[SOLVED] Kingston NV2 2TB SSD - - - problems with read/write speeds ?

[TheDark12345]

I just bought a new Kingston NV2 2TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD but i have problems with read/write speeds.
Is there any way I can fix this?

Note: Motherboard has only one NVMe slot which is already occupied by another Samsung 980 SSD so i had to buy a PCI-E adapter (PCEM2-S PCIe NVMe M.2 adapter) so I could use a second SSD.

https://imgur.com/a/grRSHgt

 

[evermorex76]

See this thread. You probably have a fake drive like this user seems to have received.

Question - 1TB Kingston NV3 M2 SSD is extremely slow

System: Core i5 10400F, 16GB DDR4 2666 Mhz, H410m motherboard. A week ago I bought the Kingston NV3 1TB M2 SSD. Tried to install Red Dead Redemption 2 from Steam. Download starts, it reaches 20-30Mb/s for a very short time, then it's decreasing to several mb/s, then it stops. Then it starts...

forums.tomshardware.com

The identifier "Realtek_nvme2T" is one major giveaway. Check what Device Manager shows as well. Not having Kingston identifiers is a sign that it's fake. You can also see that it's only operating at PCIe Gen 2 even in a Gen3 slot and it's only using 1 lane, a sign that it's using an old controller and possibly even a faulty one, not the one Kingston uses in the NV2. (Kingston does use various controllers in both the NV2 and NV3, depending on the production run, but they would never use anything but a Gen4 controller.) Your benchmarks are actually what you'd expect from that drive, Gen2x1. It's just not the drive you purchased.

The NV2 2TB goes for $119 on Amazon right now, but you probably though you got an "amazing" deal on your drive. Where did you get it? If it came from a place like Amazon or Newegg, who was the seller? You need to report them to the site as well as leaving a bad review (but try to get a refund first, before they see the bad reports).

 

[TheDark12345]

See this thread. You probably have a fake drive like this user seems to have received.

Question - 1TB Kingston NV3 M2 SSD is extremely slow

System: Core i5 10400F, 16GB DDR4 2666 Mhz, H410m motherboard. A week ago I bought the Kingston NV3 1TB M2 SSD. Tried to install Red Dead Redemption 2 from Steam. Download starts, it reaches 20-30Mb/s for a very short time, then it's decreasing to several mb/s, then it stops. Then it starts...

forums.tomshardware.com

The identifier "Realtek_nvme2T" is one major giveaway. Check what Device Manager shows as well. Not having Kingston identifiers is a sign that it's fake. You can also see that it's only operating at PCIe Gen 2 even in a Gen3 slot and it's only using 1 lane, a sign that it's using an old controller and possibly even a faulty one, not the one Kingston uses in the NV2. (Kingston does use various controllers in both the NV2 and NV3, depending on the production run, but they would never use anything but a Gen4 controller.) Your benchmarks are actually what you'd expect from that drive, Gen2x1. It's just not the drive you purchased.

The NV2 2TB goes for $119 on Amazon right now, but you probably though you got an "amazing" deal on your drive. Where did you get it? If it came from a place like Amazon or Newegg, who was the seller? You need to report them to the site as well as leaving a bad review (but try to get a refund first, before they see th

See this thread. You probably have a fake drive like this user seems to have received.

Question - 1TB Kingston NV3 M2 SSD is extremely slow

System: Core i5 10400F, 16GB DDR4 2666 Mhz, H410m motherboard. A week ago I bought the Kingston NV3 1TB M2 SSD. Tried to install Red Dead Redemption 2 from Steam. Download starts, it reaches 20-30Mb/s for a very short time, then it's decreasing to several mb/s, then it stops. Then it starts...

forums.tomshardware.com

The identifier "Realtek_nvme2T" is one major giveaway. Check what Device Manager shows as well. Not having Kingston identifiers is a sign that it's fake. You can also see that it's only operating at PCIe Gen 2 even in a Gen3 slot and it's only using 1 lane, a sign that it's using an old controller and possibly even a faulty one, not the one Kingston uses in the NV2. (Kingston does use various controllers in both the NV2 and NV3, depending on the production run, but they would never use anything but a Gen4 controller.) Your benchmarks are actually what you'd expect from that drive, Gen2x1. It's just not the drive you purchased.

The NV2 2TB goes for $119 on Amazon right now, but you probably though you got an "amazing" deal on your drive. Where did you get it? If it came from a place like Amazon or Newegg, who was the seller? You need to report them to the site as well as leaving a bad review (but try to get a refund first, before they see the bad reports).

