Question Asus Maximus VII Hero LGA1150 & m.2 slot

[Nonthrot]

Hello.

I recently ran out of space on my SSD with my OS on it, so I figured I’d buy a larger one. Bought a Samsung m.2 card on amazon and plugged it into the m.2 slot on my Asus Maximus VII Hero LGA1150 Motherboard. The card was receiving power but not being recognized in disk manager. That is moot, however, as with some cursory googling it turns out that the m.2 slot on this mobo is not worth using, as it shares bandwidth among other PCIE lanes.

I’ve abandoned the idea of installing this m.2 ssd.

The issue I’m having now is that my GPU (MSI GeForce GTX 980) is receiving power but not outputting anything to my DisplayPort monitors. The GPU is receiving power (physical lights are on) and my monitors react when I boot the pc, but only to let me know they’re not receiving any signal. I’m able to remote into the OS with TeamViewer, so the PC is operational. I ran GPU-Z and its showing that my GPU is the integrated graphics on my CPU. My googling shows that apparently plugging anything into the m.2 slot will disable or modify how the other PCIE lanes operate. From what I can tell, it takes the x16 lanes and downgrades them to x8. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I know that the m.2 card being plugged in has affected how my GPU slot functions. I have removed the m.2 card and right now I am just trying to have my display output work again.

Could anyone provide insight on how to revert my PCIE lanes to their stock configuration? Thank you.

https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/other-motherboards/maximus-vii-hero-m-2-compatibility/m-p/531020

System Specs:

https://imgur.com/l3n79ol

View: https://imgur.com/l3n79ol

 

[Darkbreeze]

The M.2 slot only shares bandwidth with the PCIe 2.0 slots. The primary x16 PCIe slot is a PCIe 3.0 slot. It does not share bandwidth with the M.2 slot so it is not a problem to use the M.2 drive and the primary x16 PCIe slot. That is per the motherboard manual.

 

[Darkbreeze]

First, I would try this WITH the M.2 drive installed and the graphics card installed in the primary x16 slot, which is where it should ALWAYS be installed anyhow unless there is more than one graphics card in use. If this fails to resolve the issue then remove the M.2 drive and repeat the process EXACTLY AS outlined below. Do not change or alter the steps in any way even if you THINK you know a better way. Do not use the CMOS reset pins or reset button, if your board has one, thinking it will do the same thing as this procedure. It will not. Follow these steps EXACTLY.

BIOS Hard Reset procedure

Power off the unit, switch the PSU off and unplug the PSU cord from either the wall or the power supply.

Remove the motherboard CMOS battery for about three to five minutes. In some cases it may be necessary to remove the graphics card to access the CMOS battery.

During that five minutes while the CMOS battery is out of the motherboard, press the power button on the case, continuously, for 15-30 seconds, in order to deplete any residual charge that might be present in the CMOS circuit. After the five minutes is up, reinstall the CMOS battery making sure to insert it with the correct side up just as it came out.

If you had to remove the graphics card you can now reinstall it, but remember to reconnect your power cables if there were any attached to it as well as your display cable.

Now, plug the power supply cable back in, switch the PSU back on and power up the system. It should display the POST screen and the options to enter CMOS/BIOS setup. Enter the bios setup program and reconfigure the boot settings for either the Windows boot manager or for legacy systems, the drive your OS is installed on if necessary.

Save settings and exit. If the system will POST and boot then you can move forward from there including going back into the bios and configuring any other custom settings you may need to configure such as Memory XMP, A-XMP or D.O.C.P profile settings, custom fan profile settings or other specific settings you may have previously had configured that were wiped out by resetting the CMOS.

In some cases it may be necessary when you go into the BIOS after a reset, to load the Optimal default or Default values and then save settings, to actually get the BIOS to fully reset and force recreation of the hardware tables.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Also, what is the EXACT model of the M.2 drive you bought?

What is the current BIOS version that's running on your board?