Question PC unable to POST if any SATA drive is connected when trying to use new M.2 NVMe SSD

[t_rodge]

I recently purchased a 2tb Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 NVMe SSD to add to my system along with a 860 Evo SSD and two other HDDs. The motherboard is a MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC and the M.2 is able to be recognized in the BIOS and I can boot to it, if it is the only drive plugged in. Whenever I plug in any or all my other drives, I am unable to POST and even access the BIOS. I am aware that some SATA ports get disabled, in my case ports 5 and 6, so I have my drives currently in SATA2, SATA3, and SATA4.

So far I have tried upgrading the BIOS, reset the CMOS to get the motherboard to default settings, tried each drive individually, deleted all data on one drive and unallocated it to see if a nonformatted drive would work with the M.2, tried putting the M.2 in M2_1 and M2_2, made sure the firmware on the Samsung SSDs are up to date, I've even replaced the M.2 with a new one. So far nothing works, and it won't POST. I can POST and boot if I have either only the M.2 plugged in, or if my drives are connected and the M.2 is not plugged in. I have been trying to troubleshoot this for a few hours and just beating my head against a wall it seems, so any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[DRagor]

Can you explain in more detail what happens when you try to boot with multiple drives, especially interested in behavior of Debug LEDs? Also list all your components and PSU model.

 

[t_rodge]

Can you explain in more detail what happens when you try to boot with multiple drives, especially interested in behavior of Debug LEDs? Also list all your components and PSU model.

Whenever I have anything besides the M.2 plugged in (whether one drive or all of them), the PC will have power for roughly 10 seconds, and then shut off before I can ever get to the BIOS. It will work its way through all the debug lights up to the BOOT one, and then it shuts off so quickly, that very soon after the BOOT light clears, it will shutdown.

See below for all components:
Motherboard: MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU: MSI RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio
Memory: OLOy WarHawk RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3600 (ND4U1636181DCWDX)
Storage: Samsung 860 Evo (SATA), Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" HDD (St2000dm001 ), and Seagate FireCuda 3.5" SHDD (ST2000DX002)
PSU: Corsair RM850X

 

[DRagor]

You did try a combination of M.2 plus an empty drive (and I mean really empty drive, zero partitions), correct? And it did not made any difference?
In that case the only thing that comes to mind is faulty motherboard, although I'm not sure what kind of problem it could be. If it would only happen with M.2 in lower slot we could assume failure of chipset, however top slot is linked directly to CPU so that theory makes no sense.
The other suspect in such case would be PSU, but I see no way RM850x would not be enough for this setup, and there is zero evidence that it is faulty somehow.

 

[fzabkar]

Does disconnecting the SATA data cables from the motherboard change the behaviour?

 

[t_rodge]

Does disconnecting the SATA data cables from the motherboard change the behaviour?

the M.2 NVMe SSD works with nothing plugged in, but the PC does not POST if another drive is plugged in...... So how can I have another drive plugged in with the SATA cables disconnected?

 

[fzabkar]

I'm trying to determine if the PC fails to POST if the SATA power cable is connected on its own, without the SATA data cable. That will narrow down whether you have a power related issue.

 

[t_rodge]

I'm trying to determine if the PC fails to POST if the SATA power cable is connected on its own, without the SATA data cable. That will narrow down whether you have a power related issue.

Yes, it can POST if the SATA power cable is plugged in. It is unable to POST if I connect the data cable.

The other suspect in such case would be PSU, but I see no way RM850x would not be enough for this setup, and there is zero evidence that it is faulty somehow.

Like @DRagor said, I shouldn't really be running into a power issue here, as there is a 850W PSU in the system, while a 3070 RTX recommends a 650W PSU, so there is plenty of room to work with

 

[DRagor]

Yes, it can POST if the SATA power cable is plugged in. It is unable to POST if I connect the data cable.

That would look like more reasons to suspect faulty motherboard.

 

[fzabkar]

Yes, it can POST if the SATA power cable is plugged in. It is unable to POST if I connect the data cable.

It's a weird problem. I can't understand why the motherboard would shut down the PSU, if indeed that's what is happening. I know it sounds silly, but can you try the SATA data cable on its own? I'm wondering if there is some crazy ground loop???

 

[SkyNetRising]

the M.2 NVMe SSD works with nothing plugged in, but the PC does not POST if another drive is plugged in......

Did you try M.2 drive in other M.2 slot also?
Your motherboard has two M.2 slots.

 

[p_e]

I recently purchased a 2tb Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 NVMe SSD to add to my system along with a 860 Evo SSD and two other HDDs. The motherboard is a MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC and the M.2 is able to be recognized in the BIOS and I can boot to it, if it is the only drive plugged in. Whenever I plug in any or all my other drives, I am unable to POST and even access the BIOS. I am aware that some SATA ports get disabled, in my case ports 5 and 6, so I have my drives currently in SATA2, SATA3, and SATA4.

So far I have tried upgrading the BIOS, reset the CMOS to get the motherboard to default settings, tried each drive individually, deleted all data on one drive and unallocated it to see if a nonformatted drive would work with the M.2, tried putting the M.2 in M2_1 and M2_2, made sure the firmware on the Samsung SSDs are up to date, I've even replaced the M.2 with a new one. So far nothing works, and it won't POST. I can POST and boot if I have either only the M.2 plugged in, or if my drives are connected and the M.2 is not plugged in. I have been trying to troubleshoot this for a few hours and just beating my head against a wall it seems, so any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

first the 970 evo is a true M.2 drive
the 860 evo ssd is a SATA over M.2 drive

second, from the MB manual
PCI_E2, PCI_E3, PCI_E4 and PCI_E5 slots will be unavailable when installing M.2
PCIe SSD in M2_2 slot.
y
PCI_E4 will run x1 speed when installing devices in any PCIe 2.0x1 slot.

M2.2 stot (PCH) (cipset port)
(─: unavailable, *: graphics card, 1
: for Ryzen™ 1st and 2nd Generation processors,
2
: for Ryzen™ with Radeon Vega Graphics processors, 3
: for Athlon™ with Radeon Vega
Graphics processors)

...
i do not know if u can combine true NVMe drives and SATA over M.2 drives
...i have never tested it, and the card also support NVME raid which suggest
using two drives with different protocols will fail (atleast if Raid is on)

if ur cpu has a internal gpu or any PCIe card are in slots pci slots 2-5 the M2_2 port will not work as intended (only 1 pci lane will be available)

edit: PCIe slit 2-5, internal gpu, and M2_2 slot shares bandwidth on that MB, u could probably buy a m.2 epansion card to work around it, (the card need to be in PCI_E¤ slot the longer one that supports 4*pci lanes)