Gigabyte Z590 AORUS ELITE AX - third M.2 port (M2P_SB) not detecting NVMe SSD

[p_andrej_]

Hello.

 

I've bought this motherboard a week ago and filled almost all ports with components upon arrival. Today, I got a second Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB that I installed on the remaining M2P_SB port, and I just couldn't get it to show anywhere. I checked on Windows (Disk Management, Device Manager, diskpart), and then in BIOS (I tried enabling CSM as seen in some video, but it always showed N/A for M2P_SB). I thought it was a bad SSD, but after switching places of the two 970 EVO Pluses, it turned out that the port M2P_SB wasn't recognizing anything (the SSD is not faulty since it worked on the MSB_SB port). I'm worried that the M2P_SB port might be faulty (I attached a picture of it), and my technician and I realized that the first 3 pins from the left look different than the others. He told me I should try tweaking them with the needle (since it seems like they're a bit higher or lower then others), but I'm not sure about that. I'm hoping that there's a way around this, since I'd have to wait quite a lot for the replacement motherboard if I sent it back, so I'd first like to ask for your help if you had the same issue, or are familiar with this and know how, and if it can be fixed. Thank you in advance!

 

 

Here's a picture of a working M.2 port from my old Gigabyte B560M H motherboard for comparison.

 

 

And here are some of my specs that might be useful:

• OS - Windows 10

• Motherboard - Gigabyte Z590 AORUS ELITE AX

• CPU - Intel i7 11700KF

• M.2 SSD (M2A_CPU) - Samsung 980 PRO 500GB

• M.2 SSD (M2B_SB) - Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB

• SATA SSD (port 3) - Innovation IT Basic 240GB

• SATA HDD (port 2) - Seagate Barracuda 2TB

[Kon-Tiki]

I'd suggest you try to disconnect every other storage device from the system (SATA and PCIe based) and only install a drive in the M2P_SB port. Then check in the BIOS if it is recognized.

[p_andrej_]

7 minutes ago, Kon-Tiki said:

I'd suggest you try to disconnect every other storage device from the system (SATA and PCIe based) and only install a drive in the M2P_SB port. Then check in the BIOS if it is recognized.

I thought about that, and I also got that suggestion from few other people, but I didn't try it yet because there's nothing about only-one-port-being-available-at-the-time in the user manual. But I will give it a try tonight though, just to be sure.

[Kon-Tiki]

2 minutes ago, p_andrej_ said:

I thought about that, and I also got that suggestion from few other people, but I didn't try it yet because there's nothing about only-one-port-being-available-at-the-time in the user manual. But I will give it a try tonight though, just to be sure.

Yes, I looked at the manual as well and saw the same thing. The reasoning behind why I recommend that anyway is that sometimes issues are not that straight forward. On a mainboard of mine I ran into a problem with my PCIe lanes as well. Turns out having a certain device configuration installed caused it. So it's a bit of a shot in the dark, true, but perhaps it can resolve the problem or give you more clues about it anyway

 

[p_andrej_]

18 minutes ago, Kon-Tiki said:

Yes, I looked at the manual as well and saw the same thing. The reasoning behind why I recommend that anyway is that sometimes issues are not that straight forward. On a mainboard of mine I ran into a problem with my PCIe lanes as well. Turns out having a certain device configuration installed caused it. So it's a bit of a shot in the dark, true, but perhaps it can resolve the problem or give you more clues about it anyway

 

Oh, that gives me an idea, that maybe two of the same NVMe SSDs can't be installed at the same time? I guess it's stupid, but just maybe  Unfortunately, I don't have another NVMe SSD for that test, so I'll try your recommendation and let you know the results  thank you for the suggestion!

[p_andrej_]

6 hours ago, Kon-Tiki said:

I'd suggest you try to disconnect every other storage device from the system (SATA and PCIe based) and only install a drive in the M2P_SB port. Then check in the BIOS if it is recognized.

Unfortunately, those three pins are the problem in the end... after trying what you suggested, it still didn't recognize it in BIOS  I talked with the retailer and he said it would take 40 days until I get a new or repaired motherboard, so I'll go with the SATA III SSD, or try to find a technician who could fix it  thank you again for your suggestion!