I was literally scrubbing the internet for this exact answer, and lo, you had just posted this video. Thank you for the in-depth explanation, it really helped.
@@TaoMStudio Hello Tao I just subscribed. I have a question please. I recently put a one terabyte M.2 in my Asus tuff gaming plus motherboard. I am using it as my primary drive with Windows 10 installed on it. Do you think it is possible with that installed, it may have a conflict with one of my CD/ DVD drive bays not showing up under my PC ? Thanks I eagerly await your reply. Keith
@@KTHKUHNKK the motherboard I have will disable some of the SATA ports when I use a M.2 ssd. This is really disappointing for such a great technology to have this big hiccup..
@@JoeTaco83 Hello Jose I found my problem with my drive not showing up. After putting everything back together believe it or not I forgot to plug in one of my drives that's why it was not showing up. It really had nothing to do with the M.2 Or SSD or anything like that. He was totally my fault I forgot to plug the drive back in. Keith Kuhn
Thank you for posting this, I’m going for a 2 x Samsung M.2 Drives and I would’ve made a huge mistake here. I’m instead going to purchase the MSI X570 Unify. Thank you again, great detail that even the big youtubers haven’t covered, most focus on VRM and Thermals but this was something very technical and specific that I wouldn’t have noticed most likely until I built my PC
I've been looking to add a second drive lately and totally forgot that the second m.2 slot sometimes deactivates PCIe slots. Thank you for this- you were very helpful!
You are an absolute legend for this!! Your info is so clear and concise, now I can finally know that my setup will work with both m.2 slots and the fourth pcie slot
bro can i use .. a m.2 sata III ssd in 2nd slot b550 gaming edge wifi ?? with gpu installed on the top pcie . is there will be any problem ? i am confuge like a hell now
You ask if this video was of any help? This video may be the more crystal clear on youtube regarding this topic right now A million thanks, pal. :) I wish there were more people online making helpful content like yours.
Dude, you are doing god's work. I was freaking out wondering why my second GPU was not detected, and turns out you cannot have a second M2 and a second GPU running at the same time. First time a find such bullshit in a motherboard in 30 years in the profession.
Well, mobos that are even compatible with two gpus AND m.2 slots aren't that old to begin with. There's a bandwidth limit and if you want more cards you're gonna need a beefier board. I'd rather have M.2 slots that disable SATA ports instead of PCIe, though. I agree it's a somewhat weird configuration. Especially considering it has 6 SATA ports I don't use - seems like this board pushes us towards one SSD and one or two HDDs, rather than a second SSD.
It's okay to not realize that two GPU's will eat up your PCIe lanes but be humble about it because saying that you've been in the profession for 30 years just means that A: you are lying or B: the "profession" you are referring to has something to do with finding bull turds and nothing to do with computers.
I have been reading over and over the MSI B460M MOTAR manual and didn't make sense to me clearly,,,, but thanks to you and your efforts of this video I have a much better understanding even though there are slight differences between MSI B460M MOTAR and MSI B550 Tomahawk,,,, thank you Tao
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is a perfect explanation. I can't believe that this information is easier to find on TH-cam than on the manufacturer's website. I have the MSI B550 A-pro motherboard, and I have been trying to successfully install a 2nd m.2 ssd in the m2_2 slot. I ran into trouble when I tried to install a PCIE gen4 enabled m.2 drive in the 2nd slot because my mobo would not recognize it, so I had to exchange the drive for a gen3 device. Once I installed the gen3 device, I just ran the disk management utility and formatted the new drive and now it is working, but this can be difficult for hobbyists to understand.
Dude... you saved me! I was at the end of my rope... GPU not detected on MSI MB. Tried so many things but no luck. Then, I removed all but the first M2 SSD, and removed all other PCIe devices. It worked. Thank you!
Thank you. I searched for hours trying to figure this out. Thank you for doing a video on it. Basically put, if you use the 2nd MVME slot, you really cannot use anything else except the bottom PCIE slot at the bottom of the board. And that is a 1x slot so pretty much useless. This board has very limited USB ports.
I have the same B550 Tomahawk mobo, 2x M.2 drives, and the PCIE slot at the bottom of the board is perfect for my Wi-Fi card, very happy with my setup😊
Thank you so much Tao, you just saved me so much time of further troubleshooting. I installed a 2nd GPU and have 2 M.2 drives installed, but motherboard wasn't detecting 2nd GPU. As soon as I saw your diagram I immediately knew the issue. Really appreciate you posting this, thumbs up!
very useful video. I found similar issue in the past on my ASrock x570, where while connecting a pci card, I was seeing a disc "disappearing" from the UEFI. Stupid ASRock support asked me to updated the bios to fix it, which clearly was useless, as it's a bandwidth limitation, and properly explained in the manual.
@@TaoMStudio Hi Tao. I finally bought this mobo, and installed all PC parts. All good, until I didn't see the m.2 drives detected in the BIOS or even in the Windows installer. I have troubleshoted this problem for days, tried different BIOS versions, different m.2 drives and also different M,2 slots, nothing happened. This M.2 drive is my only memory card, so right now I am not able to use my PC basically...Could you please suggest how can I solve this?
Thank you for this video, Tao. I've read the manual before but that combination table is simply awful. Your explanation made it easier to understand the underlying principle of shared bandwidth between the m.2 and pcie slots. It's a good board. Too bad we can't just slap it full of NVME SSDs lol
@@trevorstevens2889 That's the one I'm talking about. They just slap a poorly designed sheet on the manual that doesn't really explain anything unless you're already familiar with the bandwidth limit.
thank you really helpful I thought this was a big problem but it was good to know that I can still use the m.2_1 and it wont affect anything so thanks!
Very clear, thank you sir! I have this mobo and I hate the fact that manufacturers are limiting so many things on their boards. It's like buying a car, and when you use one door, some doors won't open? So, reading the manual before the purchase is indeed super important. Another solution would be a workstation, but those mobo's cost a lot more.
