Question M.2 disappear from bios/W10 when sata drives connected Aorus x570 ultra (maybe display port related issue?) - Solved

brokenspirit

Honorable
Oct 5, 2015
15
0
10,510
Hi all, having some strange behaviour on my new build.

Initially, I installed win 10 on m.2 drive 1, and I have a 2nd m.2 drive for storage. All working fine. I then proceed to install my old SSD boot drive (still with win 10 boot sector on it) and an HDD into SATA ports 1 & 3. Everything boots up fine.

Now on next boot, the m.2 drives are no longer recognised, and the computer boots from the SSD. Neither of the m.2 drives show in the BIOS or in windows disk management.

I disconnect the SSD and HDD, and the m.2 drives are still not detected. I clear the CMOS using the jumper, and now the m.2. drives are detected.

I reconnect the HDD with the sata cable, and the m.2 drives disappear again. I remove the HDD and try clearing the CMOS with the jumper, but no luck. I remove the CMOS battery, replace it and now the m.2 drives are working again.

Not sure where to go from here, I am currently using a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra, and the manual only says that SATAs 4 and 5 are disabled when an m.2 drive is installed in M2C. My m.2 drives are in M2A and M2B so according to the manual this shouldn't be an issue.

What is strange is that I experienced exactly the same behaviour on an X570 Tomahawk, but because both m.2 drives were initially working, and then not not detected both at the same time I had assumed it was a problem with the board.

It seems to be running ok now I have left my old drives disconnected, but ideally I would like to get these both working.

The MOBO has ATX_12V (8 pin) and ATX_12V1 (4pin) connectors, I'm only using the 8 pin. Not sure if this would make a difference given that once the m.2 drives have disappeared, removing the SATA drives does not bring them back.

Setup as follows:
CPU: 5600x
MB: X570 Aorus ultra rev 1.1
RAM: G.Skill Trident 32GB
M.2: 2x Netac 2TB N950E Pro (PCIe)
SSD: Kingston 240GB (SATA)
HDD: WD 2TB 7200 RPM (SATA)
PSU Seasonic Focus GX-750

If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them!

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Updated M.2 model number to include "N" at the beginning
Updated storage interfaces
 
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brokenspirit

Honorable
Oct 5, 2015
15
0
10,510
Have you tried resetting settings to optimal/original settings in bios, under exit?

Hi yes, I have done this with no luck. Even disconnecting the SATA drives and resetting the bios doesn't bring the m.2 drives back unless I clear the CMOS. Strange this happens on 2 different x570 boards by different manufacturers, even more so that both m.2 drives disappear at the same time.
 

brokenspirit

Honorable
Oct 5, 2015
15
0
10,510
I've just rebooted (both SATA droves disconnected), and again the boot m.2 drive is not detected.

Tried CMOS jumper again and now neither m.2 is detected.

Wondering if I just have 2 bad drives. But when I sent the previous board back they said they confirmed the slots were bad. What is the likelihood that the m.2 drives are damaging the boards?
 

brokenspirit

Honorable
Oct 5, 2015
15
0
10,510
Hi yes, as I said in the original post, the other drives were in SATA ports 1 & 3. In addition I am not using M2C. The bandwidth issue would make sense if the problem stopped when the SATA drives are disconnected.

Thanks though
 
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brokenspirit

Honorable
Oct 5, 2015
15
0
10,510
So when the NVMe drives are not detected, I noticed that the CPU status LED lights up on the motherboard. This LED stayed on even when switching off the board power, I guess it is powered by the CMOS battery? I also noticed that this disappeared when I disconnected the display port connector from the GPU.

With the DP cable disconnected, I rebooted and the m.2 drives were detected again. After a few successful restarts with the display port connector removed, I reconnected the DP cable. It booted the first time, then when I tried to reboot, the m.2 drives had disappeared again, and the CPU LED was back on. I disconnected the DP cable, and sure enough the CPU LED went out, and the system booted as normal.

It could be a coincidence but it seems that it could be related? A point to note is that the monitor that is connected with DP is not my main screen, if that matters. In addition, I am using the same monitor and GPU setup as my previous computer which had no issues, albeit I wasn't using any m.2 drives.