Bad Board?  Read the one star reviews.  That would be my guess at this point.  I do have one of its cousins and I have not had an issue with it.  (Marvell sells this chip to anyone and it is widely used.)  It seems to be hit-or-miss one getting a board that will work.  IF it is in warranty, you might see if you can exchange it.  Remember that the preclear operation will really work the card hard with all of the reads and writes. 

 

EDIT: Read This:    http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12404.msg485620#msg485620

 

Guess I could try a better heatsink. It does get pretty damned hot.

 

Soon I'm going to need something with more than 4 ports, though. Have any suggestions?

 

I have not seen your board but, if you are not going to attempt to RMA it, you could see if you could remove the heatsink and see if it appeared that heatsink compound was properly applied.  When I purchased my card, I picked the one with the largest heatsink (because the expensive 8 port cards all had massive heatsinks) that I could find and this is what I decided on:

 

    https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Express-Controller-HyperDuo-Tiering/dp/B00BUC3N74/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469414353&sr=8-1&keywords=StarTech.com+4+Port+PEXSAT34RH

UPDATE:

 

So I pulled the IOCREST/SYBA card and bought a used Adaptec 1430SA on ebay, flashed latest BIOS to allow drives >2TB.

 

I filled out the RMA form for the Syba card. Waiting to hear back from them.

 

Right now I'm 35 minutes into pre-clearing 3 drives simultaneously.

 

I will post a reply if I have more problems or if anyone asks a question.

Nope. Still did the same thing.

 

Anyone have any tips on BIOS settings to look at or anything?

Disabled XMP, and any on-board mobo stuff I could think of.

 

I moved the card to a different slot, disabled the card BIOS (forgot last time).

 

Now trying to pre-clear the Red 3TB again...

 

This is rough.

Doubt if it is a BIOS setting unless you decided to try overclocking the MB and/or memory. 

 

First, are all of the case, PS, and CPU fans working and are they capable of keeping the case temperature down. 

 

Next guess would be Memory or PS. If the MB and/or Memory are new, I would start there by running a memtst on memory found on unRAID's boot menu.  If they have been in service for more than three months, I would look closely at the PS.  (There have been several instances where this has been the issue lately.  With the number of hard drives you have, you want to check the spec's to make sure that it has only a single 12v rail, not a dual 12v rail-- as all of the hard drive connectors are usually on one rail.  If it is a cheap PS, It could in the initial stage of failure.)

Doubt if it is a BIOS setting unless you decided to try overclocking the MB and/or memory. 

 

First, are all of the case, PS, and CPU fans working and are they capable of keeping the case temperature down. 

 

Next guess would be Memory or PS. If the MB and/or Memory are new, I would start there by running a memtst on memory found on unRAID's boot menu.  If they have been in service for more than three months, I would look closely at the PS.  (There have been several instances where this has been the issue lately.  With the number of hard drives you have, you want to check the spec's to make sure that it has only a single 12v rail, not a dual 12v rail-- as all of the hard drive connectors are usually on one rail.  If it is a cheap PS, It could in the initial stage of failure.)

 

I let memtest run for only 40 minutes this morning after my last post before I had to go somewhere. I changed the settings and slots as I mentioned and preclear has been running steady for 4 hours so far.

 

My PSU is single rail rated for 62A on 12V. See new sig for specs.

 

I stress this: This only happens when I'm preclearing or heavily using drives that are physically connected to a PCI-E SATA controller.

 

I've never made it over 60 minutes into a preclear for a drive connected to that card until now, so here's to hoping it's better now