This video made me aware of conflicts when using m.2 drives and yes I read the manual that came with my new motherboard. I've been saving parts for the best part of a year all that was left GPU and I finally got one so new rig built. i5 10600kf 4.1ghz (4.8ghz boost) 32gb ram Z490 tomahawk board Rtx 3060 ti Happy days 👍 The Z490 however has conflicts with SATA ports if using M.2 drives. If M.2_1 is in use it disables Sata 2, if M.2_2 is in use it disables Sata ports 5 & 6. Hope this info helps someone.
SSDs nowadays are getting cheaper and they're only really worth it if they're NVMe for PCIe, either M.2 or as add-in directly to a PCIe slot. The only reason we still have SATA SSDs is compatibility with legacy boards. With this in mind, I'd very much prefer a board that disables SATA ports instead of PCIe slots. I got a B550 because it's still an awesome card, but this setup kinda pushes us towards a second drive being an HDD.
@@ricksaburai Sata SSD is still really fast so hypothetically 1 NVME vs the 2 disabled ports you can use with 2 Sata SSDs, you can get double the SSD storage with barely any sacrifice in performance?
@@ziljin fast compared to hdd, yes. To nvme, no. It's 64GB/s vs 600MB/s per bus type. And even then, it's still 6 sata ports on this board against 2 extra pcie slots, one of them being the barely useful x4. Not counting RAID, I can't think of a reason I'd have six satas in use concurrently. Edit: with that said, I agree that sata ssds would be better than an hdd, even if I'd rather use nvme.
@@ricksaburai I was looking at benchmarks and the nvme vs SATA SSD perform almost the same at least for loading programs. Only hdd was slow. I wonder is it okay to use data for storage. Like for Photoshop editing pictures will the picture save and load faster on ssd vs hdd? But then the ssd will die faster from too many writes?
@@ricksaburai At moment SATA slots good to home large capacity HDD (Sata) not SSD like for archiving / storing video / images often in multiple TB's & 20 TB HDD's around $350 vs nothing available (consumers) in this capacity in M.2 and 2.5 SSD SAta yes but expensive and max I've seen is 8TB Samsung for $500 Not all non-recent Mobo I7 < G10's boards as example do not have M2's built on to the mobo; so rely on PCI-E cards to home M2 (1 lane) NVME drive or rely on Sata 3.5 & 2.5" HDD'. Although for modern boards is to: build as many M'2 the Mobo can support at once without reduction of Bandwidth to PCI-E card slots / or power drop outs / detection issues, possibly have 1-2 SATA SSD 2.5" - Samsung 870+ Series 2 - 4th and rest (archive / storage) external Sata HDD's - either SSD (2.5 Samsung, etc) or none SSD, e.g., Seagate 20 TB External Drive.
Thankyou for the video i have the same motherboard and bought a new m.2 and my capture card stopped working thought the issue was the PCIe lanes but you confirmed it so thankyou!
Just bought the B550 Tomahawk, what you said around 4:20 when M2_1 and M2_2 occupied that means Pcie_e2 and Pci_e3 is disabled but the truth is its not disabled Its just nothing there, Not installed or occupied by anything. What this table shows is what combination you can do with available slots and no matter what the combination M2_1 is always available. On the first row if you occupy every slots the PCIe_E3 will be disabled (unusable). So if you have 2 M.2 SSDs and a PCi wifi you can use the 2nd row of combination by installing your wifi adaptor pci in slot pci_e4 as suggested by the manual. as you can see in the note below the table, (X) means no device. not installed by anything. (-) means disabled, unsusable. sorry for grammar. maybe.
Nice video man, thanks good explanation. My problem is I installed extra M.2 on port 4 which cancelled my sata HDD now I can see both my ssd’s but not that particular hdd drive. I think I need to make a compromise now. Thanks for the explanation tho
Great video, good detail. Had a follow up question about this specific board. Would installing a M2 SSD in the M2_1 slot decrease the performance of a graphics card installed in the PCI_E1 slot (because it appears that the PCI_E1 slot and M2_1 slots both share PCIe lanes controlled by the CPU; would now both be running on only 8 PCIe lanes each)? Or would it be better to install the M2 SSD into the M2_2 slot as it appears the M2_2 slot is controlled by the mobo chipset?
Actually I think I answered my question. So current gen (3000 series) and CPUs actually have 24 pcie lanes: 16 dedicated to a component like a graphics card, and then the rest are dedicated to NVMe or M2 cards (or potentially other components). So if you are only going to have 1 M2 ssd, I think it makes the most sense to include it in the slot controlled by your CPU. But now I wonder would having something in the m2 slot lower the performance of something in the PCI_E4 slot (like a wifi card) as I'm not sure how many pcie lanes the B550 chipset has.
Great video my friend. How do we find out the board for my asus z97e? I wanted to buy an SSD but I have sata 2 hdds and 2 ssds so I dont know how to go about it. Please help :)
That was very helpful and I decided to use the extra SSD as external.. One question, Can I use the PCI_E3 for an extra graphic card, and will it perform the same well???
Good explanation, and this is why I sent my Asus B550 board back and got a x570 a while back, by the way, these limitations are from the chipset, not the board, yes, slight variations are possible from one board to another within the same chipset type but most are the same or very close. To me the x570 and now the x570s are worth the $80 - $100 more not to have these headaches and limitations, especially if you need to run a primary and secondary gpu for multiple monitors and then have room for storage expansion as well.
Hello, I’m a bit lost still I’ve got the msi b550 a pro. I have a 4.0 1tb m.2 plugged into the top m.2 slot and a 3.0 m.2 plugged into the bottom slot, is this negatively affecting my gpus x16 lanes? Or am I fine for now. I have a 5800x3d if that matters
@@j.m4a1 I cannot be 100% sure to be honest. A quick search results in people mentioning that the x16 lanes of the primary pcie slot not being affected though.
thanks for the info,my currently problem are i have msi z390 gaming plus it has a 6 slot but when am going to connect the 5th gpu it back to setting with warning error
Hi Tai M Studio, I came across a motherboard that has a m.2/sata switch on the motherboard, is this switch similar to what you described in your video by disabling sata port to use the m.2 slot or does it slow the m.2 port speed so that a sata drive can be used at the same time as the m.2 slot , giving enough bandwidth for both storage devices to work at the same time. I have searched the net and can't find an answers to this.
