Question Asrock z170 extreme 4 m.2/GPU problems

emayekayee

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Nov 8, 2008
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I recently purchased an Adata XPG S11 Pro 1TB m.2 drive

My mother board has only one "Ultra m.2 slot" (as ASROCK calls it). This slot sits directly under the GPU. Everything I've read says that there should be no conflict between the GPU and the M.2 slot, and that they use a different set of PCIe resources.

However, if I install my GPU (a Sapphire Pulse Vega 56) the m.2 drive is not recognized by the motherboard and I can only boot from my older SATA SSD drive. I have tried to find what is causing the conflict and have had no luck.
I know that the m.2 card conflicts with the SATA 3_0 and 3_1 ports. I have nothing installed in those slots.
The system was working perfectly fine before installing the m.2 card.
If I remove the m.2 card or the video card it works fine.
If I Install the Video card in the second full PCIe slot on the motheboard it still does not recognize the m.2 card.
I know the m.2 card works. I am currently typing this while my video card is uninstalled and am using on board graphics with a good system boot from the m.2 drive

Here are my system specs:
Asrock z170 Extreme 4 (not +) Bios 7.50
Intel i5 6600k
Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon Vega 56
8 GB Kingston hyper fury x 2133 ddr 4 RAM (2x4Gb)
Adata XPG S11 Pro 1TB

I also have:
a SATA Seagate 2TB data drive (currently unplugged for troubleshooting)
OCZ vertex Agility 3 240GB SATA SSD (currently unplugged for troubleshooting, see why i wanted to up[grade?)
LG DVD-RW drive (currently unplugged for troubleshooting)

I have not been able to reliably boot from the m.2 drive with the SATA drives and video card installed.
 

emayekayee

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Nov 8, 2008
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Follow up thought....
I've definitely narrowed it down.
If the GPU is installed, the drive does not get recognized by the system.

I installed an older video card that I had around and the drive works fine. Is there a chance that that the Vega GPU is using too much power from the motherboard, and underpowering the m.2 drive? Both of the 8 pin power connectors on the GPU are connected to the power supply, but I remember all the pcie power hoopla from the rx580s.

If it is a power issue, which voltages should I monitor and would a new power supply fix the problem. I have an off brand 900w 80 plus Silver PSU already, but its nothing fancy.