Help. NVMe drive again

As I have said in another post, I got myself a gen 4 NVMe drive of 2TB for my old computer, the computer would not post. So I tried the Gen 3 4TB NVMe I have in my Mac dock in my computer and it would still not post.

So my view is that the machine can't take anything more than a 1TB NVMe drive or less.
The original drive is a 256GB.

The new NVMe drive works in my Mac dock, so there is nothing wrong with that.

I won't send it back, I will keep it for when I update my PC, but just wondered if anyone agrees with me that my old PC don't like any NVMe about 1TB.

I have done a search for the ASRock AMD AM4 Ryzen AB350 Gaming K4 and for the chipset, which is a B350 for NVMe capacity, but no luck. Just wondered if anyone on here knows why? Cheers

So I will have to keep using the SSD for the games and the 250GB drive for the OS and some software.

Don't know if it is related but this came up with an answer that might have relevance here

Also - have you updated the BIOS to the most recent version? Suggested here

Edited by ian72 (Wed 25-Sep-24 17:44:46)

Have a look at this thread, particularly the last but one post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/pjukcx/pc...

Thanks peeps, I did see both of those posts, articles. My computer don't even post with the larger capacity drives in, the only thing I changed was the the drive.

I tried to update the bios, the only ones left to go for are beta ones, and for some reason it came up with an error about incompatibility, which is strange since i got it from Asrock site for this board. It says don't use it for an older CPU than mine, but mine should be ok.

It is a 7-year-old board, so it would not surprise me if it did not take a large NVMe, as there were no such things then. It is time to update it, but I don't really want to pay a small fortune, it is only used for a few games. The machine cost me £550 and more in the long run due to updates of ram, drives, video card and also a new PSU. Not sure if I want to go price. The video card is fine for what I use it for, in fact it will work better on a newer machine. I presume the memory will need to change, it is DDR4 2666.

Just wondering if I should go for something with DDR5 memory or stay with DDR4, I don't really need something superfast, after all I have been using the Ryzen 7 for 7 years
If I could play the games on my Mac, I would not bother.

Once again thanks peeps

what version is the bios ?

Have you tried clearing the CMOS. Dont forget on UEFI setups the BIOS is on disk.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Dont forget on UEFI setups the BIOS is on disk.

Not quite... the UEFI is the firmware running and it provides the "setup program" to configure things. This works even if you have no storage devices fitted. What you call "BIOS" is backwards compatibility programmer APIs, such as the CSM that you can enable to boot such legacy systems as Win7 32bit or WinXP. Anything Win10 or equivalent Linux releases should know how to boot on UEFI.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Have you tried clearing the CMOS. Dont forget on UEFI setups the BIOS is on disk.

Tried that and no the UEFI is not on disk it is in the same place as the bios have been for years.


I have given up, I think there are other problems with the machine, in fact I know there are other problems with the machine. Even with the drive out, I had problems with the machine booting up.

Got it working again now as it was before, I did look at getting some new bits, but will try to keep it going until next year if I can.

My thing now is to get a amp working with it, I have been given a 5.1 Sony amp, my brother gave me some speakers a while ago, so I am going to link them together. The amp is pretty old, so have 5.1 surround DVD inputs, so i will put the computer outputs into them and the mac can go into the CD input.
Just need to find a space for the speakers as they are not small

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Not quite... the UEFI is the firmware running and it provides the "setup program" to configure things. This works even if you have no storage devices fitted. What you call "BIOS" is backwards compatibility programmer APIs, such as the CSM that you can enable to boot such legacy systems as Win7 32bit or WinXP. Anything Win10 or equivalent Linux releases should know how to boot on UEFI.

Yep, that is correct,

If the UEFI was on the disk, how would the computer read the disk in the first place?

I meant flash chip. Doh.

In reply to a post by Banger:

I meant flash chip. Doh.

Yep, the UEFI is likely on a 2Mbit or larger flash, whereas BIOS back to the original IBM PC (1981) was I think 64 kilobytes. UEFI is an operating system. BIOS was a tiny program. World has moved on.

On the 5150 the BIOS was an 8 KB EEPROM. You can do a lot in 8KB.

And the 5150 manuals contained a full listing of the BIOS.

Edited by TinyMongomery (Fri 27-Sep-24 21:51:07)

8K ! Thank you.

I remember learning that Compaq was the first company to recreate the BIOS without copying the IBM code. Hard to prove given the IBM code was published!

Publishing the code made it harder for others to clone it due to copyright. There’s a discussion about it here: https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/1...

I won’t provide a link as I’m not sure of it’s legality, but if you Google “IBM 5150 Technical Reference Manual” you can find a scan of it online.

Edited by TinyMongomery (Sat 28-Sep-24 06:38:38)

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Publishing the code made it harder for others to clone it due to copyright.

Makes sense.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Banger:

I meant flash chip. Doh.

Yep, the UEFI is likely on a 2Mbit or larger flash, whereas BIOS back to the original IBM PC (1981) was I think 64 kilobytes. UEFI is an operating system. BIOS was a tiny program. World has moved on.