Hi sir, hope you can answer my questions. I want to put on my asrock b250m pro4 motherboard m.2_1 slot 240gb kingston sa2000 nvme and on the m.2_2 slot 240gb wd m.2 and additional 1 120gb sata ssd and 1 1tb hdd. Is it possible? Thanks in advance for answering
I have a b550 gigabyte aorus elite v2 and installed an pcie x4 m2 ssd on the top m2 slot , i can't see any warning in the manual telling of any conflict between the top pci express slot (4.0 x16) and the top m2 slot (pci 4.0 x4) i'm running a 5600x with corsair vengange 2x8 3200mhz, will I be fine with upgrading to a 3070 ti later? Edit: nevermind, the ryzen 5000 series offer pcie 4.0 x20 lanes, where 4 are dedicated to nvme and x16 to pci slot(basically gpu)
Since I own a MSI B550m pro-vdh wifi mobo, manual states nothing will be blocked if I use a second m.2 mvme on the m.2_2 slot as the mobo has 4 sata ports
Say if I use both m.2 slots, will the speed for my first pcie gen 4 slot for my gpu be affected? As in from x16 it becomes x8? I am also looking at the b550 tomahawk.
Hello, thanks for this explanations. Before i made a mistake : i have nothing on PCI_E2 and PCI_E3, can i buy Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 to put on M2_2 ? thanks !
Hi there, is there anything in the bios you needed to turn on to enable m.2_2? i just got my board delivered today and i suspect that the second m.2 port is dead as what ever i do it is not presenting any memory connected while the first slot has no problem seeing them
Thanks for the video. I was trying to use my 2 16xpci-e slots for two GPUs but it won’t see the second GPU. Now I know it’s because I’m using an M.2 ssd. On the 1st slot close to CPU. That disabled the 2nd 16xpci-e slot. That really sucks. Not I have to use a Riser. Or downgrade to a SATA ssd.
Not the same motherboard, ASUS tuf gaming b560m plus wifi, but a very similar layout. I cannot get the system to recognize the lower m2 slot. Any ideas? I’ve swapped m2 drives from bottom to top. Whichever is in the top works. Whichever is in the bottom is not recognized.
I am using B450 AORUS PRO WIFI mobo. it has tw M.2 Slots the first one PCIe 3x4 & the 2nd slot PCIe 3x2 Supported so i use both of the slots with difference brand of SSD. when i ran the speed test on 2nd ssd slot. its only use half speed now i have a question if i use ( PCIE to M2 Adapter NVMe M.2 PCI Express Adapter ) and connect it with PCI Slot can utilize the full speed ?
Hi I have a question i have a asus prime X570-P MB i just got into pc building last year so for my first build I used a 250 Samsung 970 Evo M.2 ssd and I bought a WD 1TB HDD so just recently I bought a new SK Hynix Gold P31 1 tb pcie ñvme M.2 ssd I installed it and it would tell my say to press delete to go to bios but i pressed del and F2 and it still didn’t take me to Bios I had to uninstall the new m.2 to be able to start my pc. Is there a MB that is mid price and can support 2 M.2 and a HDD??
guys if a second drive you have isn't recognized by the BIOS don't give up!! I eventually got it working by switching the positions of the two m.2 slots : )
Hello I have this motherboard but I wont be using m2 yet. I havnt started my computer yet but Im wondering do I remove the protective film before starting the pc or will it not be an issue as im not using it? Thanks
I have gigabyte z490 ud ac motherboard i have both my ssd slot filled with 500gb 970evo want to add another m.2 ssd in pcie x4 slot with adaptor is it possible without losing performance?
Im planning to maximize the 3 available M2 slots in my MoBO and I'm gonna add 2 more M2 NVME SSD. If I have 3 M2 NVME SSD will the lanes split from 16x into 8x or 4x? Does that mean the 1st 2nd and 3rd slot will have a slower reading speeds? Im also torn whether I'll add 1 pc M2 NVME SSD and 2x SATA SSD since the 2nd slot of the M2 will disable 1 SATA port. Hmmm.
hello !! can i put 2x 250 gb nvme 2280 in slot pci - e with adaptator + 1 nvme 512 gb always in the Asus Prime X470-Pro ? will suffer the systems with 4 nvme onboard ? about the pci expres 2.0 ? i have 1tb nvme already as main disc for os/datas. so the 250 gb + 512 gb nvme are for do a raid 0 for datas/backup images... have the follow system compnets: cpu 1800x @ 3.8 ghz - rs-du + 32 gb ddr3 @ 2933 ... thank you !!
So my Asrock steel legend b450m says if the m.2_2 slot (which is the m. 2 sata) is in use, my sata 3_3 will be disabled since they share the same line or channel, so it means that I can use my m.2_2 and also a regular ssd 2.5 plugged to a sata port 1,2 or 4? It doesn't mention anything about the pcie PLEASE REPLY 😞😞😞 I'm still kinda confused
wondering about installing a m2 carrier board, like asus Hyper M.2, and move my second m2 drive there (after doing a backup before), not sure how many m2 drives would be installable, will the GPU only have only 8 lanes instead of 16 to allow bifurcation between both pcie slots?
bro I need your help Thunderboltex 3tr won't work on my motherboard B-550-F WIFI GAMING but asus recommended it and says its compatible. I have 3700x ryzen and 3080 evga. I install the drivers then I go to install the card and the computer just restarts after enabling the thunderbolt in bios.
I'm using this board with a 3060 in pci_e1 & I have two nvme m.2's, OS on 250gb in m2_2 slot & games on 1tb in m1_2 slot. Apart from the gpu I have no other pci_e plug ins, am I good with this?
OK so, I have a GPU, two M2 SSD's, and a PCI-E x1 sound card. It will all work together, but I'll have to use the bottom x1 slot for the sound card? Useful info, thanks!
This is bit old so sorry. But if you had a rtx 3080, 10th gen i7-10700k and a Samsung 970 evo plus NVMe is there anyway to get the GPU to run PCIe 3.0 x16? Or by using the NVMe will the GPU only be maxed at pcie 3.0 x8?