Maybe the name is like that because I use the SSD with an adapter ?
Isn't there any bios settings that should be made ? SSD was bought from a trusted retailer in Romania (Emag)

Here are my other specs:
Cpu: R7 5700x3d
GPU: 4060 8GB
RAM: 32GB Fury Beast
SSD1: Samsung 980 Pro (on the nvme slot on the MB)
SSD2: Kingston NV2 2TB (with adapter on the 2nd PCI-e slot , first is used by GPU)
SSD3: 256GB connected with SATA cables
HDD: Baracuda 7200rpm 1Tb
MB: B450M TUF Gaming Plus II
PSU: 750W

 

[SkyNetRising]

Maybe the name is like that because I use the SSD with an adapter ?
SSD2: Kingston NV2 2TB (with adapter on the 2nd PCI-e slot , first is used by GPU)
MB: B450M TUF Gaming Plus II

Can you show a photo of your system with side panel removed?
Also show a photo of your PCIE M.2 adapter.

2nd PCIE slot is PCIE 2.0 x1 (same mode being shown in your screenshot).

Or did you mean - you installed adapter into 3rd PCIE slot. That one is PCIE 2.0 x16 (operating in x4 mode).
You still would not get full bandwidth of your NVME drive in this slot either. Only ~ 1700MB/s.

 

[TheDark12345]

Can you show a photo of your system with side panel removed?
Also show a photo of your PCIE M.2 adapter.

2nd PCIE slot is PCIE 2.0 x1 (same mode being shown in your screenshot).

Or did you mean - you installed adapter into 3rd PCIE slot. That one is PCIE 2.0 x16 (operating in x4 mode).
You still would not get full bandwidth of your NVME drive in this slot either. Only ~ 1700MB/s.

Images here: Images
Here is an image of my Motherboard : MotherBoard
First PCIe - slot is used by GPU
2nd PCIe - slot is where Adapter is inserted
Adapter: Link to adapter specs

 

[SkyNetRising]

Try swapping your M.2 drives with each other.
See, if Kingston drive switches to x4 operation in motherboard M.2 slot.

 

[evermorex76]

Maybe the name is like that because I use the SSD with an adapter ?

Using that type of adapter shouldn't change anything like that. The adapter is basically just a pass-through device, changing the physical slot, because M.2 is a direct PCIe connection.

2nd PCIE slot is PCIE 2.0 x1 (same mode being shown in your screenshot).

Or did you mean - you installed adapter into 3rd PCIE slot. That one is PCIE 2.0 x16 (operating in x4 mode).

DiskInfo shows that the slot in use is capable of PCIe3 x4 mode, but the drive is only operating at Gen2 x1 mode, but now that we know the motherboard, that slot isn't actually capable of Gen3 so DiskInfo is reporting incorrectly. (Although the tech specs on the Asus site are confusingly written, the manual makes it clear, as do the specs of the B450 chipset.) It's possible that the adapter card is faulty in some way, but since that type of card is just an electrical pass-through with a single resistor on the power pins I don't know how it could alter what PCIe generation capability is detected, which is detected from the chipset, not the slot.

OP is confused about what slot number they're talking about, because the adapter is physically only capable of fitting into an x16 slot, so it's in slot 3, the bottom slot. Slot 2 is hidden under the GPU. So it's definitely in a slot that is capable of x4 operation.

The suggestion from @SkyNetRising is the most obvious test. If the Kingston works properly when connected to the mainboard slot, then the problem is the adapter card. If it does the same thing, then the problem is the SSD. If you need to replace it and can choose something different, I'd recommend a card that is physically only x4 in size, instead of x16, so that it's more compatible if you ever need to move it to another board. All those extra pins on the x16 board are just taking up space for no reason.

 

[TheDark12345]

Using that type of adapter shouldn't change anything like that. The adapter is basically just a pass-through device, changing the physical slot, because M.2 is a direct PCIe connection.


DiskInfo shows that the slot in use is capable of PCIe3 x4 mode, but the drive is only operating at Gen2 x1 mode, but now that we know the motherboard, that slot isn't actually capable of Gen3 so DiskInfo is reporting incorrectly. (Although the tech specs on the Asus site are confusingly written, the manual makes it clear, as do the specs of the B450 chipset.) It's possible that the adapter card is faulty in some way, but since that type of card is just an electrical pass-through with a single resistor on the power pins I don't know how it could alter what PCIe generation capability is detected, which is detected from the chipset, not the slot.

OP is confused about what slot number they're talking about, because the adapter is physically only capable of fitting into an x16 slot, so it's in slot 3, the bottom slot. Slot 2 is hidden under the GPU. So it's definitely in a slot that is capable of x4 operation.

