Question NVME controller (apparent) failure Asus Zenbook

[Fletchasus]

My two year old Asus Zenbook UM425 suddenly, and without any system changes, is failing to recognize the NVME boot drive. I removed the drive and installed it in an external enclosure and it is recognized there. I also installed another NVME drive in the notebook just to see if it would be recognized as a drive in the BIOS...it was not.

I've played around with the limited settings in the BIOS with no effect as well.

I've concluded that the issue is likely a motherboard related failure. With the exception of the drive, I don't see any other obvious issues. So, two basic questions:

1. Is there something I may not have tried that would be worth considering in terms of troubleshooting?

2. Any thoughts on attempting to get this notebook repaired? If it is indeed a motherboard failure, I would think that it would be cost prohibitive to get this fixed, but welcome any ideas.

 

[rgd1101]

does it see sata type m.2?

 

[SkyNetRising]

My two year old Asus Zenbook UM425 suddenly, and without any system changes, is failing to recognize the NVME boot drive.
I removed the drive and installed it in an external enclosure and it is recognized there.
I also installed another NVME drive in the notebook just to see if it would be recognized as a drive in the BIOS...it was not.

What is model name of the original and replacement M.2 drives?
Not all M.2 drives are created equal. Some are SATA, some are NVME.

Specs of your laptop says, it supports NVME drives. It may not support SATA M.2 drives.

 

[Fletchasus]

I was trying to keep the initial question short. The drive is an Intel 660p (1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD ) and is the original and only drive ever installed in the notebook. There have been NO hardware changes to the notebook since purchased two years ago, it had never been even opened, and there were no indications of any problems to this point. I used it all day yesterday without any problems, came home, fired it up and it booted straight to BIOS with "no installed storage" showing there.

I did try another M.2. drive (a Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2) that I knew would not boot, but was simply trying to see if it was recognized as being present in the BIOS. I also, as I said, installed the Intel drive from the notebook in an external enclosure and it did attempt to boot the notebook that way. I also connected that same Intel drive to another computer and it also recognized it (though was locked out by Bitlocker). So, the drive from the notebook did attempt to boot when installed in an enclosure and was recognized by another computer as well while that drive and another M.2 were not recognized by the notebook when internally installed. This is what led me to conclude that the problem is with the notebook motherboard.

Hope this extra detail helps.

 

[rgd1101]

sound like hardware issue on the notebook motherboard

 

[SkyNetRising]

Or problem with BIOS settings.

Check sata controller mode. It should be set to ahci.
Check nvme raid settings (if there are any). Raid should be disabled.

 

[Fletchasus]

No RAID options in the BIOS. SATA is set to AHCI.

Assuming this is an issue with the motherboard, is there any point in pursuing a repair? My gut feeling (and a little Googling) is that this would likely cost as much or more to fix than I paid two years ago for the notebook ($800), especially since everything, including memory, is soldered to the MB.

Thanks for your help.