I installed the nmve and m.2 ssd on the mobo asus rog b450f gaming ii, the m.2 can't be read at all in the BIOS and the motherboard... I've set it but can't find it, how do I set it in the BIOS so that it can be read
I have a Z390 and I’m using a m2.1 with a gpu in E1 and E3 and my computer will bios loop over and over if I try and switch my bios to expand the 4x to 8x
I am using MSI B365M PRO-VH motherboard which has a single M.2, single PCIe x16 and two PCIe x1 slot. I am using an M.2 SSD, one x16 graphics card, one x1 wi-fi adapter card but the second x1 is empty. I attempted to use an x1 TV Tuner but windows never recognized it though the card is functional (tested). The manual says if you use the M.2 SSD the SATA 1 port won't work but I never understood why the second PCIe x1 didn't work. I am still stuck. So, I have attached another SATA based SSD on SATA 2 port which works just fine. I am no gamer and I don't see any dramatic improvement on speed as far as the M.2 is concerned. Even if there's any improvement that doesn't help me in any big way. On top the M.2 runs very hot which is understandable. I am seriously considering to move to SATA based SSD and leave M.2 empty so that I can use the PCIe card at least which I think is more important for me. Thanks for clarifying this issues on the video.
i wanted to know what slot to use for m.2 ? pcie 4.0 from chipset or cpu while having an rtx 3060 ti already in the pcie 5 slot. can we use both gpu and 1 m.2 ssd in the pcie from CPU simeltaneously on a b760 mother board? do gpu uses all the 16 lanes and wont spare any for the m.2 form the cpu?
Do you test your disk speed on the 2nd m.2 slot? Especially when connecting a SATA drive/ethernet cable/pcie wifi card that also occupy the bandwidth between PCH and CPU?
@Ralf Suo you should not see any difference if you just connect a m.2, a sata drive, and 1 pcie device. But the bandwidth might be an issue if you use all the sata ports, pcie ports, and usb ports. and at the same time a gpu.
My motherboard H97M-E ... Can I use Samsung 970 EVO plus M.2 SSD? How Can I Full Speed with this PCIe M.2 ssd? My board have ... 10Gb/s M.2 Slot Only... please ...
So what is the solution if someone is stuck with nvme x4 and pcie 3/4 x16 ? Maybe to use a .2 SSD to 2.5-Inch SATA III Enclosure Adapter/Converter, moving the nvme to sata This might lose some speed but it seems to work
I just bought an MSI B550 A-pro and i have a question on this since i want to install my sound blaster Z in second pcie and i want to know if this will reduce the speed of my GPU?
I am basically always using laptops it's been a long time since I've been using an actual desktop but I didn't realise that these restrictions applied to desktops I can put as many things into my laptop as I want without having any restrictions so this is really interesting. I was thinking of building a fairly high-end desktop if I was to build a high-end desktop I wouldn't want these restrictions I would want to be able to use all of the slots at once. I'm grateful for this video in means I can go and look for motherboards in a bit more detail it's just picking the one that looks the best
Its because the new M.2 uses PCIE lanes instead of sata. Its really not about RESTRICTIONS, its about OPTIONS. As for a comparison to a laptop Desktops are way better for options/upgrades. Just make sure the MB you buy supports M.2. Also you probably want ever need to use all the slots. Most high end builds just use PCIE for a GPU.
Laptop design is all about size, so instead of what you call "restrictions" (actually slot priority) in not being able to use all slots at once, in laptops they just use fewer slots and some controllers are soldered directly to the motherboard. With laptops you're mostly stuck with the same gpu with no PCIe slots other than the occasional M.2 for an SSD upgrade. If anything it's laptops that are restrictive.
I was literally scrubbing the internet for this exact answer, and lo, you had just posted this video. Thank you for the in-depth explanation, it really helped.
@Alyssa Nash
Glad it was helpful!👍
@@TaoMStudio
Hello Tao
I just subscribed.
I have a question please.
I recently put a one terabyte M.2 in my Asus tuff gaming plus motherboard.
I am using it as my primary drive with Windows 10 installed on it.
Do you think it is possible with that installed, it may have a conflict with one of my CD/ DVD drive bays not showing up under my PC ?
Thanks I eagerly await your reply.
Keith
@@KTHKUHNKK the motherboard I have will disable some of the SATA ports when I use a M.2 ssd. This is really disappointing for such a great technology to have this big hiccup..
@@JoeTaco83
Hello Jose
I found my problem with my drive not showing up.
After putting everything back together believe it or not I forgot to plug in one of my drives that's why it was not showing up.
It really had nothing to do with the M.2
Or SSD or anything like that.
He was totally my fault
I forgot to plug the drive back in.
Keith Kuhn
@@JoeTaco83
Are you sure it is disconnecting from your SATA ports ?
Did you get the problem figured out ?
Keith
You just increased my knowledge on looking out for motherboards by understanding that manual briefing. Good job as I am not a technician.
Thank you for posting this, I’m going for a 2 x Samsung M.2 Drives and I would’ve made a huge mistake here. I’m instead going to purchase the MSI X570 Unify.
Thank you again, great detail that even the big youtubers haven’t covered, most focus on VRM and Thermals but this was something very technical and specific that I wouldn’t have noticed most likely until I built my PC
I've been looking to add a second drive lately and totally forgot that the second m.2 slot sometimes deactivates PCIe slots. Thank you for this- you were very helpful!
2 years later and it's the only video i found about this, thank you for the explanation!
Really informative for my build. And happy to see a video talking about something other than slot counts and vrm temps.
You are an absolute legend for this!! Your info is so clear and concise, now I can finally know that my setup will work with both m.2 slots and the fourth pcie slot
bro can i use .. a m.2 sata III ssd in 2nd slot b550 gaming edge wifi ??
with gpu installed on the top pcie .
is there will be any problem ? i am confuge like a hell now
Much appreciated. Very informative video. Exactly what I needed to realize i'm stuck w/ one gpu on this board w/ m.2.
You ask if this video was of any help? This video may be the more crystal clear on youtube regarding this topic right now
A million thanks, pal. :) I wish there were more people online making helpful content like yours.
Dude, you are doing god's work. I was freaking out wondering why my second GPU was not detected, and turns out you cannot have a second M2 and a second GPU running at the same time.