The suggestion from @SkyNetRising is the most obvious test. If the Kingston works properly when connected to the mainboard slot, then the problem is the adapter card. If it does the same thing, then the problem is the SSD. If you need to replace it and can choose something different, I'd recommend a card that is physically only x4 in size, instead of x16, so that it's more compatible if you ever need to move it to another board. All those extra pins on the x16 board are just taking up space for no reason.

@SkyNetRising , I just changed Samsung SSD with the Kingstone SSD now it says PCIe 3.0 x4 in DiskInfo, also I added Samsung 980 SSD using the adapter and now Samsung 980 Says its running on PCIe 2.0 x4, is this correct working ? still the speed for the Kingstone SSD was only around 1500MB/s (I think Samsung SSD was running better on PCIe 3.0 x4 than Kingstone SSD before)
Image: Images

 

[SkyNetRising]

DiskInfo shows that the slot in use is capable of PCIe3 x4 mode, but the drive is only operating at Gen2 x1 mode,
but now that we know the motherboard, that slot isn't actually capable of Gen3 so DiskInfo is reporting incorrectly.

Crystal Disk Info shows current operating mode and max mode supported by M.2 drive.
Kingston NV2 should show PCIE 4.0 as supported mode.
So - it is not Kingston NV2. Fake drive.
I'd test capacity. Probably not even close to 2TB.
Copy a bunch of video files onto "2TB" drive, to fill it, and see, if you can play each and every one of them.

And since drive is working in x1 mode (in x4 capable PCIE slot), this could mean, adapter is only x1 capable.
Either fake, faulty or improperly installed adapter.

Edit: If Samsung drive on adapter is working in x4 mode, then probably M.2 drive or adapter was not properly installed before.

 

[evermorex76]

Crystal Disk Info shows current operating mode and max mode supported by M.2 drive.

Brain fart. The fact that it's not showing anything right for this drive confused me so I thought it showed the slot capability, not the drive.

Edit: If Samsung drive on adapter is working in x4 mode, then probably M.2 drive or adapter was not properly installed before.

I just changed Samsung SSD with the Kingstone SSD now it says PCIe 3.0 x4 in DiskInfo

still the speed for the Kingstone SSD was only around 1500MB/s (I think Samsung SSD was running better on PCIe 3.0 x4 than Kingstone SSD before)

The Samsung drive is itself only Gen3, and its rated specs aren't much different from the NV2, so theoretically they should perform about the same. The rated speed for the NV2 is 3500MBps reads and 2800 writes, and it should still be able to come close to that at PCI3x4 (the max for that is 4GBps). 1.5GBps is extremely poor performance (just good enough for Gen2 x4) and still points to it being a fake drive.

Here is one review where it was tested in a Gen3 slot (only a 1TB model), which shows what DiskInfo ought to display as well as the performance that would be expected. As you can see, the DiskMark tests look much better than what you seem to be getting, and the other tests aren't as high but are still better.

Quick Review: Kingston NV2 1TB NVMe SSD (@PCIe3.0x4)

This SSD was originally reviewed with the Orico PWM2-G2/PWDM2-G2 USB3.2 Gen2 M.2 NVMe/NVMe+SATA Enclosure, but seeing as I now have an M.2 to PCIe adapter, I might as well install it into my main d…

goughlui.com

I did a quick search for "realtek firmware VC2S0388", based on what DiskInfo showed in your original post. Based on the result, I think what you've gotten is a fake drive based on a Realtek RTS5765DL controller. In some cases the fraudulent drives even have firmware that has been altered to make it be detected as the actual brand you expect (such as the Samsung drive Reddit post below), but in your case that seems not to have been done.

It's harder to be sure with a drive like the NV2, since Kingston does actually use controllers from multiple companies, but they definitely would have made the firmware identify it as a Kingston drive AND it would be using a PCIe Gen4 controller capable of meeting the rated speeds, not Gen3. As the review above shows, several review sites received models with different controllers, but they were all Gen4 and none of them were Realtek.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/fake-dollar39-samsung-990-pro-4tb-ssd-looks-almost-real

[Request] Mod Realtek NVMe Controller Firmware

Hello everyone , I have been struggling the last few days to see how Chinese Aliexpress “Companies” or “Individual Users” manage to sell fakes , in particular M2 SSD NVMe because a friend of mine got scammed , I wanted to see/inspect how do they make such good fakes some even get detected by...

winraid.level1techs.com

https://devicehunt.com/view/type/pci/vendor/10EC/device/5765

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/15nbujo/fake_samsung_980_pro_2tb_rts5765dl_from_the/

Specifications of SSD 1TB Drive with Firmware VC2S0388

Information about the SSD 1TB data storage device model with firmware VC2S0388 of the Unknown trademark

smarthdd.com

Specifications of SSD 4TB Drive with Firmware VC2S0388

Information about the SSD 4TB data storage device model with firmware VC2S0388 of the Unknown trademark

smarthdd.com

Emag is a "marketplace" where other people sell things and just use Emag to handle the transactions, and I'd bet that the place that actually sold the drive was one of those disreputable sellers, not Emag itself. The same thing happens with Amazon and Newegg in the US, and you have to verify the seller to be sure you're not getting ripped off. (Though even Amazon has gotten a reputation for shipping fake products sometimes now.)

