TLDR: NVME drive plugged into PCIe using adapter performs consistently at about 1400mbps in the gen2 slot. Hits 2900mbps in the gen3 slot, but one in every 5 boots or so the speed is capped at about 25mbps. A reboot typically resolves the issue. Have formatted, reset BIOS, fiddled with every storage setting I can find and nothing seems to fix it.
Full:
Hi all. It's been ages since I posted here! Nice to be back.
Have an interesting and challenging issue that I haven't been able to solve for quite some time now, so I'm turning to the folks at Anandtech
The setup involves a Gigabyte Z97mx Gaming 5 motherboard. Great piece of kit that has surprised me with its ability to stay modern.
I've upgraded to a 2TB NVME drive (Adata S11 Gammix Pro) and am using a PCIe adapter ( https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07SXGQ94F/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) to make it work. Was surprised to find I could actually use this as a boot drive when I bought it, so the system is running fantastic despite its age.
Here's the weird problem:
Initially, I plugged this drive into the bottom x4 slot and it ran great for months, no problems at all. Benchmarked it consistently at about 1400mbps. I then compared results online and noticed it was running a lot slower than what other people were getting. Determined this was because the slot was only gen2, whereas the two SLI slots on this board run gen3 (x16 and x8 I believe, or x8 and x8 when both used).
I had assumed the gen3 slot was covered by the GPU (EVGA Geforce 2080 Black Edition) but one day cleaning noticed I could make it work with only a slight impediment to the airflow. Boom, another major performance gain. This is when the issue started. The very first time I booted it in this way, I noticed it was running slow. Ran a bench out of curiosity and it took forever and reported 25mbps. Slower than a 5400rpm hard disk?! I rebooted and boom, super fast. Benched north of 3,000mbps. Ever since, I haven't been able to get it to perform consistently. Every 5 or 10 boots or so, it runs painfully slow. I've done a complete clean install and messed with every BIOS setting that could possibly impact it. Nothing. BIOS defaults and nothing except confusion about where to boot from.
Probably a bit obscure but...Any ideas? Is this just a natural symptom of trying to force modern hardware on a mobo from 2014? It does work, and it works well, just weirdly not all the time...
Thanks for reading!
Full:
Hi all. It's been ages since I posted here! Nice to be back.
Have an interesting and challenging issue that I haven't been able to solve for quite some time now, so I'm turning to the folks at Anandtech
The setup involves a Gigabyte Z97mx Gaming 5 motherboard. Great piece of kit that has surprised me with its ability to stay modern.
I've upgraded to a 2TB NVME drive (Adata S11 Gammix Pro) and am using a PCIe adapter ( https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07SXGQ94F/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) to make it work. Was surprised to find I could actually use this as a boot drive when I bought it, so the system is running fantastic despite its age.
Here's the weird problem:
Initially, I plugged this drive into the bottom x4 slot and it ran great for months, no problems at all. Benchmarked it consistently at about 1400mbps. I then compared results online and noticed it was running a lot slower than what other people were getting. Determined this was because the slot was only gen2, whereas the two SLI slots on this board run gen3 (x16 and x8 I believe, or x8 and x8 when both used).
I had assumed the gen3 slot was covered by the GPU (EVGA Geforce 2080 Black Edition) but one day cleaning noticed I could make it work with only a slight impediment to the airflow. Boom, another major performance gain. This is when the issue started. The very first time I booted it in this way, I noticed it was running slow. Ran a bench out of curiosity and it took forever and reported 25mbps. Slower than a 5400rpm hard disk?! I rebooted and boom, super fast. Benched north of 3,000mbps. Ever since, I haven't been able to get it to perform consistently. Every 5 or 10 boots or so, it runs painfully slow. I've done a complete clean install and messed with every BIOS setting that could possibly impact it. Nothing. BIOS defaults and nothing except confusion about where to boot from.
Probably a bit obscure but...Any ideas? Is this just a natural symptom of trying to force modern hardware on a mobo from 2014? It does work, and it works well, just weirdly not all the time...
Thanks for reading!
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