First time a find such bullshit in a motherboard in 30 years in the profession.
Well, mobos that are even compatible with two gpus AND m.2 slots aren't that old to begin with. There's a bandwidth limit and if you want more cards you're gonna need a beefier board.
I'd rather have M.2 slots that disable SATA ports instead of PCIe, though. I agree it's a somewhat weird configuration. Especially considering it has 6 SATA ports I don't use - seems like this board pushes us towards one SSD and one or two HDDs, rather than a second SSD.
It's okay to not realize that two GPU's will eat up your PCIe lanes but be humble about it
because saying that you've been in the profession for 30 years just means that
A: you are lying or
B: the "profession" you are referring to has something to do with finding bull turds and nothing to do with computers.
I have been reading over and over the MSI B460M MOTAR manual and didn't make sense to me clearly,,,, but thanks to you and your efforts of this video I have a much better understanding even though there are slight differences between MSI B460M MOTAR and MSI B550 Tomahawk,,,, thank you Tao
you've gained a sub my friend was worried about using two m.2 on the mag Tomahawk now I know I can for my set up..
Thank you! This is exactly what I've been looking for.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is a perfect explanation. I can't believe that this information is easier to find on TH-cam than on the manufacturer's website. I have the MSI B550 A-pro motherboard, and I have been trying to successfully install a 2nd m.2 ssd in the m2_2 slot. I ran into trouble when I tried to install a PCIE gen4 enabled m.2 drive in the 2nd slot because my mobo would not recognize it, so I had to exchange the drive for a gen3 device. Once I installed the gen3 device, I just ran the disk management utility and formatted the new drive and now it is working, but this can be difficult for hobbyists to understand.
Dude... you saved me! I was at the end of my rope... GPU not detected on MSI MB. Tried so many things but no luck. Then, I removed all but the first M2 SSD, and removed all other PCIe devices. It worked. Thank you!
THANK YOU! I looked everywhere for an explanation as well, good work!
Just ran into this problem today. Added a 3rd M.2 with a pcie adaptor, and spent half the day troubleshooting the issues. Thank you for this video.
hello, so can I use both M2 slots without any problem? Cause I don't really understand this guy in the video.
@@grencznermark2993 If you dont use the bottome pcie slot, yes you can, its either the bottom pcie slot or the 2nd m2. can't use both.
in 2024 and i finely found a video that is explained clearly . Thank you very much Tao
Excelent!! A good help to understand these conflicts. Few youtube videos are deep on this issue. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. I searched for hours trying to figure this out. Thank you for doing a video on it. Basically put, if you use the 2nd MVME slot, you really cannot use anything else except the bottom PCIE slot at the bottom of the board. And that is a 1x slot so pretty much useless. This board has very limited USB ports.
I have the same B550 Tomahawk mobo, 2x M.2 drives, and the PCIE slot at the bottom of the board is perfect for my Wi-Fi card, very happy with my setup😊
Bottom slot is good for a USB expansion card. I know.. The usb is dismal on my B550 Gamers Edge.
Thank you so much Tao, you just saved me so much time of further troubleshooting. I installed a 2nd GPU and have 2 M.2 drives installed, but motherboard wasn't detecting 2nd GPU. As soon as I saw your diagram I immediately knew the issue. Really appreciate you posting this, thumbs up!
Glad I could help
But is there any solution, so that i can use both m.2 and both pci e slot at the same time???
very useful video. I found similar issue in the past on my ASrock x570, where while connecting a pci card, I was seeing a disc "disappearing" from the UEFI. Stupid ASRock support asked me to updated the bios to fix it, which clearly was useless, as it's a bandwidth limitation, and properly explained in the manual.
I am about to buy this MoBo and found you. Great video, continue with those little things that nobody talks about!
@Alfonso D. 👍
@@TaoMStudio Hi Tao. I finally bought this mobo, and installed all PC parts. All good, until I didn't see the m.2 drives detected in the BIOS or even in the Windows installer. I have troubleshoted this problem for days, tried different BIOS versions, different m.2 drives and also different M,2 slots, nothing happened. This M.2 drive is my only memory card, so right now I am not able to use my PC basically...Could you please suggest how can I solve this?
@Alfonso D. Hi, make sure you have the latest BIOS installed.
@@TaoMStudio Hi Tao. I did, even used different methods to reinstall the updated BIOS and different USB sticks. But nothing.
@@alfonsod.287 just update your bios it would be fine
Thank you for this video, Tao. I've read the manual before but that combination table is simply awful. Your explanation made it easier to understand the underlying principle of shared bandwidth between the m.2 and pcie slots.
It's a good board. Too bad we can't just slap it full of NVME SSDs lol
As bad as it is, it's better than the explanation in Asus manuals.
@@trevorstevens2889 That's the one I'm talking about. They just slap a poorly designed sheet on the manual that doesn't really explain anything unless you're already familiar with the bandwidth limit.
This has been insanely helpful. Thank you so much good sir!
thank you really helpful I thought this was a big problem but it was good to know that I can still use the m.2_1 and it wont affect anything so thanks!
Great video. Keep up the good work. answered my questions and thoughts and learned something new.
Thanks for the simple explanation. I am a hardware noob and it really helped
Thanks so much for creating this video, super helpful!
Very clear, thank you sir!
I have this mobo and I hate the fact that manufacturers are limiting so many things on their boards. It's like buying a car, and when you use one door, some doors won't open?
So, reading the manual before the purchase is indeed super important.
Another solution would be a workstation, but those mobo's cost a lot more.
Thanks for taking your time to explain this, this thing was driving me crazy and i found the answear here. Thanks
This video made me aware of conflicts when using m.2 drives and yes I read the manual that came with my new motherboard.
I've been saving parts for the best part of a year all that was left GPU and I finally got one so new rig built.
i5 10600kf 4.1ghz (4.8ghz boost)
32gb ram
Z490 tomahawk board
Rtx 3060 ti
Happy days 👍
The Z490 however has conflicts with SATA ports if using M.2 drives.
If M.2_1 is in use it disables Sata 2, if
M.2_2 is in use it disables Sata ports 5 & 6.