I remember Compaq had the bios on the hard drive, but they must have had something to recognise the hard drive in the first place, so I presume a tiny bit of code in ROM and then the main bios on the drive. I remember it was a pain in the neck and I never wanted to work on a Compaq again,

And now we have gone past that stage of the BIOS, I suppose there was no choice as hard drives got larger.

Well, I tried my PC again today and it turned on, and I played a quick game, so it is still working. I will wait until next year and decide what I am going to do unless my POC thinks otherwise

The BIOS always has to be in ROM of some description. Apart from anything else you need basic routines to provide console I/O to configure the BIOS. And, of course, you need the code to read from external storage. The original IBM 5150 could operate without any disks at all as it had a ROM containing BASIC and cassette storage routines in addition to the BIOS. So it could run without any disk-based operating systems.

I wonder if you are thinking about the DOS low-level routines (“interrupts”) that are, indeed, loaded from disk? All PCs running DOS worked that way. The BIOS provided a very limited set of commands; most useful low-level routines were from IO.SYS.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I remember Compaq had the bios on the hard drive, but they must have had something to recognise the hard drive in the first place, so I presume a tiny bit of code in ROM and then the main bios on the drive. I remember it was a pain in the neck and I never wanted to work on a Compaq again,

Not sure what that was you were working on, but it wasn't a PC. The BIOS has always been in EPROM or Flash on the system board/motherboard, otherwise you can't boot the operating system on the disk.

The original 5150 IBM PC also had BASIC in ROM, so if you didn't insert a floppy, it would enter ROM BASIC, also a Microsoft product. The hard disk versions of the PC (PC/XT) and the 80286 chip version (PC/AT) also worked in the same way.

Compaq was first with the 386 chip, and the industry dislike the IBM PS/2 models (which in the UK were sold in Dixons in high streets) as they used the incompatible MCA expansion card; so the "clones" profited, and the famous Amstrad models appeared (PC1512, PC1640).

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

I wonder if you are thinking about the DOS low-level routines (“interrupts”) that are, indeed, loaded from disk? All PCs running DOS worked that way. The BIOS provided a very limited set of commands; most useful low-level routines were from IO.SYS.

Or CP/M 86 if you were so inclined in the early days.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

As I have said in another post, I got myself a gen 4 NVMe drive of 2TB for my old computer, the computer would not post. So I tried the Gen 3 4TB NVMe I have in my Mac dock in my computer and it would still not post.

So my view is that the machine can't take anything more than a 1TB NVMe drive or less.
The original drive is a 256GB.

The new NVMe drive works in my Mac dock, so there is nothing wrong with that.

I won't send it back, I will keep it for when I update my PC, but just wondered if anyone agrees with me that my old PC don't like any NVMe about 1TB.

I have done a search for the ASRock AMD AM4 Ryzen AB350 Gaming K4 and for the chipset, which is a B350 for NVMe capacity, but no luck. Just wondered if anyone on here knows why? Cheers

So I will have to keep using the SSD for the games and the 250GB drive for the OS and some software.

apparently the mobo in question has two m.2 slots - which slot did you put the 2gb m.2 - first one or second one ?

In reply to a post by Taras:

apparently the mobo in question has two m.2 slots - which slot did you put the 2gb m.2 - first one or second one ?

I have had the board for 7 years and i have already got a 256GB NVMe unit in it, so I know what slot is what, one is SATA, the other is NVMe.
Anyway, i was having a look to see what is compatible and I found this.

Due to a mismatch in pin definitions, some M.2 SSDs are incompatible. The table below
shows which M.2 SSDs are known to be incompatible. Unfortunately, most recent PCIe M.2
SSD will also be incompatible, but have not been tested to verify this.
Please refer to the Storage QVL for a list of SSDs that have been tested as compatible.
If you would like to use a newer PCIe M.2 SSD which is not in the Storage QVL, we
recommend using a PCIe to M.2 adapter card. Please check the motherboard specifications
and your system to determine which slot might be free to use

and in the list is my drive and also the drive in my Mac hub.
so that explains it.

I just have to decide where to go from here, spending £400 or so on a computer just to play a few games is not really something I relish at the moment.

Interesting, thats a bit of a cockup by asrock. If you do want more nvme storage, and you have a spare pcie slot and spare lanes, get an m2 adaptor, as everything is pcie, there will be no slow down, in theory you should be able to boot from the device too

In reply to a post by Taras:

Interesting, thats a bit of a cockup by asrock. If you do want more nvme storage, and you have a spare pcie slot and spare lanes, get an m2 adaptor, as everything is pcie, there will be no slow down, in theory you should be able to boot from the device too

i did think about that, but not sure if it is worth it, if I am going to update the machine. Still not sure what to do.
I am waiting for an eye specialist appointment as the optician have seen some disease in my eyes, I am losing peripheral sight on the top. So he says. I think it has been happening for over a year or more, I thought I just needed new specs.
i don't want to spend £400 or more on something I may not be able to use in 2-3 years.

