Computer will not POST with new NVMe drive

[Doogos]

Hello all! 

 

I have a minor issue with this new SSD, when it is installed in either of my M.2 ports, my PC simply will not POST. I have tried removing my one SATA cable all together, and moving it to any of my other six SATA ports.

 

Here's some basic computer info that might be necessary to help:

Motherboard: MSI x470 Gaming Plus

Current drive: Samsung 500GB SATA SSD

New drive: Crucial 1TB P3 PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 SSD

 

The motherboard documentation says that the top M.2 port only allows PCIe mode, and the second M.2 port will disable SATA_1, but as stated above the computer will not POST when the drive is installed in either port. The PC will simply turn on, the fans spin, the monitor turns on but nothing is displayed, not even the MSI splash screen for the BIOS. I am unable to access BIOS settings when the drive is installed. Once I remove the drive the computer will POST.

 

Any help is appreciated, I'm hoping that I'm missing some sort of BIOS setting instead of the drive being dead.

Thanks for any replies!

[Jimby]

Do you have any additional cards installed in other PCIE slots?  The M.2 shares the same bus as the small PCIE slots on my X470 board.  I had to move my sound card to the other (larger) 8x slot to free up the drive access.

 

[Doogos]

4 minutes ago, Jimby said:

Do you have any additional cards installed in other PCIE slots?  The M.2 shares the same bus as the small PCIE slots on my X470 board.  I had to move my sound card to the other (larger) 8x slot to free up the drive access.

 

Yes! I do have a network card installed in my last express lane, however I moved it to one of the larger lanes when I attempted to install the M.2 NVMe SSD, as I saw that M2_2 would remove the functionality of the 6th PCIe lane. I also have my video card installed in the first slot

 

Full computer info:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700

Memory: GSKILL 8GB x2

SSD: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB

Network Card: Intel(r) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260

GPU:  XFX Radeon RX 590 Series

[Jimby]

Ok, that is good.  I'm assuming that your SSD is a PCIE version and not SATA, so it will have to go in the M2_1 slot.  It won't work in the other.  It also looks like having anything in the M2_1 won't conflict with any other slots.  So, essentially if the drive is in the M2_1 slot, it should work.  If it doesn't, perhaps the drive is faulty.  Do you have any other M.2 SSDs around to test?

 

[Doogos]

7 minutes ago, Jimby said:

Ok, that is good.  I'm assuming that your SSD is a PCIE version and not SATA, so it will have to go in the M2_1 slot.  It won't work in the other.  It also looks like having anything in the M2_1 won't conflict with any other slots.  So, essentially if the drive is in the M2_1 slot, it should work.  If it doesn't, perhaps the drive is faulty.  Do you have any other M.2 SSDs around to test?

 

I will have to retry using M2_1 as I'm not sure I installed it correctly the first time I attempted this task. I have watched some videos on making sure it was properly attached last night when I was trying the M2_2 PORT.

 

Unfortunately I do not have any additional M.2 SSDs to test, this is my first one for my PC. I'm more than a little bummed at this experience.

 

I do have to question if the computer would still have had the POST issue if the drive wasn't fully installed. For instance, if it wasn't fully connected would it have POST but not shown the drive installed?

[Jimby]

It really depends, if only some of the contacts were making a connection from the drive, it could cause issues.  Sometimes devices can cause a short if things are not connected properly.  The trick with M.2 drives is to take your time.  Put the drive in on an angle, say 45 degrees and push it into the slot as far as it will go.  Then push the drive down towards the motherboard and screw it in.  Also, have you updated your boards bios since you bought it?

 

[Jimby]

45 degree angle might be a bit high, 30 is more like it. 

 

[Doogos]

4 minutes ago, Jimby said:

45 degree angle might be a bit high, 30 is more like it. 

 

30 was about the angle I did last night when testing M2_2.

 

Also, I have no updated the BIOS, I will do that as well. Thank you for the suggestions! I will update with further information when possible!

[Jimby]

You are welcome.  Best of luck to you.

 

[Doogos]

5 hours ago, Jimby said:

You are welcome.  Best of luck to you.

 

THANK YOU! I was extremely worried that my new NVMe SSD was defective. Apparently my BIOS was extremely outdated. I was about three versions behind the most recent release. I installed the drive into M2_1, not expecting it to work and windows loaded right up.

 

Used the Disk Management tool to format the drive and assign a drive letter, I can now use it as expected.

 

Edit: Also, it appears that updating my BIOS has fixed the memory issue I had as well. It was not running at the correct speed this entire time. I feel like I have a brand new computer.