Hope this info helps someone.
SSDs nowadays are getting cheaper and they're only really worth it if they're NVMe for PCIe, either M.2 or as add-in directly to a PCIe slot. The only reason we still have SATA SSDs is compatibility with legacy boards.
With this in mind, I'd very much prefer a board that disables SATA ports instead of PCIe slots. I got a B550 because it's still an awesome card, but this setup kinda pushes us towards a second drive being an HDD.
@@ricksaburai Sata SSD is still really fast so hypothetically 1 NVME vs the 2 disabled ports you can use with 2 Sata SSDs, you can get double the SSD storage with barely any sacrifice in performance?
@@ziljin fast compared to hdd, yes. To nvme, no. It's 64GB/s vs 600MB/s per bus type. And even then, it's still 6 sata ports on this board against 2 extra pcie slots, one of them being the barely useful x4.
Not counting RAID, I can't think of a reason I'd have six satas in use concurrently.
Edit: with that said, I agree that sata ssds would be better than an hdd, even if I'd rather use nvme.
@@ricksaburai I was looking at benchmarks and the nvme vs SATA SSD perform almost the same at least for loading programs. Only hdd was slow. I wonder is it okay to use data for storage. Like for Photoshop editing pictures will the picture save and load faster on ssd vs hdd? But then the ssd will die faster from too many writes?
@@ricksaburai At moment SATA slots good to home large capacity HDD (Sata) not SSD like for archiving / storing video / images often in multiple TB's & 20 TB HDD's around $350 vs nothing available (consumers) in this capacity in M.2 and 2.5 SSD SAta yes but expensive and max I've seen is 8TB Samsung for $500
Not all non-recent Mobo I7 < G10's boards as example do not have M2's built on to the mobo; so rely on PCI-E cards to home M2 (1 lane) NVME drive or rely on Sata 3.5 & 2.5" HDD'.
Although for modern boards is to: build as many M'2 the Mobo can support at once without reduction of Bandwidth to PCI-E card slots / or power drop outs / detection issues, possibly have 1-2 SATA SSD 2.5" - Samsung 870+ Series 2 - 4th and rest (archive / storage) external Sata HDD's - either SSD (2.5 Samsung, etc) or none SSD, e.g., Seagate 20 TB External Drive.
wow this video helped me understand more about m.2 slot Thanks alot.. +1 sub
Excellent video. Helped me understand my manual from a different manufacturer.
🙏🏼
Thankyou for the video i have the same motherboard and bought a new m.2 and my capture card stopped working thought the issue was the PCIe lanes but you confirmed it so thankyou!
Many thanks for your video, still very relevant for the beginner trying to fathom the Tomahawk B550 intricacies....
Sir help me ..can i use my m.2 ssd sata on 1st slot nve slot on my mortar max and x2 hdd drive and use the pcie 1st slot. ?
Amigo, obrigado. Só para ficar óbvio, em qual slot vc recomenda usar o ssd mvne numa workstation Dell Precision T 3500???
Best and only Video that helped me with this issue Thank you !!!!!!!
Although my mobo was different this cleared up a major headache for me :D. Big thumbs up.
Just bought the B550 Tomahawk, what you said around 4:20 when M2_1 and M2_2 occupied that means Pcie_e2 and Pci_e3 is disabled but the truth is its not disabled Its just nothing there, Not installed or occupied by anything. What this table shows is what combination you can do with available slots and no matter what the combination M2_1 is always available. On the first row if you occupy every slots the PCIe_E3 will be disabled (unusable). So if you have 2 M.2 SSDs and a PCi wifi you can use the 2nd row of combination by installing your wifi adaptor pci in slot pci_e4 as suggested by the manual.
as you can see in the note below the table,
(X) means no device. not installed by anything.
(-) means disabled, unsusable.
sorry for grammar. maybe.
too easy to understand!!!
Hey great video, you've actual answered my questions. Cheers brother
Nice video man, thanks good explanation. My problem is I installed extra M.2 on port 4 which cancelled my sata HDD now I can see both my ssd’s but not that particular hdd drive. I think I need to make a compromise now.
Thanks for the explanation tho
Great video, good detail. Had a follow up question about this specific board. Would installing a M2 SSD in the M2_1 slot decrease the performance of a graphics card installed in the PCI_E1 slot (because it appears that the PCI_E1 slot and M2_1 slots both share PCIe lanes controlled by the CPU; would now both be running on only 8 PCIe lanes each)? Or would it be better to install the M2 SSD into the M2_2 slot as it appears the M2_2 slot is controlled by the mobo chipset?
Actually I think I answered my question. So current gen (3000 series) and CPUs actually have 24 pcie lanes: 16 dedicated to a component like a graphics card, and then the rest are dedicated to NVMe or M2 cards (or potentially other components). So if you are only going to have 1 M2 ssd, I think it makes the most sense to include it in the slot controlled by your CPU. But now I wonder would having something in the m2 slot lower the performance of something in the PCI_E4 slot (like a wifi card) as I'm not sure how many pcie lanes the B550 chipset has.
Hi i need to use m2_1, pci_e1, pci_e2, pci_e3 m2_2. I know that i can’t do that on tomahawk b550 but i can do that with b550 asus rog-f?
Great video my friend. How do we find out the board for my asus z97e? I wanted to buy an SSD but I have sata 2 hdds and 2 ssds so I dont know how to go about it. Please help :)
That was very helpful and I decided to use the extra SSD as external..
One question, Can I use the PCI_E3 for an extra graphic card, and will it perform the same well???
Good video, exactly what I was looking for.
Hi. I have an Asus Prime B360M-A. What would be the best M.2 to use? Thank you
Really appreciate your video, answered all of my questions. I should start reading manuals.
Good explanation, and this is why I sent my Asus B550 board back and got a x570 a while back, by the way, these limitations are from the chipset, not the board, yes, slight variations are possible from one board to another within the same chipset type but most are the same or very close. To me the x570 and now the x570s are worth the $80 - $100 more not to have these headaches and limitations, especially if you need to run a primary and secondary gpu for multiple monitors and then have room for storage expansion as well.