 

[SkyNetRising]

still the speed for the Kingstone SSD was only around 1500MB/s
Image: Images

Actually it could be Kingston NV1 drive.
NV1 is PCIE 3.0 x4 with rated reads/writes at 2100/1700 MB/s.

 

[TheDark12345]

Brain fart. The fact that it's not showing anything right for this drive confused me so I thought it showed the slot capability, not the drive.






The Samsung drive is itself only Gen3, and its rated specs aren't much different from the NV2, so theoretically they should perform about the same. The rated speed for the NV2 is 3500MBps reads and 2800 writes, and it should still be able to come close to that at PCI3x4 (the max for that is 4GBps). 1.5GBps is extremely poor performance (just good enough for Gen2 x4) and still points to it being a fake drive.

Here is one review where it was tested in a Gen3 slot (only a 1TB model), which shows what DiskInfo ought to display as well as the performance that would be expected. As you can see, the DiskMark tests look much better than what you seem to be getting, and the other tests aren't as high but are still better.

Quick Review: Kingston NV2 1TB NVMe SSD (@PCIe3.0x4)

This SSD was originally reviewed with the Orico PWM2-G2/PWDM2-G2 USB3.2 Gen2 M.2 NVMe/NVMe+SATA Enclosure, but seeing as I now have an M.2 to PCIe adapter, I might as well install it into my main d…

goughlui.com

I did a quick search for "realtek firmware VC2S0388", based on what DiskInfo showed in your original post. Based on the result, I think what you've gotten is a fake drive based on a Realtek RTS5765DL controller. In some cases the fraudulent drives even have firmware that has been altered to make it be detected as the actual brand you expect (such as the Samsung drive Reddit post below), but in your case that seems not to have been done.

It's harder to be sure with a drive like the NV2, since Kingston does actually use controllers from multiple companies, but they definitely would have made the firmware identify it as a Kingston drive AND it would be using a PCIe Gen4 controller capable of meeting the rated speeds, not Gen3. As the review above shows, several review sites received models with different controllers, but they were all Gen4 and none of them were Realtek.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/fake-dollar39-samsung-990-pro-4tb-ssd-looks-almost-real

[Request] Mod Realtek NVMe Controller Firmware

Hello everyone , I have been struggling the last few days to see how Chinese Aliexpress “Companies” or “Individual Users” manage to sell fakes , in particular M2 SSD NVMe because a friend of mine got scammed , I wanted to see/inspect how do they make such good fakes some even get detected by...

winraid.level1techs.com

https://devicehunt.com/view/type/pci/vendor/10EC/device/5765

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/15nbujo/fake_samsung_980_pro_2tb_rts5765dl_from_the/

Specifications of SSD 1TB Drive with Firmware VC2S0388

Information about the SSD 1TB data storage device model with firmware VC2S0388 of the Unknown trademark

smarthdd.com

Specifications of SSD 4TB Drive with Firmware VC2S0388

Information about the SSD 4TB data storage device model with firmware VC2S0388 of the Unknown trademark

smarthdd.com

Emag is a "marketplace" where other people sell things and just use Emag to handle the transactions, and I'd bet that the place that actually sold the drive was one of those disreputable sellers, not Emag itself. The same thing happens with Amazon and Newegg in the US, and you have to verify the seller to be sure you're not getting ripped off. (Though even Amazon has gotten a reputation for shipping fake products sometimes now.)

Thanks for the answers @SkyNetRising, @evermorex76 , I appreciate it.

I did another test like one of you said. I tried to copy a 100gb folder on the "Kingstone SSD" but the speed was super slow somewhere around 30mb/s after 1-3% of completion the SSD froze and the speed reached 0mb/s.

I finally decided to return the SSD because it was already becoming too much of a hassle and it was most likely either defective or as you said, a fake one.

Have a nice day guys!

 

[shaester_123]

I spent over a thousand dollars across 4 different companies on hardrives . I was shocked at how many I wound up sending back .

If the drive refuses a low level format and erase stress test, back in the box they go .

It took me a couple months too get drives because I kept sending duds back .