Win7 AIDA64 problem with Samsung 850 Pro SMART data

[DSperber]

I have opened a support ticket on this problem weeks ago, but so far have received only initial acknowledgement and no status update beyond "works for us, must be something at your end".  Well that's not much of a diagnostic interest in getting to the bottom of exactly what it really might be "at my end" which is responsible for the AIDA64 failure, and it is indeed failing... but only in Win7, as it works properly in Win10.

I believe I have completely analyzed the situation and have a complete understanding of the circumstances and clues. All I ask is help from FinalWire, to fix the problem... which is unique to the Win7 execution of AIDA64.

Background: I own four different size Samsung 850 Pro SSD drives, 128GB, 256G, 512GB and 1TB.  With previous versions EXM02BQQ or EXM03B6Q of the drive firmware all four of them used to have a unique Hardware ID (as shown by Device Manager), that contained both (a) a character string identifying the drive as "Samsung SSD 850 Pro", and (b) a character string identifying the size of the drive, such as "128G", "256G", "512G" or "1TB".  However now with the latest EXM04B6Q version of the drive firmware, the devices now have somewhat different Hardware ID's than they used to have. 

Thankfully for AIDA64, with EXM04B6Q firmware installed the 128GB and 256GB versions of the drive still do have unique Hardware ID's that identify both the drive and its size correctly, to Device Manager as well as to AIDA64.  However the EXM04B6Q firmware "broke" the Hardware ID for the larger 512GB and 1TB versions of the drive.  For these larger models the Hardware ID is non-unique (but in fact identical for both drive models), and also does NOT contain either of the expected character strings identifying the drive model and size.  And it is THIS which has caused problems for AIDA64 running in the Win7 environment.  By sheer luck, Win10 Device Manager is "smarter" than in Win7, and apparently is perhaps looking at the still-unique "world wide name" identity of each drive model, rather than just the Hardware ID. 

So AIDA64 running in Win10 doesn't have a problem knowing that this is a Samsung 850 Pro SSD drive of a certain size, and that SMART data is obtainable, and therefore drive temperature is available for reporting.

However AIDA64 running in Win7 cannot determine that this is a Samsung 850 Pro SSD drive of a certain size, and thus NO SMART DATA IS RETRIEVED, and therefore no drive temperature is available for reporting.

That's the problem.  Note that even though the cause of the problem has really come from Samsung by screwing up the Hardware ID for the two 512GB and 1TB larger models of the product family, this causes no issue for the HWINFO64 or CrystalDiskInfo software products, which clearly are making use of the still-unique "world wide name" value to still correctly identify the drive make/model/size.  It is only AIDA64 running in Win7, which fails to properly identify the 512GB and 1TB models of this drive with EXM04B6Q firmware installed (even though it sill correctly identifies the smaller 128GB and 256GB models as their Hardware ID is still "acceptably unique").

I would guess that, like me, any other Win7 AIDA64 users of the Samsung 850 Pro SSD in the 512GB or 1TB sizes should be experiencing the identical Win7 AIDA64 failure to present drive temperature (even though the identical machine and drive WILL see Win10 AIDA64 present drive temperature, simply because Win10 Device Manager works differently than Win7 Device Manager). It would be comforting to me if other Win7 AIDA64 users could confirm that they, too, see my symptom with this drive and EXM04B6Q firmware.

 

Here are the specifics, as I know them right now, based on my research.  Note that the 256GB model is from someone else, who didn't provide everything and so I cannot really vouch for the 100% accuracy of that drive's details. But I was able to gather info for myself for the other three drive sizes which I actually have installed in my own machines.

