[SOLVED] M.2 [Reserved For Future] Question, will it work now?

[PaPies]

Hello, I'm not a big Tech savvy but I understand stuff when it comes to computers, but I've never had this in my life, so it's new to me.

When I bought my Z490 Gaming X Gigabyte motherboard, I also bought an m.2 SSD to go along with it. I installed my components including m.2 but it wouldn't detect the m.2 what so ever, after an hour of troubleshooting myself and finding out why it wasn't showing up, I went back to the motherboard to only find out it says RESERVED FOR FUTURE.
Now, this was at the beginning of the generation, with early bios updates(but the latest back then), so I switched the m.2 to the bottom one as you can see in the picture that has a heatsink, and it showed up.

My question is this:
Will an M.2 work on that slot now? I've updated to the latest bios of the motherboard, there won't be new updates to the board in the future.
I want to get a big capacity m.2 Like 2TB or 4TB but I don't want to pull the trigger and have it not work, as you can't return an m.2 after it has been written inside, at least now where I live.

I am really full with HDD's and SSD's on my case, so the only one left is the m.2 as I never bought another one as it didn't work at the beginning.

 

[Math Geek]

the second n.2 slot at the bottom of the mobo is open and usable. manual says it disables sata port 3/4 but otherwise should work. so note if you have all sata ports used you will lose 2 of them with the second m.2 drive.

i have no idea what the atop slot is for or what the future plans are for it. you should be able to use both the bottom slots though and go as planned.

you can try that top slot and see what it does. it will work or it won't. either way it won't hurt to give it a shot real quick. notice though it is not as long as the others and won't fit a full length m.2 drive so you likely won't be able to find a high capacity drive that is not full length anyway

 

[DRagor]

The manual says it is not connected. However, typically on 400 series boards top M.2 slot was linked directly to CPU lanes, requiring 11th Gen CPU to work. This may be same case, although it is not mentioned anywhere.

 

[PaPies]

the second n.2 slot at the bottom of the mobo is open and usable. manual says it disables sata port 3/4 but otherwise should work. so note if you have all sata ports used you will lose 2 of them with the second m.2 drive.

i have no idea what the atop slot is for or what the future plans are for it. you should be able to use both the bottom slots though and go as planned.

you can try that top slot and see what it does. it will work or it won't. either way it won't hurt to give it a shot real quick. notice though it is not as long as the others and won't fit a full length m.2 drive so you likely won't be able to find a high capacity drive that is not full length anyway

I've tried the top slot when I bought the mobo around 2 years ago, it didn't even recognize it had an m.2 inside, until I put it below and it was fine.

 

[Math Geek]

i wonder if thee is a different model that uses the same basic design but has all m.2 slots active on it. higher priced model but to save cost they reused the board with a disabled slot??

just guessing but i have never seen an included slot that was not connected. just seems odd, so i reaching for an explanation

 

[PaPies]

The manual says it is not connected. However, typically on 400 series boards top M.2 slot was linked directly to CPU lanes, requiring 11th Gen CPU to work. This may be same case, although it is not mentioned anywhere.

I do have a 10th gen.

 

[Math Geek]

I've tried the top slot when I bought the mobo around 2 years ago, it didn't even recognize it had an m.2 inside, until I put it below and it was fine.

i am wondering like you are if a bios update turned it on. worth a shot to check if it works now even though it did not when you built it.

 

[Gam3r01]

There are 3 M.2 slots on that board.
The top slot seems to be disconnected still.
The middle slot (with the heatsink) is the "main" slot, wired to the CPU.
The bottom slot is right below the heatsink slot, from what I can see.

 

[DRagor]

I do have a 10th gen.

Then it will not work (if it is same way like other 400 boards). 10th gen don't have extra lanes as 11th gen have.

 

[PaPies]

There are 3 M.2 slots on that board.
The top slot seems to be disconnected still.
The middle slot (with the heatsink) is the "main" slot, wired to the CPU.
The bottom slot is right below the heatsink slot, from what I can see.

It seems I'll give the third one a shot then, as the first one doesn't work, and the one I have active is within the heatsink.

 

[PaPies]

the second n.2 slot at the bottom of the mobo is open and usable. manual says it disables sata port 3/4 but otherwise should work.

That's the issue, I have 3 SSD's and 1 HDD connected, god knows where. the m2 is on the heatsink.
If you say that it disables 3/4 out of 6, if I install an m.2 on the third slot, might disable my HDD and or SSD's

 

[Math Geek]

manual says it disables ports 4 and 5 (sorry misquoted above) . so if you put your 4 sata drives onto ports 0-3, then it'll be fine. they should be labeled on the mobo and easy to identify which is which.

it would mean of course that you can't add any more sata drives to the system.

the manual has them labeled if it is not on the mobo for some reason. looks like the 2 on the far left of the stack from the picture in the manual. just move the sata cables to the other slots if those are used.

looking at the bios will also tell you which ports are being used and which are empty.