Hello, I’m a bit lost still I’ve got the msi b550 a pro. I have a 4.0 1tb m.2 plugged into the top m.2 slot and a 3.0 m.2 plugged into the bottom slot, is this negatively affecting my gpus x16 lanes? Or am I fine for now. I have a 5800x3d if that matters
@@j.m4a1 I cannot be 100% sure to be honest. A quick search results in people mentioning that the x16 lanes of the primary pcie slot not being affected though.
thanks for the info,my currently problem are i have msi z390 gaming plus it has a 6 slot but when am going to connect the 5th gpu it back to setting with warning error
Hi Tai M Studio, I came across a motherboard that has a m.2/sata switch on the motherboard, is this switch similar to what you described in your video by disabling sata port to use the m.2 slot or does it slow the m.2 port speed so that a sata drive can be used at the same time as the m.2 slot , giving enough bandwidth for both storage devices to work at the same time. I have searched the net and can't find an answers to this.
Hello, I have the MSI B460M VDH WIFI. Do these two boards (B550 Tomahawk) have the same layout?
Thank you!
Michael.. Atl, Ga.
Hi sir, hope you can answer my questions. I want to put on my asrock b250m pro4 motherboard m.2_1 slot 240gb kingston sa2000 nvme and on the m.2_2 slot 240gb wd m.2 and additional 1 120gb sata ssd and 1 1tb hdd. Is it possible? Thanks in advance for answering
I have a b550 gigabyte aorus elite v2 and installed an pcie x4 m2 ssd on the top m2 slot , i can't see any warning in the manual telling of any conflict between the top pci express slot (4.0 x16) and the top m2 slot (pci 4.0 x4)
i'm running a 5600x with corsair vengange 2x8 3200mhz, will I be fine with upgrading to a 3070 ti later?
Edit: nevermind, the ryzen 5000 series offer pcie 4.0 x20 lanes, where 4 are dedicated to nvme and x16 to pci slot(basically gpu)
Since I own a MSI B550m pro-vdh wifi mobo, manual states nothing will be blocked if I use a second m.2 mvme on the m.2_2 slot as the mobo has 4 sata ports
Would using the 2nd M.2 slot be better for temps , bc the SSD is further away from GPU? I am thinking to populate the 2nd m.2 for that reason .
Thanks for the great explanation 👍
Say if I use both m.2 slots, will the speed for my first pcie gen 4 slot for my gpu be affected? As in from x16 it becomes x8? I am also looking at the b550 tomahawk.
Hello, thanks for this explanations. Before i made a mistake : i have nothing on PCI_E2 and PCI_E3, can i buy Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 to put on M2_2 ? thanks !
Hi there,
is there anything in the bios you needed to turn on to enable m.2_2? i just got my board delivered today and i suspect that the second m.2 port is dead as what ever i do it is not presenting any memory connected while the first slot has no problem seeing them
El m.2 -1 he visto que soporta el tipo 22110 pero le puedo poner el 2280 en ese mismo M.2-1 ? Para aprovechar el pci 4.0
Thanks for the video. I was trying to use my 2 16xpci-e slots for two GPUs but it won’t see the second GPU. Now I know it’s because I’m using an M.2 ssd. On the 1st slot close to CPU. That disabled the 2nd 16xpci-e slot. That really sucks. Not I have to use a Riser. Or downgrade to a SATA ssd.
Not the same motherboard, ASUS tuf gaming b560m plus wifi, but a very similar layout. I cannot get the system to recognize the lower m2 slot. Any ideas? I’ve swapped m2 drives from bottom to top. Whichever is in the top works. Whichever is in the bottom is not recognized.
My board is msi b550 bazooka can i used two nvme on the two slot?
I am using B450 AORUS PRO WIFI mobo. it has tw M.2 Slots the first one PCIe 3x4 & the 2nd slot PCIe 3x2 Supported so i use both of the slots with difference brand of SSD. when i ran the speed test on 2nd ssd slot. its only use half speed now i have a question if i use ( PCIE to M2 Adapter NVMe M.2 PCI Express Adapter ) and connect it with PCI Slot can utilize the full speed ?
Hi I have a question i have a asus prime X570-P MB i just got into pc building last year so for my first build I used a 250 Samsung 970 Evo M.2 ssd and I bought a WD 1TB HDD so just recently I bought a new SK Hynix Gold P31 1 tb pcie ñvme M.2 ssd I installed it and it would tell my say to press delete to go to bios but i pressed del and F2 and it still didn’t take me to Bios I had to uninstall the new m.2 to be able to start my pc. Is there a MB that is mid price and can support 2 M.2 and a HDD??
As much as I tried to follow along, can I put an m.2 in my b550 tomahawk?
Thanks Pal I needed that.
guys if a second drive you have isn't recognized by the BIOS don't give up!! I eventually got it working by switching the positions of the two m.2 slots : )
Hello I have this motherboard but I wont be using m2 yet. I havnt started my computer yet but Im wondering do I remove the protective film before starting the pc or will it not be an issue as im not using it? Thanks
I have gigabyte z490 ud ac motherboard i have both my ssd slot filled with 500gb 970evo want to add another m.2 ssd in pcie x4 slot with adaptor is it possible without losing performance?
Im planning to maximize the 3 available M2 slots in my MoBO and I'm gonna add 2 more M2 NVME SSD. If I have 3 M2 NVME SSD will the lanes split from 16x into 8x or 4x? Does that mean the 1st 2nd and 3rd slot will have a slower reading speeds?
Im also torn whether I'll add 1 pc M2 NVME SSD and 2x SATA SSD since the 2nd slot of the M2 will disable 1 SATA port. Hmmm.
Encountered this conflict, too. It's a little late, but it helped me!
hello !! can i put 2x 250 gb nvme 2280 in slot pci - e with adaptator + 1 nvme 512 gb always in the Asus Prime X470-Pro ? will suffer the systems with 4 nvme onboard ? about the pci expres 2.0 ? i have 1tb nvme already as main disc for os/datas. so the 250 gb + 512 gb nvme are for do a raid 0 for datas/backup images... have the follow system compnets: cpu 1800x @ 3.8 ghz - rs-du + 32 gb ddr3 @ 2933 ... thank you !!
