Problems With New Tomahawk Board

Viper10 · 26 May 2022 at 01:10

Hi,

Haven't posted in a while. My Feb 2020 build was doing well until last month....

Had some problems at the end of April with my MSI B450 Max. The machine crashed while playing COD and the second hard drive was unrecognised. Black screen + fast continuous beeps then many blue screens on boot. Managed to get it to work and eventually repaired the game. It then failed again (wouldn't boot + no display) so I took it to be repaired. Was told the Motherboard had failed. So I upgraded to an MSI Tomahawk B550 Mag. Install seemed to go well but it wouldn't boot. So I had someone take a look at it. After a while it was fixed (Bios flashed and components checked and tested). But only managed to boot (to Win Log In) twice for me, hanging both times. It will load the Bios (after a while) but doesn't recognize the M2 drive (at least not very often), Barracuda drive shows in Bios. I did a 'hard reset' by removing the CMOS battery still no joy. Bios version is E7C91AMS.A90.

Is there anything else I should try ?

Current system is the following....

Corsair Graphite 600T Case
MSI B550-MAG (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail
Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Powercolor Radeon RX 5700 XT Dual Fan 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (top PCI)
Gigabyte 1TB M.2 PCIe x4 NVMe SSD/Solid State Drive (top location)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB
Seasonic Prime Ultra Snow Silent 650W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply
Arctic Freezer 34 ESports Duo White CPU Cooler - 2 x 120mm
Dell2311H Monitor (Display Port)

Many Thanks

Viper 10

Joxeon · 26 May 2022 at 08:19

Could be that the M.2 has failed.

Viper10 · 26 May 2022 at 18:07

I suppose It's more likely than the M.2 slot(s) failing ? I should probably test it in the other slot. Also whether I should buy another M.2 or maybe a SATA SSD ; are they more reliable ?

The drive could have failed because it was incorrectly installed on my other board. I put it at an angle rather than flat (with the stand off on top of the drive rather than the standoff underneath the drive (with screw on top).

It's lasted just over two years (if broken). That doesn't seem very long compared to a SATA SSD ?

Thanks

Viper 10

Joxeon · 26 May 2022 at 20:19

Yeah, I think it's unlikely to have a faulty M.2 slot on 2 different boards so the most likely culprit would be the drive itself.

If it was installed incorrectly then you may have possibly had a short.

I would still go for another M.2 nvme over SATA SSD especially if it's for the main OS drive, just make sure it's installed correctly and you should be fine in terms of reliability.

Viper10 · 26 May 2022 at 23:03

Always good to have another drive anyway....Should I get another brand/model or the same one ? I'm wondering whether a fault or incorrect installation with the M.2 caused the old MB crash in the first place ?

Thanks

Troezar · 12 Jun 2022 at 07:27

Viper10 said:
Always good to have another drive anyway....Should I get another brand/model or the same one ? I'm wondering whether a fault or incorrect installation with the M.2 caused the old MB crash in the first place ?

Thanks

Could just be bad luck but I usually buy drives from one of the big manufacturers. Samsung, Western Digital, Crucial (Micron), Intel. I haven't had a solid state drive of any type fail on me yet in over 10 years.

Viper10 · 14 Jun 2022 at 12:35

I now have a Crucial. I made the mistake of installing the previous drive at an angle with the stand off on top of the board. It worked but not the best for the drive I'm guessing...