[SOLVED] Strange reboot -- NVMe SSD disappeared from BIOS ?

[Oblivions Pastor]

I recently went out for a couple of hours with my PC running in windows when I came back it had rebooted to the bios screen. A quick check showed there were no apparent changes to the bios setting so I just tried to boot normally. When it posted to the bios again I checked boot order and my NVME boot drive was no longer visible to the bios. I panicked a little shut down the pc and took out the nvme drive. There was a small amount of a greasy residue on only the nvme drive (only on the chip nearest the pins) which had been under a heatsink but there were no other visible marks or residue on anything else in the system including the heatsink itself. I am sure this was not there when I put the system together a couple of months ago. I tried the nvme drive in the second slot and the pc booted normally. Relieved I just put it back in the first slot and it booted normally again.

My question really is what happened, what could the residue be and where should I start investigating or trouble shooting.? Happy to give more info but I'm really just confused. The system was closed, no open sides to the case and its under my desk so it is extremely unlikely anything got in the intake/outake vents for air, also the nvme drive socket is located between the cpu cooler and the first gfx card slot.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

If the heatsink used atop of the SSD had a thermal pad, then the oil is very likely to have leeched out of said thermal pad. That's nothing to worry about, unless you have a chassis that has a top mounted PSU design, in which case you should inspect the PSU's innards(with a flashlight) to see if there are any swollen or leaking/burst capacitors.

As for your SSD, make and model of your SSD and perhaps if it's needing any firmware updates? Make and model of your motherboard and it's BIOS version?

 

[Oblivions Pastor]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

If the heatsink used atop of the SSD had a thermal pad, then the oil is very likely to have leeched out of said thermal pad. That's nothing to worry about, unless you have a chassis that has a top mounted PSU design, in which case you should inspect the PSU's innards(with a flashlight) to see if there are any swollen or leaking/burst capacitors.

As for your SSD, make and model of your SSD and perhaps if it's needing any firmware updates? Make and model of your motherboard and it's BIOS version?

Very much appreciate the help.

Chassis is a Phanteks Enthoo Luxe PSU is bottom mounted. Didnt smell like a burst cap tbh but I don't have vast amounts of experience with that. I did wipe down the NVME and checked the heat synch and as far as I could tell I couldn't find any residue on anything else there was definitely nothing on the motherboard around the NVME socket or on the back of the GPU haven't taken out my GFX card or CPU cooler so space and visibility were limited.

NVME is a WD black SN850 1Tb gen 4
Revision 01.01L01

Firmware is 611100WD and I downloaded the WD tool to get that and its telling me there's an update for the firmware.

Motherboard is MSI B550 Tomahawk
Model MAG B550 TOMAHAWK (MS-7C91)
Revision 2.0

Bios Version is Currently 7C91vA3 and there is a 7C91vA6 available but I didn't update as its been working fine

I was contemplating if possibly the TIM had dripped onto the NVME from the CPU. I had been pushing a gentle overclock and the cpu temp got to low 70s which I didn't think would have led to the TIM to flow enough to drip onto the NVME so grease off the heat synch may well be the culprit. cooler is a Cooler Master hyper 212 and the TIM was the Cooler Master paste included.