Very nice. I gotta re check my z97-a manual about m.2 slots, its so confusing! Can they affect even gpus?
So my Asrock steel legend b450m says if the m.2_2 slot (which is the m. 2 sata) is in use, my sata 3_3 will be disabled since they share the same line or channel, so it means that I can use my m.2_2 and also a regular ssd 2.5 plugged to a sata port 1,2 or 4?
It doesn't mention anything about the pcie PLEASE REPLY 😞😞😞 I'm still kinda confused
wondering about installing a m2 carrier board, like asus Hyper M.2, and move my second m2 drive there (after doing a backup before), not sure how many m2 drives would be installable, will the GPU only have only 8 lanes instead of 16 to allow bifurcation between both pcie slots?
bro I need your help Thunderboltex 3tr won't work on my motherboard B-550-F WIFI GAMING but asus recommended it and says its compatible. I have 3700x ryzen and 3080 evga. I install the drivers then I go to install the card and the computer just restarts after enabling the thunderbolt in bios.
I'm using this board with a 3060 in pci_e1 & I have two nvme m.2's, OS on 250gb in m2_2 slot & games on 1tb in m1_2 slot. Apart from the gpu I have no other pci_e plug ins, am I good with this?
OK so, I have a GPU, two M2 SSD's, and a PCI-E x1 sound card.
It will all work together, but I'll have to use the bottom x1 slot for the sound card?
Useful info, thanks!
great explanation ... manufactures hide such details and normal users simply do not know this stuff
I wasn't expecting that beat to drop in the beginning lol
This is bit old so sorry. But if you had a rtx 3080, 10th gen i7-10700k and a Samsung 970 evo plus NVMe is there anyway to get the GPU to run PCIe 3.0 x16? Or by using the NVMe will the GPU only be maxed at pcie 3.0 x8?
what about asus rog strix b450 gaming f II?
what will we lose if installing m.2 disks in both slots?
I installed the nmve and m.2 ssd on the mobo asus rog b450f gaming ii, the m.2 can't be read at all in the BIOS and the motherboard... I've set it but can't find it, how do I set it in the BIOS so that it can be read
I have a Z390 and I’m using a m2.1 with a gpu in E1 and E3 and my computer will bios loop over and over if I try and switch my bios to expand the 4x to 8x
If I understand, with this Mobo I can put example: a nvme 1to Gen4 on the first slot and a 1to ssd Sata and I will not have issue?
Hi just a question, can i fit m.2 2280 size ssd on B550 Tomahawk? I recently bought corsair mp510 ssd. Hope you can answer. Thanks
I am using MSI B365M PRO-VH motherboard which has a single M.2, single PCIe x16 and two PCIe x1 slot. I am using an M.2 SSD, one x16 graphics card, one x1 wi-fi adapter card but the second x1 is empty. I attempted to use an x1 TV Tuner but windows never recognized it though the card is functional (tested). The manual says if you use the M.2 SSD the SATA 1 port won't work but I never understood why the second PCIe x1 didn't work. I am still stuck. So, I have attached another SATA based SSD on SATA 2 port which works just fine. I am no gamer and I don't see any dramatic improvement on speed as far as the M.2 is concerned. Even if there's any improvement that doesn't help me in any big way. On top the M.2 runs very hot which is understandable. I am seriously considering to move to SATA based SSD and leave M.2 empty so that I can use the PCIe card at least which I think is more important for me. Thanks for clarifying this issues on the video.
i wanted to know what slot to use for m.2 ? pcie 4.0 from chipset or cpu while having an rtx 3060 ti already in the pcie 5 slot. can we use both gpu and 1 m.2 ssd in the pcie from CPU simeltaneously on a b760 mother board? do gpu uses all the 16 lanes and wont spare any for the m.2 form the cpu?
Do you test your disk speed on the 2nd m.2 slot? Especially when connecting a SATA drive/ethernet cable/pcie wifi card that also occupy the bandwidth between PCH and CPU?
@Ralf Suo
you should not see any difference if you just connect a m.2, a sata drive, and 1 pcie device. But the bandwidth might be an issue if you use all the sata ports, pcie ports, and usb ports. and at the same time a gpu.
My motherboard H97M-E ... Can I use Samsung 970 EVO plus M.2 SSD? How Can I Full Speed with this PCIe M.2 ssd? My board have ... 10Gb/s M.2 Slot Only... please ...
Hello and healthy new year! Can iRun an m.2 pcie and a 2.5 ssd nvme pcie on my laptop together? iUse m.2 for operating system and 2.5 for storage :D
So what is the solution if someone is stuck with nvme x4 and pcie 3/4 x16 ?
Maybe to use a .2 SSD to 2.5-Inch SATA III Enclosure Adapter/Converter, moving the nvme to sata
This might lose some speed but it seems to work
I just bought an MSI B550 A-pro and i have a question on this since i want to install my sound blaster Z in second pcie and i want to know if this will reduce the speed of my GPU?
Thanks dude, very informative.
Can I use pcie2.0 gpu in msi b550 a pro on pcie 4.0 port? I cant buy rtx 3000 series because of stock problems in market.
I am basically always using laptops it's been a long time since I've been using an actual desktop but I didn't realise that these restrictions applied to desktops I can put as many things into my laptop as I want without having any restrictions so this is really interesting.
I was thinking of building a fairly high-end desktop if I was to build a high-end desktop I wouldn't want these restrictions I would want to be able to use all of the slots at once. I'm grateful for this video in means I can go and look for motherboards in a bit more detail it's just picking the one that looks the best
Its because the new M.2 uses PCIE lanes instead of sata. Its really not about RESTRICTIONS, its about OPTIONS. As for a comparison to a laptop Desktops are way better for options/upgrades. Just make sure the MB you buy supports M.2. Also you probably want ever need to use all the slots. Most high end builds just use PCIE for a GPU.
Laptop design is all about size, so instead of what you call "restrictions" (actually slot priority) in not being able to use all slots at once, in laptops they just use fewer slots and some controllers are soldered directly to the motherboard. With laptops you're mostly stuck with the same gpu with no PCIe slots other than the occasional M.2 for an SSD upgrade. If anything it's laptops that are restrictive.