Samsung 990. For anyone wondering: I've not had a single reboot or crash since replacing the drive. And this is despite the fact that I've gone through some very heavy usage periods in that time.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

komugi — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 21:26:19 GMT

For what it's worth, I did a warranty claim from Solidigm, they did honor and replace the drive. However currently I am running 990 with no problems, so I have the soldigim as a spare, and don't really have a desire to test out to see if the new drive fixed it or if it's a systemic issue.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

SolidigmGleb — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 06:16:03 GMT

Dear oscarfowler,

Thank you for the information provided. We are sorry that you have a problem with our drive.

We would like to suggest you use a standard driver, as it might help to solve your issue. Anyway, you always can contact us to create a case by using this link- Create Case · Customer Self-Service (solidigm.com)

Kind regards,
Gleb
Solidigm Customer Support

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

Drayvn — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 10:21:36 GMT

You're right, it is a work around and it didn't last, i've since replaced the drive with a 990 Pro and haven't had the problem since, will still use the P44 Pro SSD as purely storage but will never use it for heavy workloads or even sustained workloads again

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

Lagoochu360 — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 13:49:17 GMT

This issue still occurs on Solidigm P44 Pro SSDs on Windows 11 24H2. Using the default Microsoft Stornvme driver or Solidigm Synergy driver will cause SSD timeouts in GPU Decompression Directstorage games such as Final Fantasy XVI & Ratchet Rift Apart which crashes the whole PC system. Switching to another SSD solves the issue.

Solidigm needs to issue a software update for their SSD or it is virtually unusable and people will not buy Solidigm SSDs again and instead buy from more reputable brands such as Samsung.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

oscarfowler — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 14:01:35 GMT

Sorry to hear this is still an issue. I haven't had a single crash since I switched out my P44 Pro for a Samsung 990 Pro back in May. All the rest of my equipment and operating conditions have remained the same. I've put the machine through quite a number of stress tests since that time, and there've been no crashes.

The worst part of this was not being able to get Solidigm support to acknowledge any problem simply because the SMART data looked fine. They didn't offer to swap the drive or look more closely into the issue. If they'd done that, I would've at least given their product a second chance.

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

SolidigmGleb — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 15:43:34 GMT

Dear oscarfowler,

Thank you for sharing your experience. We regret that you faced this issue and felt unsupported. If you encounter any further problems or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us again. We’d be happy to take a closer look and assist you with a solution. You can contact by using this link- Create Case · Customer Self-Service (solidigm.com)

Kind regards,
Gleb
Solidigm Customer Support

Re: P44 Pro nvme controller is down will reset

iskxcr — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 12:18:54 GMT

Around Nov. 01 I noticed that my P44 Pro 2TB (purchased summer of 2023) as system drive would sometimes fail after a couple of days of heavy use, for which I tried swapping out the motherboard and even ordering another entire new P44 Pro.

I am using a fresh new installation of Windows 23H2 on these two P44 Pro drives and any driver-related problems should never exist.

It took me like two weeks to find this post, and many thanks to you guys so that I can now confidently switch to 990P without swapping out my CPU again to check if I've got its PCIe controller damaged or something else. To confirm that I've already switched my mobo from X670E Hero to X870 Hero.

My condition is similar to OP's @andy : No SMART errors, no critical/error events in the Event Viewer. The OS just suddenly freezes and after a while goes to black screen (or BSOD somtimes). It then automatically restarts into BIOS, and my system drive would no longer appear in the boot list. (However, the other P44 Pro, which I use as a storage drive, is completely fine). I have to do a hard reset on my PSU so that the drive can be recognized again by my hardware.

This is definitely a hardware issue, and I am not expecting it to be solved by any software updates. After all it's been around 1 years since this post and people are still experiencing the same issue. From what I see in @Lagoochu360 's reply, I'd say this is irrelevant to my VM/Docker configuration I guess. What's funnier is that I haven't even stressed my drive to experience this because the last time it fails, which is about 20 minutes before this post, I was only writing some C code (not even compiling) in VSCode.