Question Steam does not seem to be stable on M.2 loaded on ASUS StrixE-gaming x570 board. AMD 5900X

[tuddl]

System:
Ryzen R9 5900X
Asus Strix E-Gaming x570 Bios updated to 3604 most current.
WD Black SN850 Gen 4 NVMe SSD M.2 1 TB
WD Black SN850 Gen 4 NVMe SSD M.2 1 TB (eventually removed see below)
Corsair Vengeance Pro 3600 Ram 32 GB set to 2133 Mghz
Corsair Hi150i Elite Capellix AIO Cooler.
Corsair AX1200i Power Supply.
Asus Strix Nvidia RTX 2070 8 GB
HTC Vive headset.

I just built this system, and initially had trouble getting any of my Steam games run. For example, I would install the steam desktop app, install a game like SW Squadrons, and it would run for a few moments and then it would crash.
I tried to install Steam VR, and it would crash. I would return to Steam after a restart, and Steam VR would be gone from my library, and I would need to reinstall it again. Or, I would immediately return to steam and there would be a small black screen in its place of the application.
I flashed the bios, did a clean install of windows, downloaded and installed all the windows updates, updated all the drivers and did a clean install of the GPU drivers.
Nothing worked until I did the following:

• Removed the 2nd M.2 Card.
• Moved the primary M.2 to the lower slot on the motherboard.
• Added a 1TB SATA drive.
• Installed all Steam files on that SATA drive.

Since then, my system has run smoothly. Steam VR is smooth. VR games like Elite Dangerous is smooth and there an no crashes. Even in VR.
So, my questions to the group are:

• Is anyone else having issues installing Steam and Steam games and apps on an M.2 card on a x570 board, and if so, what was the work around? Giving up the read and write speed advantage of the M.2 bothers me a bit.
• Is this system configured properly? Aside from the video card which is adequate until the price of cards come down.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Giving up the read and write speed advantage of the M.2 bothers me a bit.

there aren't really any aspects of a game that will have noticeable difference with a nice SATA III SSD vs an M.2.

user data, textures, models, etc loading times do not differ much, if any, in the benchmarks i've seen comparing those drive types for gaming.

 

[tuddl]

Thanks for the reply John. I still am a bit surprised that Steam will not run applications, on an M.2, at least in this configuration.

 

[tuddl]

I think I found the answer, but not what I was looking for. I think the one M.2 drive is resource-starved. In summary: Out of the 24 PCIe lanes the Ryzen 9 5900x has. 16 are taken up by the GPU, 4 for the M.2, and the remaining 4 for motherboard support. That is why the second m.2 needed to be removed. I think it is also why some low resource-intensive applications run ok, and more resource-intensive games don't run at all. I think it is also why all applications run on the SATA drive. Here is the article. Am I correct, and if so, is there a workaround?

https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-ryzen-9-5900x-and-5950x-review,3.html