As you can get a PCI M2 card for about a tenner I would have thought it was an obvious way to use your drive.

i'm sorry to hear that, i hope what ever eye issue it is, it can be reduced. As TinyMongomery an pcie adaptor is only £10 to 15. I'd personally just drop a 5600 or 5800 class cpu in that mobo - if your eyes are gonna hold up

Take care, Adrian ❤

In reply to a post by Taras:

i'm sorry to hear that, i hope what ever eye issue it is, it can be reduced. As TinyMongomery an pcie adaptor is only £10 to 15. I'd personally just drop a 5600 or 5800 class cpu in that mobo - if your eyes are gonna hold up

Take care, Adrian ❤

Thanks.
I can see pretty well to be honest. In one way i look at it and think, maybe i should get update the machine after all, we don't know what is going to happen the next day. You could buy a new machine and have a stroke and lose eyesight or use of hands.
It could take years for me to lose my sight, if I ever do, depending on what the problem is. A lot of it is treatable these days, ok not reversible, but treatable, so it don't get any worse. I thought they would have been in touch by now, it is over a week.

Then another side of me, think, what is the point of spending more money on a new machine if I get to the stage I can't use it. I can still just about see the registration plate across the road, which have been the quality of my eye sight for the last 20 years or so.

I don't know, I just wish they would hurry up and see me.

As for the Motherboard, that is the main problem with the machine, it is falling apart, things are starting to fail, internal USB3 sockets for some reason are not working now, no matter what I do, I do have a USB3 card that I use, that have a external USB3 socket.
the machine will work for a while and then switch off, I thought it was overheating, but It is not.
I think maybe stuff it, go for it.
could be dead tomorrow.

Then I think £500 or so for a machine that is only used for a few games or maybe a back up for video rendering.
Sorry about the negativity

I have put a system together from Scan, a AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, AM, 32 GB of ram, Asrock board and a heat sink, come to around £450

I hope you get seen quickly because you will have negative thoughts. As you say most eye conditions are treatable so that remaining is maintained. As for the ryzen system - wait. The 9x series along with the 7x will get shuffled around abit with the 9xX3d series coming out in november

It is the waiting that is the worst, strangely enough, when i had cancer, my thought was oh well, it is what it is. But with the eyes, i think differently.

Anyway, i have decided to get a PCIe card to put the drive on, ordered and should be here tomorrow. As been said it is only just over a tenner and as you said, wait for a while as the prices will come down.


Just had to make sure I have enough slots, I will have to move the sound card.

thank peeps.

I hate computers

Got the PCIe card, put it in, did not work, so I took the NVMe drive from my Mac hub and put that on the card it did not work.
so i took the 250GB one out of the computer and put it on the card and it worked.
so I thought, OK I will try to update the bios again and it updated.
I tried a few times before and all I got was Error. so I am now on the latest and last bios, which is a beta.
anyway, i tried the new NVMe drive in the computer and it worked.
Tried my old NVMe drive in the PCIe card, and it did not work.
I thought, what the hell is going on here. Took the NVMe drive out of the computer board again and the card worked.

Then it clicked, that PCIe slot can't be used at the same time as the on NVMe connector , But is also the only slot left that is not in use or the card can fit.

Anyway, so the 2TB NVMe drive can now work on the board after the bios update, the update I tried many times and it would not work.


I will keep the PCIe NVMe card, may come in useful for something. At least I got a nice heat sink with it

So now I am backing up files on all the drives as I notice for some reason, the boot block or what ever it is called these days is not on my main drive. So I am going to redo the whole machine

thanks peoples for your help

oh yes, the new UEFI/bios looks posh, really different, but as I said it was the last one they did and a beta.

Edited by zyborg47 (Wed 23-Oct-24 20:05:28)

welcome to the land of ryzen and pcie lane sharing .......

imagine two graphics cards and dual sfp+ nic in a x570........... 😂

p.s i'm soo glad it was the bios in the end ..... Also i've never out of 6 nvme installs, installed the card correctly first time.

It is also the first gen Ryzen, lasted well.
I just hope the bios don't muck up, I wonder why it did not come out of beta.


Don't intel have the lane sharing problem? Not that I will buy intel.

I never really bothered with dual graphic cards, apart from one many years ago, when my sister-in-law had a machine that had built in video, and it was possible to link it with another one. Just for the fun of it.
Not really made much difference to what she was using it for.

I just got to put the machine back together now, i reinstalled Windows 10 on it.,

In one way I would like to update it, but I got the Mac, so I did not have to bother with the PC only for games. There can't be that much of an issue with my eyes, if there was, then I surly would have been called by now.
but I would still like to know what is going on before I spend money on new parts. Saying that I could go for a AMD Ryzen 5 4500, and a b550 board, that would be a lot cheaper. It is just that the machine is only used for a few games and I don't really buy new ones, or have not for a while.

Life, don't talk to me about life

The bios compatibly thing is down the the BIOS chip storage capacity.

Its quite small, 32mb or something IIRC and with AMD's CPU updates they cant support all AM4 CPU's in one BIOS so you have to pick and chose. Stay with an older BIOS for your CPU or upgrade it if your CPU is still supported. I believe they removed support for chips like the Athlon APU thingy's but left Ryzen 3/5/7/9 in but dont quote me on that.