 

(1) 512GB with EXM04B6Q (AIDA64 does Not retrieve SMART data in Win7, and does NOT present drive temperature; Win10 AIDA64 works fine)

(a) Hardware ID:  SCSI\DiskSamsung_SSD_____________EXM0

(b) Win7 Device Manager disk drive name:  "Samsung SSD SCSI Disk Device"

(c) Win10 Device Manager disk drive name:  "Samsung SSD 850 Pro 512GB"

(d) HWINFO64 drive name:  "Samsung SSD 850 Pro 512GB", world wide name:  50025388400576F2

(e) CrystalDiskInfo:  "Samsung SSD 850 Pro 512GB"

 

(2) 1TB with EXM04B6Q (AIDA64 does Not retrieve SMART data in Win7, and does NOT present drive temperature; Win10 AIDA64 works fine)

(a) Hardware ID:  SCSI\DiskSamsung_SSD_____________EXM0

(b) Win7 Device Manager disk drive name:  "Samsung SSD SCSI Disk Device"

(c) Win10 Device Manager disk drive name:  n/a

(d) HWINFO64 drive name:  "Samsung SSD 850 Pro 1TB", world wide name:  5002538C4043F52C

(e) CrystalDiskInfo:  "Samsung SSD 850 Pro 512GB"

 

(3) 128GB with EXM04B6Q (AIDA64 retrieves SMART data in both Win7 and Win10, and does present drive temperature in both)

(a) Hardware ID:  SCSI\Disk_Samsun_SSD_850_Pro_128GEXM0

(b) Win7 Device Manager disk drive name:  "Samsun SSD 850 Pro 128G SCSI Disk Device"

(c) Win10 Device Manager disk drive name:  n/a

(d) HWINFO64 drive name:  "Samsung SSD 850 Pro 128GB", world wide name:  50025388401AD82D

(e) CrystalDiskInfo:  "Samsung SSD 850 Pro 128GB"

 

(4) 256GB with EXM04B6Q (AIDA64 retrieves SMART data in both Win7 and Win10, and does present drive temperature in both)

(a) Hardware ID:  SCSI\DiskSamsung_SSD_850_PRO_256GEXM0

(b) Win7 Device Manager disk drive name:  "Samsung SSD 850 PRO 256GB"

(c) Win10 Device Manager disk drive name:  n/a

(d) HWINFO64 drive name:  n/a

(e) CrystalDiskInfo:  n/a

 

[Fiery]

The "SCSI\" prefix in the hardware ID indicates that your drives are not connected via a standard IDE or AHCI mode SATA controller, but to a RAID controller or special SATA controller.  In which case you need to enable both the following options in AIDA64 / main menu / Preferences / Stability.

RAID member enumeration
RAID SMART support

Please note that you need to enable those even if you don't have a RAID array in your system.  If enabling those options and restarting AIDA64 still wouldn't fix the issue, then please right-click on the bottom status bar of AIDA64 main window --> Disk Debug --> RAID Dump. Copy-paste the full results into this topic, or attach the results as a TXT file to your post. You may need to enable status bar in AIDA64 / main menu / View first.

Then right-click on the bottom status bar of AIDA64 main window --> Disk Debug --> SMART Dump. Copy-paste the full results into this topic, or attach the results as a TXT file to your post.

Finally, right-click on the bottom status bar of AIDA64 main window --> Disk Debug --> Disk Controllers Dump. Copy-paste the full results into this topic, or attach the results as a TXT file to your post.

Those debug outputs would be a great help for us to understand the nature of the issue. Please note that you don't need to perform those dumps for the system (Win10) where everything works properly, but only for the system (Win7) where you have one or more drives missing from the SMART readout.

Thanks,
Fiery

[DSperber]

Well, that did it!!

But I think we need to pin this down more precisely, as I have three machines running Win7 with 850 Pro drives all of which have EXM04B6Q firmware.  I need to enumerate what really is the "RAID" aspect of this, since I'm not actually running RAID on any of these machines. But I do have Intel RST installed on all three of these (which I thought would "improve" SATA performance even in a non-RAID situation).  So it might have been installing Intel RST which was really responsible for the disappearance of drive temperature (i.e. SMART data), and not actually the firmware upgrade to EXM04B6Q.

On the other hand, it could be something working together between EXM04B6Q and Intel RST, because I'm sure I was very careful to confirm that on my P70 still running with EXM03B6Q I still had drive temperature, and it was only after upgrading to EXM04B6Q that the drive temperature disappeared immediately.  So this couldn't have had anything to do with Intel RST.

