So I got a cute lil' 500GB M.2 NVMe drive for my main PC, and despite having an M.2 slot it looks like it will never support NVMe drives, even with the latest BIOS. Granted, the motherboard is around five years old now, but I didn't think that the M.2 slot would basically be for decoration in so little time. Suffice to say, I can't be ar$ed wasting time finding a drive that will work, so I'm returning the M.2 and getting an old-fashioned SATA drive for the new Windows install. Anyone else have a similar experience?
It was a bit of a mess at the beginning TBH. Some board companies were putting a slot on there that was WIFI only etc. Then there were the different "Key" versions and etc. Seems to be better now. Do you have any X4 or better PCIE slots available?
Is that on the board in your sig? If so, it definitely supports NVMe SSDs but it won't show it in UEFI.
A bit confusingly M.2 is a single slot with more than one interface. You can get SATA M.2 drives that should work, albeit only at the same speed as a normal SATA drive in a different form factor. It would at least be a bit neater and make use of the slot though. EDIT: Also this: ...According to a quick google.
Yeah, honestly I thought that the NVMe would be plug and play - how foolish of me! On paper the board supports NVMe but the latest BIOS (non-beta, 2018) doesn't detect the drive regardless of PCI configuration, and the operating system doesn't detect the drive either. I mean... you can't get worse than that. It is remotely possible that the drive is DOA, but I'm not in the mood for problem solving any more - that fuse burned very quickly indeed. I don't care enough about drive speed to consider NVMe a priority, but the form factor of an M.2 drive definitely appealed to me (and still does) so I probably will just buy a SATA one in the not too distant future. Yes, opening up the back of my case to install a 1TB SSD is going to be a bit of a pain in the rear, but I only have to do it once. Heck... I think it's been two or three years since I ventured in there!
Even on my Intel z68 motherboard with 2700k CPU, I was able to use a 2TB NVMe drive by using a PCIe adaptor. The OS recognised it straight away. Could you be using other stuff that may affect the M.2 port? Namely SATA Express.
I have a Samsung 970 Pro as my main drive. My motherboard claims there is no M2 NVME drive installed and, refuses to boot from it alone but, it will boot from it if the UEFI file is on an SATA drive. Windows is unaware of any problems and the drive is nicely fast.
Is that not a clue at the bottom, there: "When installing the M.2 PCIe interface module," which sounds like it includes NVMe which is PCIe-over-M.2, "please set the 'M.2 PCH Strap' for [M.2 PCIE] in BIOS." @LennyRhys, check your BIOS for the M.2 PCH Strap setting.
@Gareth Halfacree yeah I went through the whole rigmarole, rebooting no fewer than five times with different settings to make sure it was configured correctly (including a BIOS flash too). No matter what I do, BIOS won't detect the drive in the M.2 slot. If I'd had the patience I'd have just ordered an M.2 SSD that wasn't NVMe, but live and learn I guess!
Boo-urns. But yeah, M.2's pretty confusing: PCIe, NVMe, SATA, USB, B-Key, M-Key, B+M-Key, and if you're into the really esoteric stuff there's A-Key, C-Key, D-Key, E-Key, F-Key, G-Key, H-Key, J-Key, K-Key, and L-Key in the spec too...
I know right, it should have been pay of the spec that the keyinmg had to be in the name! Because then manufacturers would at least say what it is!
