[SOLVED] Will NVMe PCIe4 cards appear in the bios without a drive?

[Reciever80]

I'm trying to troubleshoot my MSI tomahawk b350 and why it won't recognize my new NVMe -> PCIe4 expansion card in its bottom PCIe x16 slot (actually x4 speed according to the bios). I have a graphics card in the top x16 slot , nothing in the x1 slots, and i already have an nvme in the m.2 slot.

Reading the bios specs, the lanes are shared between the second PCIe slot and both PCIe x1 slots (please correct me if i'm wrong). So I don't expect the existing NVMe card to disable the bottom PCIe slot, since it has accounted for shared lanes with both the PCIe x1s (it drops to a x2). Then i have one PCI legacy card for USB ports and a single HDD in a sata slot.

One thing I've noticed is that the new PCIe card has a light and it's green. So it should be receiving power. However, I'd like to use that to debug: would the card show up, even if there were no drive in the NVMe bay? If so, I know that it's likely an issue with the adapter. Or, would the slot appear empty on my bios if there weren't a way to read the NVMe drive?

For reference, this is the card: https://www.amazon.com/QNINE-Adapter-Express-Controller-Expansion/dp/B075MDH28Y

Thanks!

 

[Reciever80]

Mildly frustrating because I nuked my bios over this, but despite the fact my BIOS was saying the PCIe4 slot was empty, and Windows not picking up any hardware changes, hidden away in the disk partition / disk management tool in Windows my drive does showup.

Happy that it's somehow working though. I guess don't always trust the bios? Weird.