Asus z790 hero new build only recognizing 2 out 4 SSD drives

[Giode]

Hello, 

I have read and tried to research this issue as much as I can, and have not found a workable solution. I have four SSD drives installed on M2.1, M2.2, M2.3, and M2.4, and the bios and Windows 11 only sees two of them. I am not super technical, but doing the best I can to figure out why the other two $300 SSD cards are not showing up? 

My specs are:
Asus z790 Dar Hero
Intel Core i9-13900K
ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090
Samsung 990 Pro SSD 4TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280
CORSAIR Dominator Titanium RGB DDR5 RAM 96GB

Anyone else who has had this issue and found a fix? Kind of at wit's end here. Thanks.

[Giode]

MrAgapiGC helped me walk through various solutions to my SSD issue, and ultimately we figured out it was a motherboard issue of not reading from the M2_3 - M2_5 slots. I wasn't losing my mind 🙂 I just want to thank him for spending over an hour and a half troubleshooting this issue with me late last night! Huge asset to the Asus community. 

[MrAgapiGC]

Was my pleasure keep me post it when you get the other one

[achugh]

Hi @Giode I have the same Z790 DARK HERO board but not the same drives. Have you tried to set the speed of your NVMe drives manually in the BIOS? Sometimes setting a manual speed will help. The drives not getting detected could also be related to your CPU having a bit more pressure causing your PCIe data pins to be bent. Have you inspected your CPU that it has not been damaged due to extra pressure where the pins get bent etc.? Usually the boards are not faulty, it is something else on a fresh build.

[Giode]

Hey achugh, we actually did try to set the speed (Gen 4) of the NVMe drives, but to no avail. Not sure I understand what you mean by CPU pressure, but it is a new CPU and appears to work just fine otherwise. Let me ask, how does one inspect the CPU for damage? Is there something physically on the CPU to look for, or a test?

When I place the SSD in the M2_1 through M2_4, both M2_1 and M2_2 SSD's are detected. When I moved the SSD to M2_2 through M2_5, only M2_2 is detected. So, there is an issue with M2_3, M2_4 and M2_5 slots it appears.  

[Giode]

Edit: By pressure, you mean overtightening water cooler on top of CPU? If so, I am quite sure it is not overtightened, and I'm fairly cautious about evenly applying pressure with quarter turns, and slightly tighter than the hands can tighten. Also, I believe that would cause issues such as random BSOD, which I have not had at all. Even still, I just downloaded the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool, and it ran 10 separate cpu tests, and all passed. I am probably just one of the rare unlucky ones I guess.

[achugh]

Hi @Giode yes, I was referring to overtightening of the CPU cooler.

I am sorry to hear about your issues and fully understand how frustrating they appear for a new build. Since your board has to be changed, whenever you take the CPU out of this board you can inspect it under light if there was any damage to the pins or the motherboard socket. I get it that the CPU tests are passing but those tests are trying to test if the CPU has degraded. I am not sure they are designed to test for PCIe bus pin issues.

I don't have anything further to offer so I wish you best for your board exchange/RMA warranty since you said it is a new build. Hopefully, you will get a replacement board soon and everything will be working for you.