Furthermore, on one of my machines (with the 128GB 850 Pro, which also has the "unique" Hardware ID that has complete 850 Pro and 128G character strings) Intel RST is also installed, and the two RAID SMART are NOT checked, and yet I DO get SMART data and drive temperature. But the other two machines running with the larger 512GB and 1TB models that have the "generic: Hardware ID that is missing the critical character strings (or at least I think they're critical), the SMART data and drive temperature vanished once EXM04B6Q was applied.

And ALL of these drives have a Hardware ID that starts with SCSI.

So, all three of these Win7 Pro machines are Skylake chipset motherboards, all have an 850 Pro with firmware EXM04B6Q, and all have Intel RST installed to "enhance SATA performance".  All three machines show "Intel 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller" in Device Manager, but the version of Intel RST installed is different on all three machines (but supposedly most current for that machine, per the hardware vendor).

(1) Lenovo P70 laptop, 512GB 850 Pro, Intel RST 15.7.0.1074: AIDA64 did not show drive temperature until the two RAID items were checked, and now it does.

(2) ASUS Z170-Deluxe desktop, 1TB 850 Pro, Intel RST 15.7.1.1015: AIDA64 did not show drive temperature until the two RAID items were checked, and now it does.

(3) Lenovo M800 SFF desktop, 128GB 850 Pro, Intel RST 14.5.0.1081; AIDA64 always showed drive temperature even though two RAID items are NOT checked!!!

I am still of the opinion that there is more connection to the Device Manager disk drive name, and the "generic" Hardware ID value for the 512GB and 1TB models which adds yet one more variable to the mix. The fact that the M800 situation with the 128GB model where Intel RST is also installed but which has the "unique" Hardware ID and which also does NOT have the two RAID items checked and yet where AIDA64 actually DOES report drive temperature... how can this be, unless there is more significance to the "unique" device name character string shown in Device Manager and/or Hardware ID which is equally as useful in identifying the SMART-capability of the drive, even if those two RAID sensor checkboxes are left unchecked for AIDA64.

In other words that must be some explanation for why the SMART data is still obtained for the 128GB model (with the "unique" Hardware ID) even though Intel RST is also installed as with the other stories, and even though the two RAID boxes are NOT checked.  This 128GB model is the only one whose Hardware ID is "unique" and complete, with fully identifying info. And yet all three model's Hardware ID start with SCSI, so that can't be critical.

 

Anyway, there is no question that your suggested solution DID WORK!  I now have SMART data (and thus drive temperature) not only for the Samsung 850 Pro SSD, but also for the other SATA HDD devices in the machine, which also have SCSI at the start of their Hardware ID... which also had mysteriously disappeared, I think once I installed Intel RST that is when SCSI showed up, and perhaps was really the start of my AIDA64 disappearing drive SMART data problems.

I believe it is really Intel RST which is what necessitates the two RAID boxes to be checked, in order to retrieve SMART data from ANY SATA DEVICE, SSD or HDD. But then there is that mystery of the 128GB 850 Pro which is getting SMART data and yet does NOT have the two RAID boxes checked!!!  What's the answer there?

[Fiery]

Intel RST and the different modes that an Intel SATA controller could operate in are the key factors to those anomalies.  It's less to do about the firmware version used.  The firmware update may have triggered RST to reenumerate the connected drives, and/or triggered Windows to install a different driver for the SSD device.  The whole storage subsystem of Windows is a big mystery with a lot of variables that change across not just major Windows releases (like going from Win7 to Win10), but also between major Win10 updates and RST versions as well.  You may try to find the root cause of the whole anomaly, but IMHO it's not worth the hassle.  Just leave the two RAID options enabled on all your systems, and only disable them if you experience any issues.  Such an issue could be when on the splash screen AIDA64 displays Scanning RAID Devices and stucks there, never being able to step further on the initialization process.  But that fortunately is not a common occurence