NVME SSD Issues

Recently purchased an ASRock H670M-ITX/ax motherboard with 32gb 3200 DDR4 RAM and an Intel i5-12500 CPU, which I'm running stock - I have no interest in overclocking anything. Just using the iGPU for now, so the new 500W PSU should be plenty.

For storage I purchased two WD SN770 NVME Gen4 SSDs. To start with I installed one SSD in slot M2.1 and Windows 11 Pro installed perfectly and the system was perfectly stable. The problem started when I installed the second SSD in slot M2.2. This generated lots of errors in Windows Event Manager (mostly codes 51 and 11), and after a time the second SSD would disappear.

I have tried both drives in slot M2.1 and they work perfectly, so I know it's not the drives.

Using a single drive in slot M2.2 gives the same issue. Windows usually fails to boot, or is unstable if it does boot, resulting in a bluescreen at some point.

The board came with BIOS 5.01. I have tried all intermediate versions up to 8.02 and the problem is the same. There are no firmware updates available for the SSD. All other settings are stock. I've tried the RAM at SPD (2666mhz) and XMP (3200mhz) and this makes no difference either. I don't have any other NVME SSDs to try.

I suspect that the second M2.2 slot is faulty on my board, and have agreed that the retailer will exchange it. However, while I wait for the new board to arrive I wanted to check if others had the same issue on either this board, or the Z690 equivalent which has the same issue? The reason I purchased this board was that it came with the two slots, which many DDR4 s1700 ITX boards don't.

When I googled this issue I see that some people have had problems with NVME Gen4 SSDs on Asus Z690 boards, but haven't seen this issue with other chipsets and M2.1 seems to be working fine.

threadzipper1957 wrote: I think it would be best to use the technical support form. https://event.asrock.com/tsd.asp When using gmail, always check your spam folder for replies. You could try, wiping both M.2 with diskpart, and connect only the M2_2. M2_1 only support NVME. M2_2 supports bot NVME and SATA

Thanks, I will contact support if the problem persists.

I had already tried using M2_2 only with a fresh install. It has the same issue but Windows crashes or fails to boot.

Either drive works fine in M2_1. Neither works properly in M2_2, regardless of whether M2_1 is populated.

I received a replacement board from the retailer and this has the same problem.

I thought I had solved it by lowering the PL2 wattages in the bios and configuring the PSU as 300-400W. I had no errors for a few days like that, but now the problem has returned :-(

The system is otherwise completely stable.

okay,
When using the support form, always include the complete modelnames of the M.2
Also check with WD support.