Is my NMVe drive ok under the GPU?

[dias_flac_og]

I have a Maximus Xii Hero board and the very first M.2 slot is right under my GPU.

I have my Samsung 970 EVO Plus connected to the first slot (right under the GPU) but I see that my drive is idling at 55c?

I have the thermal pad over it to (the one that comes with the mobo).

Now I understand that these Samsung drives get kinda hot, but still i'm not 100% sure if this is ok or not.

Maybe someone here who has more experience can help me out or give me some advice?

[Jimbo93]

I am thinking its hotter than I would want, but see what other members say. Meanwhile here are some troubleshooting suggestions.

https://superuser.com/questions/1656986/windows-10-seems-too-cause-nvme-ssd-to-overheat

[Nate152]

Hi dias_flac_og

Here is a reply from Samsung, the last paragraph would explain your higher than normal idle temps.

Removing the motherboard heatsink may give you better temps.

[dias_flac_og]

Nate152 wrote:
Hi dias_flac_og

Here is a reply from Samsung, the last paragraph would explain your higher than normal idle temps.

Removing the motherboard heatsink may give you better temps.

Hi thank you for that.

Hmm so Samsung actually recommends that I do not use the thermal pad that comes with the Asus Maximus XII Hero.

Maybe i'm all doing is trapping the heat further? Since the NVMe is under some "cover" (the little plate where the thermal pad is stuck to) and ontop of it the GPU is over it.

So far I haven't seen any real issues. It performs perfectly at its rated speeds (when benchmarking it) and while gaming in FF14 it loads super fast.

I will go ahead and remove the heatsink and just let it be and see if I get better temps just out of curiosity.

[Nate152]

Excellent idea, we'd all be interested in your results.

[dias_flac_og]

Nate152 wrote:
Excellent idea, we'd all be interested in your results.

After removing the "covers" and the thermal pad the NVMe seems to run at around 3-5 degrees cooler.

The only problem with this is that now the motherboard doesn't look as pretty with all those lil "covers" removed. I can at least put back the ROG logo back over the RGB LEDs. This doesn't cover the NVMe itself so the NVMe is still "free" and the heat can easily escape.

I guess it's not a big deal if I remove those "covers" since the GPU itself hides that whole area. For those who don't what i'm talking about here's the mobo.

https://rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-xii-hero-wi-fi-model/

As you can see it looks very clean and uniformed with all those covers intact.

[Jimbo93]

Hi. Very interesting. So what are your peak temps during heavy use?

[dias_flac_og]

Jimbo93 wrote:
Hi. Very interesting. So what are your peak temps during heavy use?

Hi. Im back with a lot more test results.

Ok so I was wrong. I don't know why my temps were so high when I first installed the NVMe and the thermal pad that comes with the Maximus XII hero.

When I removed the thermal pad and the "heatsink" (that metal piece that covers the NVMe) my temps didn't really improve much. Only by like 3-5 degrees c. Because of this I decided to do some real testing. I have free time today so I said "why not?". I downloaded CrystalDiskMark (already had crystaldiskinfo) and decided to benchmark my NVMe. Long story short my NVMe hit 80c while doing the write test. This was with no heatsink cover or thermal pad just out in the open.

So after seeing this I decided to disconnect my PC remove the GPU (to be able to get to the NVMe) and reinstall the thermal pad and heatsink (the metal plate/cover).

However, this time I installed it in a different way. What I did this time was to actually remove the thermal pad off the metal shield/heatsink/plate (whatever its called) and put the thermal pad directly on the NVMe itself that way I know I have 100% coverage over it. I did have to make a small cut to the thermal pad as it was too long. Once I cut it to a perfect size (to cover the NVMe perfectly) I went ahead and carefully place it onto the NVMe itself.

After this I put back the metal plate/heatsink, screwed it in and placed back the ROG logo over the RGB LEDs.

I also made sure to tighten up the screws kinda "tight". The first time I installed the NVMe and I placed the metal plate/heatsink with the thermalpad stuck to it over the NVMe I didn't tighten the screws too much I left them kinda loose because I didn't want smash the NVMe (yes I know kinda silly but it was my first time installing a heatsink and thermalpad over a NVMe).

Anyways after all this I put the PC back together blah blah blah and ran CrystalDiskMark once again. I ran the whole benchmark (benches the read and write speeds of the drive) and I was shocked to see a MASSIVE improvement in temps.

I went from a max of 80c to a max of 45c after this. A huge improvement. Before I forget, I also left the sticker on the Samsung 970 evo plus. I simply just put the thermal pad over the little sticker.

Im very happy with the results now.

Having the thermal pad and metal plate/heatsink on the NVMe makes a huge difference. I don't think I have anything to worry about while i'm gaming even if the NVMe is right under the GPU.

I noticed the NVMe only gets hot when it's writing, not so much when it's reading. So while i'm playng Final Fantasy XIV or Resident Evil 2 Remake it's only reading and not writing.

Thanks to everyone who posted here and offered advice. I hope this can help anyone else who's curious or is having issues.

[xeromist]

The sticker on an m.2 drive is meant to be thermally conductive. So you did the right thing leaving it on.

As for thermal pads and heatsinks, they're generally fine. Drives are intended to work without them but if you have particularly stifling conditions they can help. The interesting thing is that the way I understand it the NAND chips actually prefer to be hotter and the controller chip performs optimally when cooled. It's just that expecting the users to know the difference and designing heat sinks that cool the controllers on hundreds of different SSD models really isn't practical.

[dias_flac_og]

xeromist wrote:
The sticker on an m.2 drive is meant to be thermally conductive. So you did the right thing leaving it on.

As for thermal pads and heatsinks, they're generally fine. Drives are intended to work without them but if you have particularly stifling conditions they can help. The interesting thing is that the way I understand it the NAND chips actually prefer to be hotter and the controller chip performs optimally when cooled. It's just that expecting the users to know the difference and designing heat sinks that cool the controllers on hundreds of different SSD models really isn't practical.

I feel like NVMe drives have to get "warmed" up unlike GPU's and CPU's that can reach their maximum heat temp (depending on your cooling setup) in seconds.

I say this because from a cold boot (meaning the PC has been off for like an hour or so) the NVMe drive is very cool and it takes time for it to reach it's true idle temp. Yesterday when I benched it to make it hot it only hit 45c max (right after a cold boot) but now that my PC has been on all day it idles around 42c and when I run the crystal disk mark benchmark it now hits 56c max.

56c is still far better than 80c though. So i'm still very happy with the thermalpad/heatsink on it.