[SOLVED] Using both M.2 slots on Z390-F Gaming

[Lokari]

Hey!

As said in the title I am planning on getting two 1TB Kingston A2000's for my Z390-F Gaming, which will result in having both M.2 slots occupied. Will this reduce my GPU to x8 instead of x16?

 

[RealBeast]

Hey!

As said in the title I am planning on getting two 1TB Kingston A2000's for my Z390-F Gaming, which will result in having both M.2 slots occupied. Will this reduce my GPU to x8 instead of x16?

Nope, and since they are NVMe all of your SATA ports will still work. The only way your PCIe x16 will drop to 8 is if you use both of the first two PCIe x 16 slots.

 

[Lokari]

Nope, and since they are NVMe all of your SATA ports will still work. The only way your PCIe x16 will drop to 8 is if you use both of the first two PCIe x 16 slots.

That is good to hear! I thought that with my I5-9600K having 16 PCIe lanes (+ the DMI 3.0) having two NVME's would reduce the gpu to x8.

On another note, without having anything installed in the M.2 slots shouldn't my secondary PCIe lane also output x16 to my GPU? Considering that the slots are PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2. Having 1080 Strix seated in the secondary slot outputs at x8 currently.

 

[RealBeast]

That is good to hear! I thought that with my I5-9600K having 16 PCIe lanes (+ the DMI 3.0) having two NVME's would reduce the gpu to x8.

On another note, without having anything installed in the M.2 slots shouldn't my secondary PCIe lane also output x16 to my GPU? Considering that the slots are PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2. Having 1080 Strix seated in the secondary slot outputs at x8 currently.

Nope, they are wired to be one slot at 16x or two at 8x each, the third is always 4x. Unfortunately, motherboard designers decide what we get not what could be excellent.

 

[MrSix18]

i know this is an old thread, but this EXACT problem is what im currently dealing with and cannot get any help with it! @Lokari did you end up getting the F-Gaming?? and is your GPU verified and running at x16?? i cannot for the life of me get mine out of x8 and 2.5GT/s when it should be at x16 8.0 GT/s

 

[Lokari]

i know this is an old thread, but this EXACT problem is what im currently dealing with and cannot get any help with it! @Lokari did you end up getting the F-Gaming?? and is your GPU verified and running at x16?? i cannot for the life of me get mine out of x8 and 2.5GT/s when it should be at x16 8.0 GT/s

Yeah I have had the Z390F-Gaming for 2 years.

I installed Kingston A2000’s on to both M.2 slots and my GPU is in the upper PCIE slot running at x16 (checked from BIOS).

You have your GPU on the uppermost slot, right? Even though the 2nd one also says x16, it will run a GPU only at x8.

 

[MrSix18]

@Lokari yes its in the upper slot... ive tried everything and cannot get it running in x16.. im seriously contemplating taking this board back.. but the only other board i can get is a budget MSI board that would more than likely be even worse as everyones out of stock.. are you running any of the latest bios's?? and are you running the default settings or did you have to tweak anything??

 

[MrSix18]

i just completed uninstalled both m.2 pcie ssd’s and STILL running at x8.. getting super frustrated man! cannot figure out what’s causing it! literally have NOTHING pcie related but the GPU and still won’t run at x16.. only x8.

 

[Lokari]

A few months ago, I had the GPU running at x16 with the default settings, now I have quite an overclocked CPU and overall fiddled around with the settings besides that and it still runs at x16.

Unless you have something else taking up PCIE lanes (which you already stated you don’t have) I have no clue what to do. I remember there being some BIOS settings that affect the PCIE lanes, but besides that I’m clueless.

 

[MrSix18]

yeah mines clocked as well but even tried reverting back to optimized defaults, im on the chat with asus customer support even though im sure they wont help and will say send it in, but nobody else has wrote back with answers and im about to pound my head off the wall trying to figure it out! lol

 

[MrSix18]

if you dont mind, what bios are you running?? ill try a last ditch effort to run your bios version if your not running the latest and see if that helps?

 

[Lokari]

Oh man my bad, I am definitely not on the latest BIOS.

I just checked it and I am running version 1105, give it a shot and see if it helps.