m.2 carnage changing drive

chrcoluk · 7 Mar 2022 at 03:26

Yep next episode of my war with the m.2 slot. Some of you may know I am not a fan of it.

So part of my plan to rehaul my storage has me replacing my 970 EVO with a 980 PRO in the primary m.2 slot, I removed GPU, and the holding screw expecting the m.2 drive to flip u but instead it stayed in place.

Eventually took a photo as so hard to see in the area right next to cpu cooler, and could see the drive was held down by the screw standoff, so had to remove that, tried pliers before realising I had a tool that fit inside to unscrew it.

After it took me at least an hour to screw the 980 PRO in place with the little tiny fiddly screw. What a chore m.2 is. This one is secured via the screw not the standoff.

Thinking how the 970 ended u below the standoff, I must have got frustrated when I last installed it and used the standoff to hold it in, its the only thing I can think off, but seems just dumb.

jaybee · 7 Mar 2022 at 07:30

I'm not understanding. My usage of m2 slots has been like any other time I screwed and unscrewed a small machine screw: it worked.

chrcoluk · 7 Mar 2022 at 08:14

Other screws I touch to replace stuff are not sandwiched between CPU cooler and GPU, they also not as small.

bimbleuk · 7 Mar 2022 at 09:09

I think the design was primarily developed from pre-configured systems so not much thought was given to user upgrading.

My previous board has two covers in place before the actual M.2 can be removed. New board has 4 M.2 slots which is great for a tidy install. Magnetic screw drivers help but best design I've seen so far is a plastic push pin with a leash which is much easier to install and possible one handed.

chrcoluk · 8 Mar 2022 at 00:22

bimbleuk said:
I think the design was primarily developed from pre-configured systems so not much thought was given to user upgrading.

My previous board has two covers in place before the actual M.2 can be removed. New board has 4 M.2 slots which is great for a tidy install. Magnetic screw drivers help but best design I've seen so far is a plastic push pin with a leash which is much easier to install and possible one handed.

I agree, when I watch streamers, they installing their drives in a system with the components not yet installed outside of the case, so in that instance its similar to swapping a drive in a laptop.

Now I could make it easy myself to swap a m.2, all I would have to do, is lift up my heavy case, lie it down somewhere, remove the cooler, the gpu, and take the board out the case, simples.

I have read about that new system from ASUS, its long overdue, but better late than never.

When I installed last night my 970 EVO back in the case via the PCI to M.2 adaptor I purchased though, that was 100x easier, and in my opinion the way things should have gone from the start (since they refused to use U.2). Ironically there is also more bandwidth to my PCIEx4 slot (bottom one routed via chipset) vs the primary M.2 slot.