B550M-ITX/ac not detecting EVO Plus NVMe M.2

Hi,

I have installed a Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD into the M2_1 slot of the ASRock B550M-ITX/ac motherboard and it is failing to detect it.
I have tried reinstalling and also updating the BIOS to the latest version (1.1) but the issue still persists.

I'm wondering now if this is an issue with the motherboard or if this drive is just not supported.
The specifications page (https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B550M-ITXac/index.asp#Specification) is confusing me.
It says it supports "M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) (with Matisse) or Gen3x4 (32 Gb/s)" which sounds like it supports this SSD, since the SSD's interface is a "PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3" slot, but then underneath it also says "Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks" as if this is a limitation.

Can anyone clarify this for me ?
I want to know if I need to keep debugging this board or if I just bought an incompatible drive.

Thanks

Yes I have tested the drive in my laptop which uses an NVMe drive and it works perfectly fine there.
I have also reinstalled the SSD in the MB multiple times to rule out a faulty installation.

In the mean time I found the board's QVL which includes multiple NVMe drives, including the 256GB variant of the one I am trying to use so it seems the board should support it but nevertheless cannot detect the drive...

I also discovered in my research that the BIOS for some other ASRock boards have an option under "advanced" called "nvme settings" or something which is missing in the BIOS for this board. Not sure if this is a factor.

Look forward to any advice on how to fix or debug this!
Cheers

Yeah it doesn't show up at all.
Under storage options it only shows the SATA drives (despite all slots being empty), but apparently its normal for NVMe drives not to show up there and, as mentioned above, some BIOS for other motherboard have a separate menu for NVMe drives.

The drive doesn't show up in windows installer either.

I'll take another look at the slot, I'm a bit sceptical though ... I have reinstalled it so many times.

moushntr wrote: Hi, I have installed a Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD into the M2_1 slot of the ASRock B550M-ITX/ac motherboard and it is failing to detect it. I have tried reinstalling and also updating the BIOS to the latest version (1.1) but the issue still persists. I'm wondering now if this is an issue with the motherboard or if this drive is just not supported. The specifications page (https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B550M-ITXac/index.asp#Specification) is confusing me. It says it supports "M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen4x4 (64 Gb/s) (with Matisse) or Gen3x4 (32 Gb/s)" which sounds like it supports this SSD, since the SSD's interface is a "PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3" slot, but then underneath it also says "Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks" as if this is a limitation. Can anyone clarify this for me ? I want to know if I need to keep debugging this board or if I just bought an incompatible drive. Thanks

Forgive me I am noob, so the spec page also confusing me (as well as spec page in all other brand and MB type on that matter ). In the storage section they never say explicitly supports NVME, but i have tried installing my Samsung EVO in MSI x570 motherboard and it works anyway.

cah4e34, please post your system specs fully, which slots which device is plugged in